Bill Blaikie

[The Environment, February 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, if the future of the planet depends on Canadian leadership, so far it is a doomed planet because nothing of any significance has come from the government. A conference is not a plan. I hope for the Prime Minister's sake that it is not a smog day in Montreal when the conference takes place. We will have hot air on top of smog and still no plan.

After all this dithering, when are we going to have a decent plan?

[The Environment, February 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister goes to the NDP website he will see his own pollution counter. It was at 1.543 billion tonnes this morning. It goes up by 8 tonnes a second. Every tonne is the difference between where we are and where the Prime Minister promised we would be by this time. It is no wonder he did not want to get up yesterday to defend his record. I would not want to have to defend it either.

The fact remains that we need a plan. We need something that we can judge. After all these years of dithering, when are we going to get a plan?

[The Environment, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, so far we have not seen a plan, and in 1993 the Liberals promised to do something about it then, not starting in 2005.

I was here when the Prime Minister was the environment critic for the Liberal Party, when he criticized Brian Mulroney for wanting to freeze emissions, and yet under 11 years of Liberal government they went up by 20%.

Could the Prime Minister tell us when we are going to have a plan and when is he going to apologize for contributing to the destruction of the planet the way he has?

[The Environment, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Kyoto accord comes into effect and I hope that some day we might look back on that day as the day we began to actually save the planet, but it seems to me the most appropriate thing that the Prime Minister could do tomorrow would be to apologize to Canadians for a decade or more of inaction.

The Prime Minister promised in the red book to reduce emissions by 20%. Instead they are up by 20%. Could the Prime Minister tell us why he did not meet these targets, why these promises were broken, and why emissions never went down under a Liberal government?

[Health, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, at some point the government has to break this culture of inaction. It is looking into things. It is studying things.

These substances have been banned in Europe, yet we have a government that will not ban flame retardants. It will not bring in mandatory emissions standards. It will not do anything; it just wants to study everything to death.

You know what is happening. You know this stuff is destructive. Why not get on your feet today and say you will do something and ban them?

[Health, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the Minister of Health is aware of the fact that we have a serious problem in our food chain with chemicals associated with flame retardants. It is accumulating in breast milk. We have a problem that is much greater than what exists in Europe where these substances have been banned.

Could the Minister of Health tell us today that Health Canada will finally act to reduce and even ban these substances in the Canadian environment?

[Health, February 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Health has legitimate concerns about best practices in terms of medicine, why will he not bring all the stakeholders together? Why is he refusing to even meet with some of them? Why will he not bring everybody together and solve the legitimate concerns that he brings to the table, instead of threatening the entire industry and doing George Bush's bidding instead of the Canadian people?

[Health, February 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

I can understand why George Bush and big pharma in the United States are embarrassed by the availability of lower priced Canadian drugs, but I cannot understand why the Minister of Health is so eager, particularly after President Bush's visit, to alleviate their anxiety by appearing to want to get rid of the Internet pharmacy industry no matter what the cost.

Why will the minister not do some of the things that would actually save the industry, like bringing in a ban on the bulk export of drugs? Why will he not consider and do that?

[Points of Order, February 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would also want to know just how entirely rare it is for the government to hide behind Marleau and Montpetit on this. It goes to show how profoundly embarrassed it was by its position on this--

[Points of Order, February 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think the House would want to take note of the fact that the government showed disrespect for the protocol of the House of Commons.

There was a member who asked a question about the manufacture of the pins. The minister did not rise in his place to answer the question. Instead, he waited until he was asked a question by a Liberal backbencher.

I do not think, Mr. Speaker, I have ever seen before the government not rise to answer a question. We can understand why it did not because somehow it wants to take credit for the fact that it was actually a New Democrat who raised this and it is the New Democrats who changed the government policy when it came to the manufacture of these pins.