Bill Blaikie

[Government Policies, June 4th, 2003]

It is nice to know, Mr. Speaker, that the minister of defence can get a message once in a while from somebody.

I want to ask the government more generally, when it comes to mad cow disease, when it comes to softwood, when it comes to helping hospitality workers affected by SARS, all we have is silence or inaction. Still we only have a government focused on the things that divide them. When are the Liberals going to get their act together and help people who are the victims of these various crises in our country?

[Government Policies, June 4th, 2003]

In any event, Mr. Speaker, it seems that there are two camps in the Liberal Party with respect to star wars and that government can only make announcements about those things that the Liberals are divided on, such as election financing and star wars, and we cannot get any action on anything else.

I want to ask the Minister of the Environment a question. It is Environment Week, it is Clean Air Day. Could he please tell us how he intends to provoke some division within the Liberal Party on this issue so we can get some action?

[Government Policies, June 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the new Tory leader's secret deal permitted him to vote for star wars yesterday because I cannot imagine Orchard being in favour of that.

[Agriculture, June 4th, 2003]

Relax, Peter.

[Premier of Manitoba, June 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Premier Gary Doer of Manitoba on achieving a second majority government, with an increase of three seats to the NDP majority in the Manitoba legislature.

Premier Doer and his NDP colleagues have provided Manitoba with a competent, social democratic government. They have defended the health care system from privatization, celebrated public ownership of Manitoba Hydro and the public interest it can and does serve, kept tuition fees low and showed national leadership on the Kyoto accord, to mention just a few of their many accomplishments.

On behalf of NDP leader, Jack Layton, and all the federal caucus of the NDP, we wish the premier and his colleagues, old and new, a successful second term in office. A Canada with the political sense of Manitoba would be a great country indeed.

[Industry, May 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about supporting Canadian sovereignty and we certainly hope that on the softwood lumber file the Liberals have more luck than they did when Mr. Spliff went to Washington. He came back with an American drug policy but unfortunately what he did not come back with is an American steel policy, because Americans do something about steel dumping: They defend their steelworkers.

This government is allowing 600 jobs at Algoma Steel to disappear in Ontario because it will not do what the industry and the union have recommended. When is the government going to stand up for steelworkers in this country?

[Softwood Lumber, May 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Natural Resources.

Looking at the recent rise in the value of the dollar, it seems to me that the government now has a much stronger case in the softwood lumber negotiations when they resume today. The Liberals must stop selling out our forestry workers.

Why does the government's strategy rely on provincial concessions rather than seeking a bilateral forestry agreement with the United States?

[Supply, May 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would have thought that the member for Wild Rose would be the last person to be critical of someone because that person was sure of what he or she was saying and said it with conviction, as if other people who disagreed with that individual were wrong.

This is our position. The member has his position. On this issue, unlike a great many others that the member speaks to in the House, perhaps he is not absolutely sure what the right position is, in which case that is fair enough. Certainly, the member speaks on many other matters as if anyone who disagrees with him is to be cast into the sea of fire or something. Let us not have too much of that from the member for Wild Rose.

I agree with him when it comes to the whole question of the democratic process. The member gives me an opportunity to read one more thing into the record, again, talking about the current and long term context in which we have to see this issue. I am quoting from the document called “United States Space Command: Vision For 2020”. There is a very interesting comment here. What is really worrisome is the extent to which the United States assumes that it will not have an antagonistic relationship with the rest of the world. On what basis would it be doing that? I have sometimes wondered about that. In future trends, as part of this document, it states:

Although unlikely to be challenged by a global peer competitor, the United States will continue to be challenged regionally

It then goes on to say:

The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between “haves” and “have-nots”.

It is the have-nots that are ultimately the threat to the United States. It is the current corporate model of globalization which is creating the have-nots, the insecurity, and the antagonism toward the United States and the global economic model that it is imposing on the rest of the world through the WTO and elsewhere. If the Americans want peace and security, and a peaceful world they should start to rethink their commitment to the corporate model of globalization instead of star wars.

[Supply, May 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. He refers in his last comments to the fact that apparently the cabinet has chastized the Minister of Canadian Heritage for referring to NMD as star wars. I think the Minister of Canadian Heritage has got it right on this one. I wish she had it right on a few other things, but she got it right on this one. The cabinet's disapproval of her use of the words star wars is part and parcel to what I was talking about earlier, this wilful blindness on the part of the Liberals when it comes to this issue. It is what they call in the Bible “eyes that will not see and ears that will not hear”. This is what we have on the part of the government.

There may be people who are for NMD and ultimately for the weaponization of space. We can disagree in principle and in substance with those kinds of people, but once again we have a Liberal government that is not being forthright with Parliament and the Canadian people and preventing a real debate from taking place. That really is ultimately a great sin against democracy.

[Supply, May 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I beg to differ, obviously. I think the truly naive people in this debate are in the government. The government members are the ones who are curled up in a prenatal position saying, “Please do not tell me that it is related to star wars. Please do not cause me to face up to the fact that it has to do with the ultimate weaponization of space. Please, we do not want to hear anything about that because we are in this bind, we have to do something to please the Americans, and this is the thing that is on the table right now. The last thing we want to hear is that what we are about to do is against everything we stood for”.

These are the people who are in the prenatal position. It is not the NDP. I think the real naiveté is on the part of anyone who believes that this is not part and parcel of a long term plan to weaponize space.

If people want to be for that, then they are not in a prenatal position; they are out front debating it. But if they want to pretend that it is not about that, in the final analysis those are the people who are being truly naive.