John Williams

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 12th, 1995]

A point of order. While I understand that the current motion has been carried, I was wondering if it is the intention of the House to keep the final tally open for another day until we hear from the leader of the Tory Party-

[Supply, December 11th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We are passing through the House a bill which is going to spend $2.5 billion and you are telling us that there is no opportunity for debate on this bill?

[Supply, December 11th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, is that a ruling from the Chair, that there is no debate?

[Supply, December 11th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We have debate on this.

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the member for Oxford had been around here for a couple of years. I have been around here for a couple of years. I thought he was elected the same time as I was.

To think Bloc Quebecois aims and objectives in the House are the same as those of the rest of us, where has he been? Its objective is to destroy the country and the House, while I would hope the objective of the rest of us is to build the country and strengthen the House. Let us get that absolutely clear. If the member for Oxford has not realized that yet, please tell him to wake up, Mr. Speaker.

On the IPU, we have thought police in this town and the constitution of the IPU was changed by the Liberals and the Bloc, not by Reform. We voted absolutely against it. They voted to say only those who agree with the aims and objectives of the organization are allowed to sit on the executive. Who is to police this? I asked the chairman who is to police this. I guess it is something called osmosis or it percolates up to the top where your ideas are better than my ideas or you are right and I am wrong.

The constitution does not say how the IPU is to police this new rule. I stand up for the taxpayers of Canada who are throwing half a million dollars into that junket club so these Liberals and Bloc members can run around the world and bring back pieces of paper to table in the House so they can collect some dust. They call that building on experience and improving our competitiveness around the world. Again I say to the member it is time to wake up.

We cannot afford it. They should not be doing it. We have to get real in the House.

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the new buzzword is employment. Unemployment has gone away. This must be to hide behind the fact that the whole concept of jobs, jobs, jobs has failed and people are still unemployed.

It would be wonderful if all the people who thought they would get jobs and voted for the Liberal Party because it promised them jobs had employment. However they do not and it is unemployment insurance we are talking about. It does not matter how they want to dress it up.

I am glad the member recognized that perhaps our UI programs have been a disincentive and have hurt our competitiveness around the world.

We are debating a motion put forward by the Bloc from the province of Quebec. I remember reading an article some months ago about MIL shipyards in the province of Quebec unfortunately running out of ships to build. The average wage in the shipyards was $34 an hour. They were not competitive and could not get any more orders. They wanted the federal government to give them some work, to build more ferries that we really did not need, until such time as they could re-engineer the productivity of the factory to allow them to break into the international shipbuilding market.

MIL Davie did not have a hope of breaking into the international shipbuilding market because it was paying its workers $34 an hour. They are now out of work. Where are they? They are part of the package of unemployed people the minister of human resources is trying to help.

We have to provide incentives at the managerial level in the workforce. I did not say anything about devolution in this situation. I said we should put the incentives where they can be managed, at the managerial level of the workforce. I also gave a proposition on how we could look at it. I was surprised and disappointed that the member continued to hang on to the idea of centralist decision making: one shoe fits all; the people in the big wide world are incapable of making any decisions for themselves; it has to be done here in Ottawa. As a businessman I would have thought he would have realized that there is a great benefit in giving people control over their own lives and control over their own decisions. The whole government is missing that opportunity time, time and time again.

That is the unfortunate truth and that is why we are in a mess.

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the eloquent response by the minister of human resources to the question from the Bloc as to how much the government is providing to the province of Quebec and to other provinces in his vision of the reform of UI.

The motion we are debating today is that this House denounce the government for its massive cuts to the unemployment insurance system that limit access and so on. It seems to me that this type of motion is in line with the pathetic attitude toward this House and this country held by the Bloc. We are trying to build this country and they are trying to destroy it. It fits right in line with all the things they have been doing along the way.

If this is the type of leadership that the Bloc brings to this House I feel rather sorry for the people of the province of Quebec if the member for Lac-Saint-Jean moves over there and starts to lead that province. I feel that they are going to continue downhill rather than climb out of the lethargy of unemployment that currently exists in that province.

I come from the west where Alberta is one of the have provinces. British Columbia and Alberta are a growth area where we are prepared to get up and get the job done. That is the important thing. It is not to sit around and denounce the government. While we do not agree with the way the government is trying to do things, let us acknowledge that it is trying.

I find it rather disconcerting that this Bloc motion again today is to bring down, to denounce what the government is doing rather

than putting forward any constructive efforts to try to put the people of Quebec back to work.

If they were to adopt the get up and get at it attitude that we have in the west, they would be a lot better off. The economy would be better off in the province of Quebec. The country would be better off because those people would feel better with a positive attitude rather than with a negative attitude.

As part of the doublespeak of the Bloc Quebecois, two days ago there was the annual general meeting of the Interparliamentary Union in the West Block. This is an organization that I sometimes call the junket club and the travel club courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer. For $20 one can buy an annual membership in the Interparliamentary Union and the government throws in half a million dollars to top it up in order to cover the cost of travel around the world. I have been a little critical of the value we are getting for the money that is spent.

As a result the Liberals and the Bloc typically have joined forces to change the constitution of the organization to say that only those who agree with the aims and objectives of this organization are allowed to sit on the executive. As I mentioned in the House yesterday, the communists handled it even better.

The point I am trying to make today is at that annual general meeting the Bloc supported the Liberals in changing the constitution to deny accountability. We asked the members of the Bloc why they were supporting the Liberals on this issue. They said that they loved to travel around the world to promote Canada. We were shocked.

What are they doing within Canada? They are destroying the country. I believe they should be held accountable for that. I thought it was absolutely disgraceful that they would take Canadian taxpayers' dollars that are paid in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the four eastern provinces and run around the world courtesy of us, accomplish absolutely nothing, enjoy it, then come back and say "we love to promote Canada".

However, as soon as they put their feet back in this country they are tearing it apart, knocking it down and trying to destroy it. Let us recognize where the Bloc is coming from. The attitude of its members is that anything which interferes with their opportunity to spend Canadians' money while they follow through with their objectives is to be applauded. I denounce them for that type of attitude.

This motion is strictly for consumption in the province of Quebec. I listened to the debate by the Bloc member. Typical of their attitude, they want Canadians to pay more so they can receive more. In a totally lopsided argument they want to ensure that money flows one way from the rest of Canada to them. Yet they are so spoiled that they want to break away and build some kind of sovereignty association that continues this idea, however false. It is totally false that we would think about supporting them should they ever separate from this country.

During the referendum the member for Lac-Saint-Jean who was leading the yes forces said: "Remember, they will punish us because we're the ones who are getting the unemployment insurance while all the rest are getting the investments credits". I say to them now is the time to get off their posteriors and get back to work. They should not worry about unemployment insurance but think more about employment. That is what the rest of the country is doing.

We have seen the Minister of Human Resource Development change the name of unemployment insurance to employment insurance. I do not think that words are going to do very much. However, perhaps the idea is a small step in the right direction.

The UI reform that is being proposed is a continuation of this centralist, top down, one shoe fits all approach by the Liberal government. It is not going to work. More tinkering with the system is not what we need. There is nothing that is radically new in the bill brought down by the Liberals. There is nothing refreshing. There is no rethinking of UI. Yes, they have expanded a little bit. Yes, they are going to refund some premiums to some people. Yes, they are going to cover some more groups. Yes, they are going to do a few things.

The Liberals have just massaged unemployment insurance around the edges. They have not said that for the past 20 or more years unemployment in this country has hovered around 10 per cent. It does not matter how much money is spent on the program. Unemployment seems to hover around 10 per cent. If we look around at other countries we find that unemployment is significantly lower. With our friends to the south of us unemployment consistently runs to about 3 per cent less than ours. We must spend more money to fix our problem and yet unemployment continues at 10 per cent.

What is the problem? Perhaps the problem is that there is not enough incentive to work and there is too much incentive not to work. Why does the Minister of Human Resources Development not have a new approach to UI rather than just expanding it around the edges.

I will give a couple of examples and perhaps the Minister of Human Resources Development can take notes. I was in Atlantic Canada last year talking to some good Reformers down there. There are lots of Reformers in Atlantic Canada. This particular Reformer was telling me that when she was young going to college there were all kinds of summer jobs in Atlantic Canada for

students: in the hotels, in the restaurants. The tourist season was on and there were all kinds of opportunities.

The last year she was in university the Liberal government, 20 odd years ago, changed the rules to say: "We will now pay unemployment insurance to seasonal workers". Housewives came out of their homes, worked for four months, spent eight months at home. It absolutely destroyed the labour market for the kids coming out of university. That is a simple situation of cause and effect.

I know there are many families in this country who depend on seasonal work and unemployment insurance for their livelihood. It is not that I am denigrating that, but when the rule was introduced 20-odd years ago it should have been foreseen that not only would it cause dependency on UI in a seasonal environment but that it would destroy employment for university students who needed to make some money during the summer. We aggravated the situation.

However, we keep tinkering to try to resolve the problems that we created, rather than looking back and saying: "Look at the Pandora's box that we opened".

The young people in this country are motivated, enthused and they are want to work. They do not want UI. They want jobs. Remember the great theme of the government prior to the last election: jobs, jobs, jobs. They waved the red book and said: "This is going to be jobs, jobs, jobs. Vote for us and there are going to be jobs everywhere".

The President of the Treasury Board is the minister in charge of doling out the $6 billion in borrowed money to try to create some jobs. He appeared before the government operations committee to explain the wonderful success of the jobs, jobs, jobs program and the wonderful success of the infrastructure program because now the country is $6 billion further in debt. We all hoped that we were going to get something wonderful for this significant investment.

He told us the infrastructure program created 8,000 permanent jobs which is $750,000 of borrowed money per job. We would have been better giving the interest on the money to the people and telling them to stay home. They would have had a lot more money and we would have been a lot less in debt.

Now we have the Minister of Human Resources Development tinkering to change the UI program to help those people who did not get a job even though they were promised one in the last election. There is something wrong here. There is something wrong with what the Minister of Human Resources Development is proposing. There is something wrong with what this government has proposed. By the way, it has not proposed very much in the last two years. However it did put us $6 billion more into debt to create 8,000 jobs.

Where are the young folk? Their hope is waning. Their motivation is waning. They are becoming discouraged, and the Minister of Human Resources Development says: "If you get a part time job we will cover you with EI". That is not what they want. They are motivated and they want to work.

A constituent came into my office a few months ago. He was an enthusiastic young gentleman with a university education. He was willing to work. He had done all kinds of volunteer work. He had spent 600 hours a year volunteering to help the RCMP. He had a dream of becoming a mountie. Can he? No. He is a white male. Reverse discrimination has killed his dream.

The Minister of Human Resources Development says: "I have a program for you. It is not called unemployment any longer; it is called employment. Sit at home and we will send you a cheque". He is a young intelligent fellow who wants to work and contributes to the country of his own free will by volunteering because he wants to get ahead. He wants to do the best he can for himself. He thinks he has a future ahead of him, but employment equity slapped him down.

That is the type of thing at which the Minister of Human Resources Development should be looking. The young, the motivated, the intelligent and the educated should have every opportunity to get ahead. It does not matter who they are, what they are or where they are. If the minister would appreciate that, we would have a lot less need for the program changes about which he is talking.

I talked about the need for some innovative thinking. Today when a person pays unemployment insurance the employer has to pay that amount multiplied by 1.4. There is a direct relationship between what the employee pays and what the employer pays. It is a total, fixed, absolute relationship.

There are employers who on a continuous basis turn their employees over to the UI system. They are seasonal employers. We read about one of them in the Globe and Mail yesterday. General Motors uses UI when it shuts down the factories for retooling and so on. On a regular basis they are turning their employees out to the UI system, hoping it is okay, and hiring them back when they want.

Why do we not recognize that some employers use the system a lot more than others and change the premium according to risk? It is a fairly simple situation. We could count the number of T4s issued at the end of the year, count the number of pink slips issued during the year, find the ratio, determine whether it is a high risk employer or a low risk employer and grade the premium accordingly.

That would give the employer the incentive to keep staff during slack times. It might even give the employer the incentive to create

new work during slack times. The employer knows that if he uses his business experience to extend the employment of his employees he will be rewarded. That is what it is all about. Rather than a bureaucrat in Ottawa saying what the rules are, the decision making should be made on the shop floor by the manager.

The same also applies to the employee side. What about the employee who loses his job, who is laid off for whatever reason and runs out to get a job right away? He is motivated. Then there is the other employee who will say: "I am covered for a year. I will take three or four months off and then I will be slow about looking for a job". He will be employed within the year, before his UI runs out.

What about the seasonal worker who says: "I am quite content to sit at home during the wintertime because I happen to be a greens keeper on a golf course?" Since there is not too much grass to cut in the winter he is not required to look for a job in the winter. UI will carry him.

Since this person is a frequent user of UI he should pay a higher premium than the other person who has stable employment or does not use UI very often even though he changes jobs. We could grade his premium to give him the incentive to stay employed rather than being on and off UI.

It is a relatively simple situation. We grade people on income tax when the employer knows their deductions for income tax. I think the same type of situation could be used for UI. I throw that out for the minister's benefit. I am am talking about a new approach to UI, a decentralized approach to UI, something that merits being explored.

While the minister may have taken a small step on UI reform, he missed the wonderful opportunity of taking a great step forward. Along with his colleagues he has totally and absolutely failed in delivering the electoral promise of jobs, jobs, jobs. This is why we still have a 10 per cent rate of UI and why his program, as changed, will not work.

[Interparliamentary Union, December 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday my nomination for a place on the executive of the Interparliamentary Union, commonly known as the junketeer travel club, was denied even though it was acknowledged by the Chair as being in order.

At the same meeting prior to the election procedure and in order to deny my nomination, the constitution of the IPU was changed to allow executive positions only for those who "undertake to promote the aims and objectives of the said interparliamentary organization". This will be a difficult task given that the IPU has no aims or objectives.

The IPU is funded by the House and yet it has muzzled free speech, ignored its own constitution and trashed democracy.

My rights as a parliamentarian have been compromised. The reputation of the House has been sullied and I request that all parliamentarians condemn the actions of the IPU and direct the procedure and House affairs committee to investigate this abuse of process.

Even the communists played with more finesse than the IPU.

[Recognition Of Quebec As A Distinct Society, December 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Motion No. 26 today, as it will have a profound impact on the future of our country if it is adopted.

Let me state my position quite clearly. As a Reformer, as an Albertan, as a Canadian, and as someone who considers Canada as home, I cannot support distinct society for any province. I cannot support elevating one province over another, and I am not prepared to separate the haves from the have nots. I believe in equality and fairness for every man, woman, and child in this country regardless of their race, colour, creed, origin, or abilities.

To say that this motion is ill-conceived is a euphemism of the first order. This motion is an unmitigated disaster, an affront to the House, a disgrace to the country, and misrepresents all Canada stands for.

It is our duty today to govern this country with democracy, freedom, and equality as our guiding lights as we build on the past and lay the groundwork for the future generations. We have to be accountable for our actions today, just as those in the past have been judged by history for their actions.

There have been defining moments in history that were hailed as great achievements, yet history found them to be shallow and empty gestures that in hindsight would have best been left undone. I think of 1938, when Mr. Chamberlain promised us peace in our time as he waved a document that was, as I called it, a one-sided agreement. One year later, his proclamation for peace was trampled under the jackboots of an army that marched across Europe.

In 1982 prime minister of the day proclaimed a new Constitution for this country that he said would last for 1,000 years. But that Constitution did not have the signature of Quebec, and like Mr. Chamberlain's declaration for peace in 1938, this Constitution was a one sided agreement.

I hear the historians of tomorrow calling this motion a one sided agreement that will not stand 1,000 years and will not even buy peace in our time. Today we are debating a motion which the government promises will bring peace and harmony to the country. As in 1938, the motivation for this motion is appeasement, not resolution. This is an offer to Quebec, not an agreement with Quebec.

Let us look at the proposed motion. The government wants the House to affirm a distinct society in the province of Quebec. Distinct society is not defined. Those who have demanded recognition as a distinct society in these last few years have not demanded recognition as a medal to be worn with pride but as a lever to exert more power, more advantage and to receive preferential treatment at the expense of the rest of Canada. Let us not lose sight of that fact.

The government mistakenly believes that talking about an issue, making statements about an issue, is equivalent to resolving the issue. Our debate today is a prefect example of that hypocrisy. In passing this motion the Prime Minister believes he will have achieved peace in our time. We know today Quebec is not satisfied. We know today the leaders of the separatist movement in Quebec will brush this gesture aside and march on.

What faith do we have today that this agreement will buy peace within Canada, harmony within Canada and build the structure for a united Canada while the forces of separation organize and marshal their resources for another assault on the unity of the country? We have none.

Alberta and British Columbia have been vocal over the years in their demand for change within this united federation, but they have voiced their concerns in a true and democratic way of working in a positive manner to achieve change. Both of these provinces are designated as have provinces within the equalization formula. Both of these provinces have contributed billions over the last few decades to the promotion and protection of this Confederation while they continue to live up to their commitments without demands that they receive the benefits equal to their contribution to the country.

If we are to have peace we need goodwill and commitment by the parties involved, not a simple, frivolous motion debated in the House produced at the whim of the government, all in the false hope that one single motion is a panacea to several decades of dissent.

The Reform Party has proposed three simple amendments to this motion to give it strength and focus. First, the government is asking that we recognize Quebec as a distinct society. We as Reformers say that is fine provided we recognize this is not to be used as a lever for more power and privilege at the expense of other provinces. Surely our amendment confirms the very heart of any federation, any family and any society that wants to survive today: equality for all.

Second, we recognize the French speaking majority, culture and legal traditions in Quebec. They are a fact of life which exist each day. However, we also recognize the great promise of the new

world which guarantees equality for all regardless of who we are, what we are and where we came from.

Third, while we undertake to be guided by the reality of a distinct society and recognize that fact, we also undertake to be guided by the reality and recognize that this nation is one nation, from sea to shining sea.

Changes to the Constitution and the devolution of federal powers is a manageable process, but it is being managed in a most disgraceful manner by the Liberal government. The Reform Party knows that Canada can work together, will work together and, with real leadership in the country, will stay together. Leadership requires vision and a clear statement of the way to the promised land.

In the face of the challenge to break up the country the Reform Party has responded with a call to action with a plan and a program. A strong and proud Canada will move forward only when the leadership of this great nation articulates a clear vision for the country which is created by, endorsed by and supported by the large majority of Canadians and provinces.

This motion, in the way it is presented, is not the answer.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, November 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The previous speaker kept referring to something other than the motion before the House.