Andrew Telegdi

[Supply, February 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we will have to cut and paste Hansard , but thank you.

There are further examples of employees working for the government retiring on pensions and then going to work for one of the moving companies.

Further information sent to the government in an attempt to win a share of the business by an excluded move management company and answers from the government ended up in the hands of the van lines.

This is not right. As the biggest mover in the country we should be receiving the best price on behalf of the taxpayers of Canada. At a time when we are looking at major cutbacks to military expenditures, we need to be as cost effective as possible. We must fight waste and inefficiency.

The Ottawa Citizen did a series of articles on this issue. In an editorial on January 28, 1994 the Citizen called for a Commons committee inquiry. I join that call for an inquiry. We cannot as a government afford to waste $25 million or more in these times of fiscal restraint.

[Supply, February 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am following up on a question I asked the Minister of National Defence on January 21.

The question I asked related to the excessive cost of government moves. The cost of these moves is in excess of $100 million. Government moves are handled through four van lines, three of which are 100 per cent American owned and one that is 30 per cent American owned.

Ten years ago these four van lines were fined a total of $250,000 after pleading guilty to conspiring to lessen competition. A court order prohibited the companies from exchanging information or becoming involved in any sort of price and service agreements.

These four van lines are still handling government moves and are in collusion to stop competition in government moves outside of the four van lines. Paul Leader, the senior vice-president of operations and director of government liaison, of Atlas Van Lines wrote to me and my colleague in Kitchener on December 15, 1993. Part of the letter states: "I am writing to you on behalf of the four van lines in Canada, Allied, Atlas, North American and United. For the past 25 years this group has been working with the federal government handling all the moving requirements for its employees."

The government is the biggest client of the moving business in Canada accounting for 35 per cent of Canada's moving business, yet pays 10 to 23 per cent more than CBC, Canadian National Railways, Northern Telecom and Canada Post.

A 1992 study by Consulting and Audit Canada conservatively identified $10 million in possible savings, which could be as high as $26 million.

In 1983 the Department of National Defence, as the country's biggest mover, received the lowest price on an average move when compared to five other major corporations. In 1993 the federal government paid the highest price on an average move.

When I started asking questions related to government moves I have been continually frustrated by government bureaucracy. I have experienced a classic example of "Yes, Minister", a British sitcom television program.

The interdepartmental committee, chaired by national defence, contracts with the van lines to carry out government moves. I have had people tell me that weights of goods moved on behalf of the government have been inflated, which if correct constitutes fraud, and that gifts have been given to employees of the interdepartmental committee responsible for contracting moves with the van lines.

[Cruise Missile Testing, January 26th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, a number of members have referred to the cruise and they picked on the war in Iraq as an example of how advanced technology in weapons of destruction can save lives. We looked at the situation in the Middle East, we looked at star wars in Bagdhad. Those were weapons, granted not of the most sophisticated kind, supplied basically by the superpowers.

How does producing more deadly weapons, with also the export that is involved in arms, help world peace? How does that make us as a nation more secure? We have to look at the weapons that were used in the Middle East. For the most part they were produced by advanced technologies, the United States, the Soviet Union, France. The list goes on and on.

What invariably happens is that the military says we have to have more advanced weapons than other countries have to deal with our own security. I guess this is a never-ending race.

When does the member see this vicious cycle stopping?

[Cruise Missile Testing, January 26th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the previous member who represented this Waterloo riding was the Hon. Walter McLean who was preceded by Max Saltzman. In some ways I reflect some of their thinking and the thinking of the community that I represent.

We have to ask this question. When do we have enough armaments?

I heard the hon. member talk about an almost benevolent cruise missile, one which does not have to have nuclear capability.

If one looks at what initially instigated the development of the cruise missile, which was the Soviet Union, and if one looks at the Soviet Union today and its break up into many different states, one cannot help but think of Ukraine that has nuclear weapons and the world desperately wants it to give them up. In some sense I wonder how Canada as a nation that faces virtually no threat from Russia can tell the Ukrainians that they should

give up their nuclear weapons when we are acquiescing to the testing of the cruise missile.

We were here all day yesterday debating the war in Bosnia and what role this House should take. I really believe that these debates are very refreshing. I am glad to see that the Reform Party is not sticking together on the issue. They are expressing genuinely different points of view and I think that can be said about the House as a whole.

I guess at some point in time we have to say that we have enough weapons of mass destruction. We are just dealing now with the cruise, but there are biological and chemical weapons that exist on this fragile plant. To take a phrase from Project Ploughshares from my community it is time to turn some of that weaponry into ploughshares. It is time to turn some of those swords into ploughshares.

If a country like Canada, with our special standing in the world as a middle power and really of little threat as an aggressor, is unable to do that then my question has to be this. What country is going to take the first step?

[Foreign Affairs, January 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this day of having gone through the whole Chamber and come down to the last speaker, being me. We are going to be out of here before midnight.

I represent the federal riding of Waterloo made up of the township of Woolwich, Waterloo and a part of Kitchener. We are the home of Project Ploughshares at Conrad Grebel College, as well as a Centre for Conflict Resolution. Of course we have a very strong Mennonite base. The Mennonite community is strongly involved in assisting people in other countries in time of crisis.

When we look at our country, when we listen to speakers and when we see the background we have in the Chamber, we are like a little United Nations. I cannot help but reflect that we represent very much a beacon of hope to a troubled world.

One person in my riding, a Dr. Elmasry, is a professor at the University of Waterloo. He is an active member of a number of human rights organizations. He wrote in his presentation, an article that he sent to me, that the overwhelming fact that confronts the moral fabric of the post cold war era was that the world aggression in Bosnia-Hercegovina was a war of genocide. The second important fact was that there was no decisive international will to stop the genocide. The holocaust prescription never again became meaningless. In this pathetic moral desert the European Community and its security and human rights concerns have become severely tarnished.

I received some quite important communications from some grades six, seven and eight students. It is important to me in my personal circumstances. In 1956 when Canada embarked on its peacekeeping mission at Suez I was a nine-year old boy in Hungary and the Hungarian revolution was going on. I do so very well recall Hungarians felt so abandoned when the Suez crisis took over. Somehow we felt that a right to self-determination of the Hungarians was sacrificed on the altar expediency on the Suez campaign.

The students who wrote to me were in a group called the Urgent Action Team at St. Agnes Elementary School in Waterloo. JoAnne Thorpe is their parent volunteer who works with them. One letter was written by a student, Cheryl Feeney:

In Bosnia they are crushing the skulls of children and slitting the throats of the women and shooting the men as they try to defend their family.

Celene Krieger states:

I am sure that you heard about what is happening in Bosnia, like wars, death and many innocent people dying, being raped just because of their religion. The most horrifying thing is that many of these people are children.

Beckey Curran states:

I believe that Canada should help in peacemaking. I know that some people say we should take care of our own problems before we take care of others. That may be true but we take our freedom for granted and we should realize how it would be if our own country was not free and we were at war.

The letters go on. I guess I am touched by the serious tone of the letters and the fact that our young people have so ingrained in themselves that one of the great roles of Canada in this world is peacekeeping and peacemaking.

I was speaking to Ernie Regehr about Project Ploughshares and I asked him: "What is your prescription to the problem?" One of the points he made was that unless there were people in Bosnia-Hercegovina, unless there are witnesses to human suffering, unless there are people who are ready to assist with the human suffering, we will never know what has gone on there. We will never know what will continue to go on there. In some ways the actions of the Europeans and the United Nations in putting the arms embargo in place have left the Muslims of the region defenceless.

As Canadians, one of the stronger proponents of the United Nations, we must try to establish international law and to fight against lawlessness. It is generally accepted that if there is anything that unites us as a country this is one of the issues. We cannot do it all. We have to work through strengthening the role of the United Nations. We have to make the commitment that we will stand together with the democracies of this world to make sure that law, order and self-determination will prevail.

[Privatization, January 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, let me take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election to the office of Speaker. I am confident you will serve the House and Canada well.

My question is for the Minister of National Defence and Veterans Affairs and involves household moves by the government which cost over $100 million a year. The moves are managed by an interdepartmental committee chaired by National Defence.

I understand that the previous government authorized the conduct of pilot projects with two private sector companies to see if savings could be made.

Would the government seriously examine the proposals to privatize its move management services to see if they are feasible and if any further savings can be made on behalf of the taxpayers of Canada?