Bill Blaikie

[Infrastructure, September 17th, 2003]

What we hear when we do not have a shovel, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. It has to do with the advice that his boss, the Prime Minister, is giving to the future prime minister with respect to cities and the need to invest in cities.

I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister in his capacity as Minister of Finance and successor to the former minister of finance whether he agrees with the advice that the Prime Minister is giving to the future prime minister and, if so, can we expect to see something from this current Minister of Finance for cities?

[Agriculture, September 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the mark of a good Minister of Agriculture is that we should be able to find a certain substance on his boots, not in what he said when he gets up in the House of Commons.

The fact is that the Minister of Agriculture was a no-show today and has been a no-show all summer for the people in the cattle industry.

Therefore I will address my question to the Deputy Prime Minister. When is the government going to get it and do something for farmers instead of just resting until the border is open?

[National Defence, September 16th, 2003]

Well I am glad to know they are meeting, Mr. Speaker, but I want to ask the Minister of National Defence this, looking beyond hurricane Isabel, and as I say, hopefully there will not be anything for which to be prepared.

Is the Minister of National Defence considering what has been suggested by a number of people, including my leader, that there be set up something like a Canadian security council and a permanent situation room, something that is independent of the risk factors that come with crises so we know the government can be in charge no matter what the circumstances?

[National Defence, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the good news is that hurricane Isabel has been downgraded and may not be a serious threat by the time it reaches Canada, but of course the bad news is this can change. Also the bad news is that we have a government that does not exactly have a sterling record when it comes to being prepared for crises.

Could the Minister of National Defence tell the House what he is doing to be in a state of readiness should hurricane Isabel prove more destructive than we hope it will be. We do not want the minister of defence operating by candlelight after the fashion of the Prime Minister during the blackout?

[Softwood Lumber, September 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I could put it more eloquently, but certainly when it comes to quality and quantity, there is something wrong with the Liberal leadership race. That is not what I wanted to ask the Prime Minister about.

He was not in the House of Commons. Maybe he was on the golf course. The point of the matter is that they were not on the file of all those Canadians losing their jobs, over 50,000 Canadians.

I wish to ask the Prime Minister with respect to softwood lumber, for instance, when will he get tough with the Americans and tell them if they keep this up, despite Canada winning court battles, that we will start to link softwood lumber exports to oil and gas if they do not start treating this country fairly?

[The Economy, September 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that since the House rose in June, over 57,000 Canadians have lost their jobs.

I want to say this to the Prime Minister. While the Liberals were playing their silly insider games having to do with the leadership and while we have this strange mating dance going on between the Conservatives and the Alliance, 57,000 Canadians lost their jobs. When will the government make that a priority? When will we hear something from the government about what it will do about unemployment in this country because it is growing.

[International Trade, September 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the failure of the WTO meeting in Cancun should be seen as an opportunity to take stock of the whole WTO agenda and the false hope of trade liberalization and corporate globalization.

The Doha development agenda, or DDA as it is called, was DOA, or dead on arrival, because there was far too much corporate agenda on the agenda of developed countries, and far too little of an agenda that would lead to meaningful development. The developing countries finally ran out of patience with those who want them to give in on services and investment, but offer very little in return on agriculture or life saving medicines.

Instead of being a cheerleader for a dead horse, the Minister for International Trade should make Canada a leader in advocating a new model for the global economy, one in which people and the environment come before profit.

[Injured Military Members Compensation Act, June 13th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the NDP I would like to indicate our support for the bill and for its quick passage today in all stages. This is certainly something I want to commend the government for, but more particularly the Minister of National Defence, because I think this has been a personal priority of his. I have talked to the minister about it at least a few times and I am glad to see that he has been able to move on this particular file.

I want to concur with my Alliance colleague as to some of the concerns he has about the bill and of course what the bill does not address in terms of post-traumatic stress disorder, et cetera, but the fact of the matter is we had a particular issue to deal with in terms of how Canadian Forces members who faced dismemberment on the job are treated. We had a class society within the Canadian armed forces, in which officers were treated differently from the NCOs and the rank and file. That has been corrected, and the minister has also dealt with, as I understand it, the question of retroactivity.

All in all I think it is a pretty good day. I would urge colleagues in the House to proceed with dispatch when it comes to this particular legislation.

[Main Estimates 2003-04, June 12th, 2003]

It is not a question of defending Liberals; it is a question of lumping Liberals and Conservatives together when it comes to VIA Rail. We could go back and talk about Jean-Luc Pepin in 1981, another villain when it comes to the history of VIA Rail.

The fact of the matter is we in the NDP cannot see ourselves being in favour of a reduction in the funds going to VIA Rail because we know that in passenger rail lies the future in terms of meeting our Kyoto accord commitments.

We know that remote communities need to be served by passenger rail. We also know VIA Rail has some problems in terms of updating and refurbishing equipment to meet judgments that have been made, and appropriately so, with respect to access for disabled persons, with that various kinds of equipment that it has, particularly new equipment which it bought that does not meet certain specifications.

This extra money could be spent on a whole variety of things and I for one would not like to see VIA Rail denied this $9 million.

It may be that the Minister of Transport and VIA Rail did not have an adequate enough plan or an adequate enough explanation when they came before the committee. Fair enough. Let the committee follow that. However I certainly would not want to see a reduction in VIA Rail funding as the appropriate response to that lack of information.

I see I have only one minute left. My how time goes fast when I am having fun talking about rail transportation.

There is another thing I could not resist. I listened to the member from the Alliance who went on and on about the duties of the private sector versus the public sector.

Mr. Speaker, do you remember the bad old days when Air Canada was publicly owned and the transport sector was regulated? Do you remember all that good service from one city to another, when the planes flew on a regular basis, the food was decent and the service was decent? Do you remember those terrible days when the public sector was in charge?

Now the private sector is in charge. Now we have privatized Air Canada and things are just great. Is it not wonderful when the private sector is in charge of air transport in this country? It has done such a wonderful job. Can anyone imagine if the same people who are running Air Canada were running our health care system? It would be unbelievable.

To listen to this kind of ideological claptrap from the Alliance puts me in a foul mood indeed.

[Main Estimates 2003-04, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I feel somewhat badly following the hon. member who made an eloquent defence of VIA Rail and an eloquent defence of committees of the House, except I have to beg to differ as to what we should do about it.

It seems to me that those of us who want to defend passenger rail Canada and defend the role of VIA Rail should be the people who are least inclined to support a reduction in the funding for VIA Rail. The member might see it differently, and people of goodwill can disagree as to what the best way of dealing with this is.

I and the NDP take a different view on this. Because we support passenger rail and because we are not of the same mind as the Alliance members, who think there is something evil about VIA Rail because it is publicly owned, we cannot see our way to supporting even a committee decision that calls for a reduction in funding for VIA Rail.

I also want to point out that the decision of the committee, although it is portrayed as unanimous, was not unanimous in the sense that the NDP member on the committee was not present for that vote. Had she been present, it would not have been unanimous. That is one of the reasons why we are here tonight. We want to make it clear that we did not support the decision by committee to pass a motion to reduce the VIA Rail budget by $9 million.

I find this somewhat uncomfortable because I have often argued in the House, and I make no bones about it, that decisions of committees should be more respected than they are. We all know we do not always agree with every committee recommendation that comes forward, and we need to be honest about that. I am sure some of the people in the Alliance, who were making the argument about respecting the judgment of committees a few minutes ago, are probably not making the same argument with respect to the decision that was taken by the justice committee this afternoon. They probably will not get up in the House tomorrow and ask the government to respect the decision of the justice committee in the same way they now ask the government to respect the decision of the transport committee. It all depends on whether one agrees or not, although overall I would still argue that more respect should be paid to the decisions of committees.

I listened with interest to my Conservative friend and I would agree that Doug Young is certainly a villain when it comes, not just to passenger rail but to rail in general. I think particularly of the privatization of CNR.

The darkest day that I remember for VIA Rail did not come under the transport ministry of Doug Young. It came under the leadership of Brian Mulroney in the fall of 1989 with a decision that was implemented on January 15, 1990, which was the biggest single decimation of VIA Rail that we had ever seen in this country.

For the member to get up and talk as if everything was just hunky-dory until 1993, I am sorry. I was not going to talk about this, but I have been provoked by the very selective memory of the member from New Brunswick who seems to think that between 1984 and 1993 there was no damage done to VIA Rail. In fact in the fall of 1989 I was at the transport committee when that announcement was made by Ron Lawless. On January 15, 1990 the then transport minister Benoît Bouchard also should have gone down on the list of villains, when it comes to the history of rail in this country.