John Williams

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in some ways I think the hon. member should have been over on this side writing Reform speeches because we agree with some parts of what he says.

There is no question in my mind that the language policy of Canada today has in some way created the fact that we have 54 people sitting there today.

In 1968, as I said, there were divisions in this country. There was a desire to achieve linguistic justice in this country. Mr. Trudeau, the Prime Minister at that time, addressed it by introducing a languages act. He went against the recommendations of the commission that said "territorial bilingualism" and introduced the concept of "personal bilingualism". If Mr. Trudeau thought he had separatism in 1968, he had no idea what separatism would mean in 1994 in this very House.

The hon. member also talked about how the English language tolerates French and other languages from around the world. I think that is true. We as Reformers and as English speaking Canadians are bending over backward to try and do what we can to ensure that this country is good for everybody, coast to coast. We only ask that we get the same kind of recognition as Canadians from the people in Quebec who feel that because they have been slighted in some small way that they should pack their bags and leave, which will be the destruction of their own economy and perhaps the destruction of the Canadian economy as well.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, before I start my speech I would like to make a comment to answer the final remarks of the previous speaker who talked about when Quebec is a sovereign state it will look after its language policy from coast to coast.

We understand that if Quebec ever becomes a sovereign nation it will not have to worry about coast to coast because the small shore of the St. Lawrence will be the only coast that it has.

The motion put forward today shows that the Reform Party has concern as a federalist party for Quebec, for French and for our language policy from shore to shore, and let it always be from shore to shore.

The Official Languages Act is designed to ensure that the people of the province of Quebec and French speaking people from elsewhere in Canada have the opportunity to be able to participate and enjoy the benefits of this country using their own language. That is why we want to discuss it today because unfortunately the language act is not working.

In 1968 the then Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau, mentioned in the throne speech the need to create some linguistic justice in the country and to forestall what was perceived to be Quebec separatism. In his speech, Mr. Trudeau said:

You will-be asked to consider measures relating to-citizenship, to national symbols, to cultural agencies-Some of these proposals involve the righting of wrongs and others the opening of opportunities long denied. Together they exemplify the essential connection between justice and national unity.

Unfortunately he did not adopt the recommendations of the language commission that had reported up to that point in introducing territorial bilingualism. He introduced a personal bilingualism. As I mentioned, it was to forestall Quebec separatism that was seen to be rising again. Little did he think, back in 1968, as he sat in that seat over there that after 25 years the present Prime Minister would be looking across the floor at 54 MPs who are committed to taking Quebec out of this country. Unfortunately it demonstrates that the Official Languages Act has not worked.

We need change to ensure that they stay in this country, that they do not pack their bags and leave as the 52 people in this House wish to do.

Language fractures a country. In a multicultural, multi-language situation, it is perhaps the most divisive thing that we have to deal with, not only in this country but we see it around the world. A large part of the tensions in Yugoslavia today are racial, ethnic and language oriented. The divisions in the Soviet Union are degenerating into nationalism and cultural ethnic groups and language again. Around the world language is a problem.

However, we thought that we were mature enough to work together and achieve some sort of harmony. We thought we could work together and overcome our difficulties. However, the unfortunate thing is we cannot legislate morality and we cannot legislate the way people think.

Therefore, if we are to have harmony in language let us recognize that the road ahead will be difficult. We have to work

together to bring about acceptance of the need and the recognition that Canadians speak more than one language.

The French and the English go back a long way to 1608 when Samuel de Champlain first landed in this country. At times the French language dominated and the English language has dominated at times. It has see-sawed back and forth and through the accidents of history the English language now dominates. However, we recognize the rights of the French speaking people in this land. We want them to be recognized. We want to ensure that they have a place in Canada.

We want to ensure that the Official Languages Act is changed so that when we have another election there will no longer be 54 people sitting in the House who are dedicated to breaking up the country. We want 295 people in this House who are committed to working together and staying together.

The Reform Party has addressed the problem and it has said, let us go back to the commission that was formed in the 1960s which reported that we should have territorial bilingualism. Obviously the personal style of bilingualism does not work which is why we have these 54 people here today.

Let us recognize that we should change the system in order for it to work better. We want the French to speak in their own language, we want the English to speak in their own language. We do not want to shove another language down people's throats if they do not want it. That is what generates the backlash.

We should also try and defuse language as an issue. From 1867 to 1969 there were virtually no language laws in this country. We have to get back to the recognition that the fewer laws we have in this field the better and the more harmony and desire we have to make it work the better. That is why as Reformers we propose that language become a provincial issue rather than a federal one. Let each province decide which language is going to be spoken in the province, bearing in mind that each must account and accommodate the language where population warrants, that it be French, English or both.

That is why we put this motion today, to elevate the need to talk about this before the 54 Bloc Quebecois get their agenda on track and march right out of here.

If the 54 Bloc Quebecois members take Quebec out of this country they have left behind the thousands of French speaking Canadians in the rest of the provinces. They will be left hanging high and dry with absolutely no support. They will be alienated from the people in Quebec. The Bloc will be doing these people a great disservice. That is why I say to these people, work toward making federalism work rather than packing a bag and leaving.

We have invested a great deal of money over the years. Even Mr. Spicer, the first language commissioner said that perhaps we should add it all up and find out how much we are talking about and what it costs us. He said:

But surely there is merit in keeping more meaningful accounts. Without them, those dealing language reform will have to continue waffling under the recurring question of costs-hearing but being unable to contradict convincingly such deliciously polemical estimates-as "three billion dollars a year for bilingualism." It would seem more sensible to pull the whole lot of linguistic items together, specify the purpose of each, tote up the terrifying sum, add on ten per cent for indirect or integrated costs, then publish and defend the thing as a high but necessary price for being Canadian.

That was Mr. Spicer, the first Commissioner of Official Languages quite some number of years ago. Today we have all kinds of numbers being thrown out. How much does it cost, $2 billion, $4 billion? We do not know.

We do know we pay $50 million a year as a bonus to people who speak two languages in the federal civil service whether that is required of their job or not. We know that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars on other aspects, translation, bilingual commissions; $200 million for education. The cost adds up, but how much? We do not know.

Mr. Spicer said quite some number of years ago: "Let us add it up. Let us find how much. Tell Canadians what it costs us and let that be the price for keeping this country together".

As I have said many times, the Reform Party wants Canada to stay together. We want a language policy that will bind us together in unity and understanding. The official language policy as it currently stands will not work and must be changed. That is why we brought the item to the forefront today.

Let us sit down and develop a new structure. Let us not adopt the attitude of the Bloc Quebecois and say: "That's it. If you can't tolerate it, go". Let us tell the Bloc Quebecois not to be selfish and walk out on this great experiment that has been Canada.

We have said to the Leader of the Opposition, and we have said to other members of the Bloc Quebecois: "Let us sit down and define a new federalism". They said: "No. If a question is to be put on a ballot on a referendum in Quebec it will be a choice of what we have today or separatism". They have said that they are not interested in sitting down and making this experiment called Canada work. That is tremendously unfortunate for the 27.5 million Canadians-that includes French Canadians-right across this land and the French Canadians in the province of Quebec who want to be in Canada, who want this country to stay together.

That is why it is vitally important that we sit down and develop a brand new act so that after the next election a majority government of Reformers will be running the country and no Bloc Quebecois.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak against Bill C-17 which has been introduced with a fair amount of rhetoric but very little substance.

I would like to quote from a news release dated Ottawa, March 16, 1994 which says that the twin "objectives of the bill are job creation and deficit reduction". I started to think about job creation.

When the Liberals won the election in October of last year, one of their first acts was to cancel the helicopter program and introduce their job strategy-job creation program which was to pave more roads and build a few more sewers.

Maybe we did not need the helicopter program but we certainly do need the experience, the research and the development in the high technology field. If there is anything that is going to bring this country out of the doldrums it is in and show us the way into the 21st century, surely it has to be the electronics industry rather than the paving industry.

We have in front of us the electronic highway that will be crucial to the development of the technological business of industry over the next many number of years. We very much stand to lose our competitiveness around the world if we do not invest in this high tech area. Yet the government has seen fit to cancel everything in that area and introduce a subsidized, government paid job creation program that is going to pave some more roads and build some more sewers.

We had the opportunity to develop a highway that would go at the speed of light and yet we think we are only going to build a highway on which we can only travel at 40 or 80 kilometres an hour. The electronic highway is the way of the future. It had vision. It had substance.

The job creation program that the government sees has in my opinion no vision, no real hope for 400,000 young people. It has no real vision for saying: "We have a program that is going to see you through school right through to your retirement. It will give you opportunity and prosperity". All it can think of is short term job creation programs to help them through the summer and carry on from there.

Six billion dollars was supposed to create 65,000 short term jobs. I understand that the Minister of Human Resources Development may be talking at a news conference at this very moment. As he said earlier today, he is going to announce a program to spend another $100 million for 10,000 young Canadians to see them through the summer. It is with no long term vision. That is what upsets me most about this bill.

I read in the Globe and Mail today that the federal government and the Government of Quebec are now at loggerheads over which will do the job training in this part of the country. Therefore the whole idea of job creation is stymied, put on the shelf. It has been delayed. It has been postponed. Young people desperately need the government to get its act together to do job creation.

The only job creation I see is that civil servants in Ottawa are at loggerheads with civil servants in Quebec City. That seems to be going on ad nauseam and it is not benefiting the country. It is not job creation.

If we are going to have job creation and deficit reduction, surely we must hold out the vision of lower taxation, lower deficits and controlling the debt. As we tell Canadians, they are going to be faced with higher taxes and more government spending.

There is no real incentive on anybody's part to invest in the real wealth creating jobs in this country. The government has to go back to square one and back to basics and rethink its whole strategy on job creation, job training, job motivation, building and creating wealth and prosperity. The bill is a very poor start.

The government also said in its press release that there would be a two-year extension of the freeze of public service wages. Many Canadians would be glad to have a freeze if their jobs were assured. Jobs are in jeopardy; jobs have been lost. Many people are now on the unemployment rolls and are asking what their futures are.

I would like to offer them some real hope that we are spending their tax money wisely, but I cannot even offer that. I am looking at the Ottawa Citizen article of April 9 written by Mr. Greg Weston and entitled ``Pink (Slip) with Envy''. He writes about the fictitious Bob who has been working for the federal government as follows:

No matter what Bob's rank in the bureaucracy, he will be given at least six months on the payroll to look for another job. During that time, he and other surplus people like him will have priority over everyone, everyone (except ex-political hacks) applying for similar positions elsewhere in the government.

They are going to shuffle the deck at taxpayers' expense and maintain some jobs that may or may not be necessary in the federal government. Poor people out there are working hard to pay their taxes while civil servants in Ottawa and elsewhere around the country feel quite cosy with their job security and will not be laid off. The writer continues:

In fact, under a deal worked out with the unions in 1991 the government has agreed not to lay off anyone without first making them a "reasonable job offer".

Again the whole concept is to recycle the civil service rather than make it efficient, responsive, lean and affordable. He continues:

Even when Bob is finally given directions to the nearest unemployment insurance office, he still remains at the front of the government line for government jobs for another full year.

Even if somebody who is qualified and on UI he plays second fiddle to our hypothetical Bob who is at the front of the line just because he used to have a federal civil service job. He is guaranteed to be the first in line for the next one that comes along. In conclusion he writes:

In the past seven years only 5,629 public servants were actually laid off. That is an average of about 800 a year out of the 230,000-odd people working for the federal government. Among those landing on the street, about 60 per cent spent more than six months on the public payroll doing nothing.

Is that the type of job creation program the government likes: people being paid by average Canadians who have to pay their taxes to keep people on the public purse for doing nothing? He continues:

No one seems to have any accurate figures on what all this is costing Canadian taxpayers, but the tab is at least $60 million a year just for the 1,700-odd bureaucrats currently floating around in surplus never-never land.

That article tells us that the government has neither addressed deficit reduction nor job creation in a positive and serious way. It is time government members heard from all Canadians. They are certainly hearing from Reform Party members on this side of the House that it is time they acted seriously and brought in some serious job creation programs. That attitude would create an environment or playing field for the private sector to create job creation programs.

While I still have time I would like to mention I am appalled the CBC is now going to be given authority to borrow money. Surely the country has enough debt. It is time to recognize we cannot keep borrowing money. We cannot keep giving every agency in the country the authority to borrow more money, off budget by the way, so the finance minister can tell us that the deficit is coming down. He has just passed the buck over to the CBC.

I will wrap up my speech by saying I am opposed to the points raised in the bill. The government should bring in something positive and concrete to do the job properly.

[Government Expenditures, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister committed himself and his government to additional cuts beyond what was presented in the budget yesterday. We are trying to find out how much these cuts are, who is going to be cutting and where they are actually coming from.

Since he will not answer that question, will the Prime Minister please tell us how much we can expect in additional cuts beyond what was presented in the budget? His figures regarding the deficit and the cost of the debt are out to lunch because of rising interest rates through their mismanagement of government.

[Government Expenditures, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister committed his government three times to cutting the budget.

We have asked the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development where he is going to cut and we have not had an answer. We have asked the Minister of Industry twice so we would have a chance to see where he would cut. We have asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs where he is going to cut and we have not had an answer. The Prime Minister has deferred to the Minister of Finance. We want to know who is in charge over there.

Will the Prime Minister please tell Canadians which ministers are going to be cutting their budgets to fulfil his commitment of yesterday? It is not only us who want to know. Canadians want to know. Investors who are buying their bonds want to know. We feel we deserve an honest and forthright answer.

[The Budget, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the financial markets recognize that there must be severe cuts in spending if Canada is to avoid a severe financial crisis. Rising interest rates indicate that they expect the government to renege on their second round of cuts.

The credibility of the Minister of Finance is at stake, and his audience extends well beyond the House. Will the minister assure us that the deep spending cuts are coming and will be imposed?

[The Budget, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance.

The minister has stated repeatedly that his budget is a two-part strategy and that severe cuts are coming next year. At the same time the Prime Minister maintains that all proposed cuts are already on the table.

There are no spending cuts in the budget for next year which could be described as severe, and on this basis can the Minister of Finance tell Canadians if severe cuts are coming, and if so why is the Prime Minister not aware of them?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member's question, she is accusing us of aborting the process. Bill C-18 is designed to abort the process that has been in place and has worked for the last 30 years. I find it quite incredible that the hon. member would accuse us of trying to abort the process when the bill is designed to do exactly that.

Then the member made the point about the extra costs of more MPs. We are saying let us cap it. We have more than enough today. Let us put in motion a serious commitment from the House saying that 300 members are surely enough to get an informed debate in the House. That would be quite sufficient.

I address her last point about how the commissions are redrawing the boundaries even though there has been no increase in population. These people had the 1991 census figures to work from. Those are exactly the same figures the government would work from if it proposed to go ahead with Bill C-18. There may have been a population shift from one end of a city to another. I do not know, but that is what we paid these people to determine.

In her final point she mentioned the public hearing process. The public hearing process was about to start. They cut it right off before the public had an opportunity to say that it seemed a bit strange to redefine boundaries strictly for the sake of redefining them. Let us give the public the opportunity to say that. Maybe it will say that the recommendation by the commission is wonderful. If that is the case then let the public say it. Let us hear what the public has to say. That is the whole purpose of public hearings.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to record my opposition to Bill C-18 which suspends the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.

There are major issues which should be examined here. Some fundamental Canadian human rights are being trampled. Let us look at some of the issues that should be considered before passing Bill C-18.

The first one is that political interference is being proposed. The principle of political interference in electoral boundaries was debated long ago. The decision was it should not be allowed and the concept of an independent drafting of the electoral boundaries was the way it should be done.

Politicians should be removed entirely from the process. Looking back to the 1960s and prior there was a great deal of political interference in the drawing of electoral boundaries. Unfortunately that led to blatant political manipulation of the whole situation.

In his book The Election Process in Canada Professor Terence Qualter identified four roles parliamentarians used when they were allowed to manipulate the system and redefine the boundaries of the electoral districts. Let us look at what he identified.

They were most concerned about maintaining the boundaries for the MPs sitting in the House. They wanted to protect the incumbents' districts so that another election could be fought based on the same old boundaries; if they won last time, perhaps they could win again. It was self-serving from that point of view.

And what about retiring members? They would dispense with those ridings. They would not have to protect those ridings and could use them to their advantage.

What about members of parties in the minority, the smaller parties and the independents? Some are sitting here today. Those were determined to be dispensable. They would draw the boundary to eliminate them rather than ensure fair and reasonable representation for the people across this land and rather than ensure that people who had a different point of view could be elected and their position heard in the House. When the job is left to the politicians, the minorities are left on the outside rather than just being given a seat on the backbench, which of course is the case today.

Of course given the opportunity, MPs would again respond to political pressure to create more seats in the urban ridings rather than do a realignment to ensure real representation for all Canadians.

In the 1960s the need for reform was recognized. They wanted to throw out political involvement. They wanted to get rid of it and bring in a non-partisan commission that would do the job for them.

The act established a commission in every province. The chief justice of every province was to appoint a judge to be the chairman of the commission. That seems to be a great non-partisan way to start.

The proposal at that time was the government would put forward a member and the opposition side would put forward a member on the commission. They said no, that allowed for political involvement and therefore the power would be given to the Speaker to appoint additional members to the commission.

We want impartial non-partisanship to ensure that democracy works in this country. We are the servants of the people; we are not their masters. We are here because the people want representation. They want democracy in the House. It is not for us to take it upon ourselves to manipulate the public to ensure we protect our jobs at the expense of free debate, other positions and real representation of the people.

The commissions were established and today we have Bill C-18 that wants to take that non-partisan, impartial situation and throw it out the window because we do not like what has been done. We established the commissions last fall with the intention that they would come forward, as they have done before, with proposals based on reasoned, rational opinions as to why boundaries should be the way they are proposing.

Once they make their decisions or proposals the whole matter is opened up to input and debate by the people who can then be heard. We could ask them what they think. Is this reasonable? Have we followed the trading boundaries of a constituency? Have we kept the historical names? Have we followed the democratic movement of people across the country? Have we made a reasonable decision? Let us hear from the people, not from the politicians. Let us hear what the people have to say.

That is what the government does not want to hear. It wants to cut the democratic process off at the pass because the proposals being made by the non-partisan, impartial commissions will now affect its ridings. Government members do not like it and hence we are back to political interference through Bill C-18.

Why does the government now wish to scrap their work? The commissions based their work on the census performed in 1991. Have the numbers changed? I do not think so. The government now wants to take these same numbers, massage them and manipulate them for its own benefit.

Have the people on the commissions been incompetent? I do not think so. These are educated, learned people on these commissions who have the country's best interest at heart. Would self-serving politicians do a better job with the same numbers? I do not think so. Do we believe that politicians are better suited than judges and ordinary Canadians to decide how they should be represented? I do no think so either.

That is what Bill C-18 proposes to do. It proposes to take the same numbers or the same figures and rework them or massage them, all for the benefit of themselves. The public would end up with the short end of the stick where the hearing process is short-circuited and the people who are independent and impartial have been told that their work is no good.

Here we are today bringing the process under the scrutiny of the politicians. We wonder why politicians have a poor reputation in the country. I would suggest one of the real reasons our reputation is tarnished and people have no faith in us is that when we appoint an impartial inquiry to do the job and we do not like what it says, we throw it out the window and start again by doing our own.

That brings me to the second issue, the public participation issue. It was stated in 1964 as being one of the main reasons for the act that was introduced at that point in time. We wanted to hear that. We are the servants of the people of the country; we are not the masters. They should dictate to us how they ought to be represented in the House. It is their House; it is not our our House. They are the ones who should decide how it should be done.

That is why we have mass distribution of material by the commission to every household in the land. Let Canadians see what is being proposed. Let them have their input. Let the impartial commission hear what they have to say and decide on the merits of the input whether there should be any real adjustments.

The government seems to have the idea that this input can be dispensed with, that it can be reviewed, and that the time and nature of public involvement should be scrutinized and set aside. That would be a bad day for democracy, a bad day for our reputations. That is why my colleagues in the Reform Party on this side of the House are vehemently opposed to the particular bill.

We have some members on this side of the House who are supporting the bill. Of course I am talking about the Bloc. I wonder where they are coming from on this particular issue. We know what their agenda is: it is to break up the country. Nothing would give them greater satisfaction than to have a referendum tomorrow to say that Quebec wants to go its own way.

I wonder if they are supporting the bill to give them the opportunity to work up or stir up the emotions in the country about real representation by members from Quebec and about their opportunity to sit in the House and have their voices heard. There are only 75 MPs from Quebec out of a total of 295. They can argue about having a minority status, as does every other province including Ontario. Therefore I wonder what is their particular involvement in the bill.

If there is a point to be made, it should be that we capped the number of MPs in the House. We have enough MPs. To create an opportunity to continue raising that number at great expense to the taxpayer who thinks we will add to the number just to help

ourselves to more taxpayers' dollars also tarnishes our reputation.

In conclusion, the Reform Party and I are opposed. The taxpayer is opposed. Every constituent in the country is opposed. I say let the hearings proceed and let us hear what the people have to say.

[Applications For Benefits, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the motion put forward by the hon. member for St. Boniface. I know he put it forward with the best of intentions and he gave us some examples. There are some constituents in his riding who unfortunately have missed out on some of the government largesse through either lack of knowledge that programs were available or for whatever reason they were not able to claim the benefits available to them had they applied.

There are two sides to every coin. If there is a responsibility on one side for the people to apply for it and there is also the obligation for the government to pay then it should not be an open-ended commitment by the government to pay forever should it be found at some future point that someone did not apply for a benefit.

We must remember the concept that benefits are to help people in their daily living. It is not for them to build a nest egg or a small fortune because they did not apply for it last year, the year before, five years ago or twenty years ago. The idea of the programs we have today, be it the guaranteed income supplement, be it the family allowance program, be it the old age security program or be it the Canada pension plan, is to help people in their daily living. It is not a savings program for them to pass on to their heirs. That is the first philosophical objection I have to the point raised by the hon. member.

He talked about being able to recoup a lost benefit. Yes, I know in the interest of fairness it would seem that if I had missed out on an opportunity to claim a benefit from the government some considerable number of years ago, it might be nice if I were able to go back and claim it. However I do not think we can leave it as an open-ended commitment.

The hon. member talked about responding to real needs. I mentioned, as I said, we are here to help people in their daily lives, not to build savings. He said it was the right thing to do. Yes, perhaps there is some merit in the fact that it is the right thing to do. However I believe if the person does not take some onus and some responsibility upon themselves to find out what they are eligible to apply for, to find out the programs offered through the government, a certain onus should be applied on constituents to say: "I have a need that perhaps the government will provide. Let me check it out".

He also mentioned that the government had few limitations on its side in order to collect the money from our citizens. I beg to differ on that. There is the statute of limitations. There are many rules, for example in the Income Tax Act, that put very specific

deadlines on how long the government has before it loses its ability to go after the taxpayer to collect lost taxes.

I remember a tax case about four or five years ago wherein the government had for some unknown reason a tax return in its files that it had failed to process. About six years later the file was discovered and processed. In the particular case the taxpayer had actually owed the government $250,000. It went to court. The government lost because there was an item in the Income Tax Act that says the government shall process tax returns within a reasonable period of time. The court decided that six years to process a tax return and send the person a notice of assessment showing how much he owed was not a reasonable period of time. In that particular case the government was out a quarter of a million dollars, plus whatever interest would have been applied.

There are rules on both sides. As I said, there are two sides to the coin. We have specific limitation rules on the government being able to collect and I think it is only fair that we have them.

The hon. member talked about examples of social programs to help people. He talked about the need and desire that we be fair. I think the hon. member is trying to be fair and generous with taxpayers' dollars. The point we are trying to make as the Reform Party is that there is a limitation to what the taxpayer is prepared to pay. Therefore that suggests we should not continue to have an open-ended situation.

I was thinking in reading the member's motion that 100 years from now someone on reading their great-grandmother's correspondence may find that she said: "I did without my guaranteed income supplement because back in 1994 I felt the government deserved a hand. I passed up on my claim". The heirs come along and say: "Wow, here we are. Great-granny is long since gone but the claim is there". Let us not forget the interest. It is now tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars that the taxpayer would be on the hook for. Therefore, I cannot support the motion.

The member talked about people getting shafted. I remember some years ago while driving along I was pulled over by the RCMP. He advised me that I had entered a lower speed limit and because I was driving too fast he was going to give me a ticket. He said to me: "I've got good news and bad news for you. One, I'm going to reduce the amount of the ticket, but the bad news is that I'm going to give you a ticket anyway". I thought I was being shafted. I did not see that I was going to get any redress so I ended up paying the ticket.

I think the hon. member's point really is that we should simplify government so that we are here to help people in need. That has been the Reform Party policy. There is a myriad of programs out there. That is why people today cannot wade their way through the red tape and government bureaucracy to find the programs that are there for them.

I suggest the hon. member go back and examine the nature and philosophy of his motion. We should simplify government and make it more responsive to the needs of people. In that way people in need will know that we have a program available for them. The complexity of government adds to the cost of government. It removes government from being able to help genuinely needy people while throwing all kinds of money through all kinds of programs to many thousands of Canadians who could get by fine without the money but it just happens to be a program that is there for them.

I therefore speak against the motion. I feel that the government does much today and, in many cases, goes overboard in the way that it spends taxpayers' money. I recommend that we oppose the motion.