Lorne Nystrom

[Airline Industry, November 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, let us put a human face on this. Yesterday the minister was advising and encouraging people to buy tickets on Canada 3000.

What does he have to say to those people who followed his advice and bought tickets on Canada 3000? What does he have to say to people who are stranded all over the world because the airline went under? What does he have to say to thousands of workers who have lost their jobs? Can he tell us what he is going to tell those people who have been following his advice?

[Airline Industry, November 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. The minister has now set a world record. He has been the minister presiding over the death of about six airlines. I am thinking of Greyhound, Canadian, CanJet, RootsAir, Royal Airlines and now Canada 3000.

Yesterday in the House the leader of the NDP asked the minister to act before it was too late. Now it is too late. I would like to know why he did not act. Why do we not have a vision of a national airline transportation policy in this country? Why has he not put that into effect? Why do we not have a national airline stabilization fund? Where is the plan? Why did he not act?

[Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2001, November 9th, 2001]

Considering the source of the comment I am not too surprised, as someone across the way has said. Here is a Liberal member applauding the idea that the unelected and unaccountable Senate that costs Canadian taxpayers $60 million a year can initiate a piece of legislation and come to the House of Commons with a bill.

Why has the government House leader, whom I have known for many years, not brought in serious parliamentary reform in this place to give committees of the House of Commons more power, independence and research help so that they could be doing this kind of work instead of committees of the Senate?

The time has come to have serious parliamentary reform. The minister across the way knows from the last polls that only about 5% of the Canadian people support the existing Senate. The other 95% want the Senate either elected or abolished.

The same Liberal member across the way who does not seem to have much of a knack for reading newspapers says that is not true. All he needs to do is to look at the polls regarding the Senate. How many people does he know who support the existing Senate besides senators, their friends, husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, family members and close associates? That is about it, so I object to that.

In terms of the substance of the bill we must have treaties with other countries. We must be concerned about tax loopholes. We should be doing a real review of our taxation system to make sure we have a more progressive tax system based on the ability to pay.

[Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2001, November 9th, 2001]

The member from Kitchener or Cambridge on the Liberal side of the House thinks that is pretty good and says hear, hear.

[Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2001, November 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will say a few words about Bill S-31 that is before the House today. As the House knows, it is a bill to implement a tax treaty between Canada and a number of countries with which we have had no treaties in the past, countries such as Slovenia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Senegal, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Germany. This is the kind of tax treaty we obviously need between our country and other parts of the world.

Before I get into the substance of my remarks on the tax treaty I want to say I have a fundamental objection to the way the bill has proceeded through the Parliament of Canada.

The bill comes to us from the Senate. It originated in the Senate. The Senate is not elected. It is not accountable to anyone. Yet it initiates a bill that comes to the House of Commons.

[The Economy, November 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Statistics Canada said we lost more than 26,000 full time jobs in October and that is before adding in the most recent losses at Nortel and CIBC.

Today more than 100 economists have written to the Prime Minister urging him to bring in a budget with a major investment in the economy to keep it afloat, saying that tax cuts and lower interest rates alone will not do it.

When will the government understand that public investment in the economy is required, and that we cannot simply wait for George Bush to stimulate the economy to benefit Canada?

[The Economy, November 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the acting prime minister. The unemployment rate has now climbed to 7.3%. More than 26,000 people lost full time jobs in the month of October alone. Net job losses this year are now more than 75,000 across the country. Then yesterday the Canadian dollar, for the second day in a row, hit an all time low.

In light of that, will the government bring in a stimulus budget with major public investment in areas such as housing, transportation, municipal infrastructure, agriculture and the environment?

[The Economy, November 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same minister with the new hairstyle.

The Canadian dollar has now hit an all time low, trading a few minutes ago at less than 64¢ compared to the U.S. dollar. Over the 10 years the Canadian dollar has lost 30% of its value compared to the U.S. dollar.

I want to ask a specific question of the minister. How low does the Canadian dollar have to go before the minister will instruct the Governor of the Bank of Canada to intervene in the financial markets to halt the erosion of the Canadian dollar? How low does it have to go before he will do that?

[Prebudget Consultation, November 1st, 2001]

They are not as good. The Liberals say one thing when they are out of office and another thing when they are in office. Maybe the Alliance is trying to imitate the Liberal Party sitting across the way.

[Prebudget Consultation, November 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it was Halloween yesterday. When members of the Alliance, the Reform or whoever they are came to the House in 1993, they spooked the Liberal government across the way into the biggest cutbacks we have ever seen in terms of social programs in Canada. The government gutted social programs. It privatized and it deregulated because it was scared of the member for Calgary Southwest and the Reform Party.

Now we see the flip-flop. Members' pensions is a very good example of that. We were all pigs at the trough for accepting pensions. All of a sudden that party did a flip-flop with regard to pensions and those members are now accepting the pension plan.

There was also the issue with Stornoway. That party was to turn Stornoway into a bingo hall. I recall the leader of the Reform Party doing a photo op with Audrey McLaughlin's old used car that she got as leader of the third party. The leader of the Reform Party would not accept the leader's car when he was the leader of the third party.

I also recall sitting in the gallery a few times between 1993 and 1997 when I was not an MP. The leader of the Reform Party sat in the second or third row of the House of Commons and said that politics would be done differently. That was another flip-flop by the Reform Party or Canadian Alliance.

Today the Alliance wants the federal government to spend more on security because there is a security crisis in the world. It wants the government to spend more on national defence, customs, CSIS and the RCMP. It is interesting to see these flip-flops by the Alliance.