Werner Schmidt

[Petitions, October 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition is signed by a number of petitioners who request that the Parliament of Canada, under section 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, uphold the Latimer decision of the Supreme Court of Canada.

[Petitions, October 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I would like to present three petitions.

The first petition deals with rural mail couriers. The petitioners request the government to repeal section 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act.

[Supply, October 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is always useful when we get into a debate like this to listen to someone who has actually been in the field, who actually did look into some of the geology that exists in the northern part of the hemisphere as well as other parts of the world and to recognize that all is not as it appears sometimes. I thank my colleague for doing that.

The purpose of my question is to go to another spot and that is with regard to the plan released this morning. There are three points on which I would ask the member to comment.

Is the plan one that he thinks is implementable, the way it was presented? Could the plan actually be implemented?

Did the plan give confidence in the sense that there is sufficient credibility so we can actually believe that some of things that are in it could be achieved?

Was there any indication in the plan released this morning as to what it would cost to implement it, in terms of the actual finances that would be required and also the resources, personnel and expertise that would be necessary to meet the provisions of the Kyoto protocol?

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 7th, 2002]

Maybe the hon. member did not do it but I know there are some over there who did. Maybe he did not but that does not make it right.

The issue has to be addressed and it has to be addressed just as soon as we possibly can. We should eliminate and take away from this particular motion Bill C-5 and Bill C-15 and then democracy at least would have the potential of being served.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 7th, 2002]

Yes, it is many more than Mulroney. In fact, I dare say that it is about 50% more than Mulroney did in total.

I am wondering what it is that the government is trying to do with this. Is it really trying to defy or deny the democratic process? The hon. member for Medicine Hat suggested that we have a democratic deficit. Well, we have a democratic deficit, a financial deficit and a deficit of new ideas.

There was an excellent opportunity to rectify some of the errors and shortcomings in both Bill C-5 and Bill C-15 but nothing happened. The government will bring them forward just as they were before.

I cannot help but draw attention to a particular issue that really bothered me with regard to Bill C-15, which is the cruelty to animals bill. I met with some dairy people this summer. When we first entered the debate some time ago I read into the record at that time about a group by the name of PETA and what they were doing. This summer I had the occasion to meet with the people at PETA and to ask them whether this was really true, whether this had really happened. Let me tell the House exactly what it was that had happened at that time.

There was a group known as PETA, People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Guess what this group did? When I read what they did I could not believe it had happened. I thought it was some kind of misinterpretation or mis-statement. However I found out this summer that it was absolutely correct. PETA launched an anti-dairy campaign targeting school children. It essentially told them that if children drank milk they would be responsible for the torture of cows. Why would anyone do that?

My colleagues and I in the Canadian Alliance, including my party's agriculture critic, are concerned that groups such as PETA are about to be armed with a powerful new weapon against farmers. I hope you, Mr. Speaker, and all the other members opposite recognize the door that has been opened for groups like this. We have to say to ourselves that it will never happen again, but it did just happen.

We had another indication earlier that told us that very clearly. On Bill C-5 a group told us that if the legislation was not tested in the courts it would have no value. We hear all this talk about there not being any frivolous litigation launched on the basis of cruelty of animals. Liz White, I believe it was, said clearly that not only would there be contests, but it was essential that litigation like that take place to prove in fact that this legislation was real.

Can anyone imagine a government putting legislation on the table that has already indicated that it will be tested in the courts? To prove what? To prove that it can be read in a variety of different ways? We do not have to go to the courts for that. We already know that.

No less a person than the attorney general for the Province of British Columbia wrote a book. His name is Alex Macdonald. You probably know him, Mr. Speaker. This gentleman said that in Canada we do not have a system of justice, we have a legal system. He goes through the book to illustrate case after case where the principle was one of legality, where the principle was one of how much money do the litigants have and then proceeded to carry on until the resources were exhausted. That is not justice. That means that the justice system is being abused, and much more than being abused, it is being misused when that happens. I know that is not true in all cases but why would the government introduce legislation that permits this kind of thing to happen?

We are now at the point where some people have said that what we have in Canada today is judicial imperialism. What does that really mean? It means rule by judges. How do they do this? They do something they call “write in”. They write into legislation what they think that legislation should be saying if it is not saying exactly what it is they want it to say. The legislation is written in such an ambiguous fashion that indeed they can do this and they do it with impunity. However, that is not all. It then has the force of law.

Members here are the lawmakers, not the judges. It should be incumbent upon us, the Prime Minister and every member here to make sure that the intention of the legislation on the books is portrayed clearly and unequivocally. When it becomes so ambiguous that a judge can write into it whatever he wishes, that is an abuse and a misuse of the parliamentary system.

I think it goes even further than that. I am looking over at some of the backbenchers over there and I know some of them very well. I know that when they voted in favour of Bill C-15 they were voting against the wishes of their constituents. Why did they do that? They did it because they were clipped into shape? No. It was because they were whipped into voting against their conscience, against their better knowledge and against the wishes of their constituents. That is a complete abuse of the democratic system and it should never happen again.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Saskatchewan who speaks from the heart. He is a true blue kind of Saskatchewan person. We have a whole bunch of them here. We have one fellow here from Grande Prairie and another one from Medicine Hat. These are gentlemen of the soil. These are men who know what it is like to win. These are people who understand.

The hon. member should have said that out loud but he did not. For those who are listening, I will not repeat what he said because I do not think people really want to know.

The big issue here this afternoon is the whole matter of closure. I do not know how many people have raised the issue but over the weekend I saw that this was going to be another closure motion. In fact, last fall we had an indication that Bill C-15 probably would be subject to closure and indeed here it is. It came under the rubric of bringing together all the legislation that was on the table before the House was prorogued and now it will be brought back holus-bolus at the stage that it left the House.

The government knows full well that it is in difficulty with both of those pieces of legislation. On this side of the House we have a lot of really sober, well-thinking, well-meaning, honest people who understand what people in Canada are thinking. We would have supported bringing forward the motion of reinstating bills and motions but what did the government do? It included, as it usually does, in this omnibus bill, two pieces of legislation that it knows full well do not have the support of many of their backbench members and do not have the support of many of the people who voted Liberal in the last election. Hopefully in the next election Canadians will know better and they will vote for the Canadian Alliance. We have to look very carefully at these.

Mr. Speaker, I guess you and the House should be reminded that this is now the 78th motion of closure. That is too long and too many.

[Speech from the Throne, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I can answer that question very directly because I have had more calls about that particular concern than I have had about the other. These people, who are on fixed incomes, have asked me how they would be able to make ends meet if their utilities or electricity increased by 25% and the gas prices by maybe 30% to 50%.

This year, for example, I think they have had a 1.2% increase in their old age security in the first quarter and yet they are facing this kind of an increase. They asks themselves “What is the government trying to do? Does it not care about us as seniors? We built this country. We thought we had a democracy. Are they asking us? No, not at all. They are making it increasingly difficult for us to survive”.

The Kyoto accord seems to be going ahead without any indication whatsoever of what the costs will be. All we know is that it will increase costs. It will reduce the number of people who are employed. It will cost jobs. How in the world will these people make ends meet? They are concerned but they are not without hope. They are looking at people, like the official opposition, to do something. They want us to hold government members to account and to make sure that does not continue to be the case.

[Speech from the Throne, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, not only am I aware but I am also very aware that not very much innovation has ever taken place as a result of a conference or at the conference.

Words are many. Studies are many. The time has come to give to the people the tools so that they can in fact innovate. One of those tools is to reduce taxes, to reduce government interference through regulation and let that happen. Innovations will happen if we allow people the initiative and create the environment where they can do these kinds of things. To have a bunch of conferences across Canada is not the answer.

I must make a comment with regard to seniors. These are people who are on a fixed income. These are not the people who are at the innovative strategies. These are not the people who are starting businesses. These are the people who have contributed to this country, who built this country and who are being intruded upon. Their standard of living has dropped.

I would like to refer the member to just one thing. The reference to a $12 pill that Ernie's wife has to take is a major issue. The government today needs to carefully re-examine the relationship between the cost of generic drugs, for example, and patented drugs. There was a time when the average price of a generic drug was about 50% of the patented drugs. That is no longer the case. The price has risen dramatically. No longer is the price advantage nearly as great in purchasing generic drugs as it was in years gone by.

There is nothing in the throne speech at all in getting greater equity and greater fairness in the position that the seniors find themselves in. That was the point I was trying to make.

[Speech from the Throne, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise you that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Calgary--Nose Hill.

I would like to address my remarks in reply to the Speech from the Throne and couch them by illustrating my points with two average citizens of Canada.

In particular, the Speech from the Throne illustrated that the government and that speech in particular are out of touch with ordinary Canadians who are asked to shoulder the burdens of Canada to a greater and greater extent. They are finding that their standard of living is going down. It used to be on a parallel with that of the United States and it has now dropped a considerable degree below that.

Yesterday was the International Day of Older Persons. I am wondering how many senior citizens actually celebrated that day. I cannot not help but think of a fellow named Joe Shephard. Last spring he wrote a letter to every MP. I want to quote the contents of that letter today. This is what he said last April:

I am a senior Canadian citizen, decreed by you to live on $13,000 a year, trying to keep myself and my rural home warm, fed, repaired and healthy and my vehicle together to access needs.

In 2000, ends were not meeting.... Which included my '87 vehicle. So, I went to work for 6 months in a boatyard, earned $7,400, less tax, CPP and EI for which I had too few hours to qualify.

This was followed by a further tax demand for $1,400 and the application of my HST refunds as a tax payment.

Revenue Canada reduced my income ($13,000) by $3,600 per year, leaving $800 a month to pay for living, mortgage, insurance, property taxes, repairs, car insurance, gas, power and phone, water, oil, wood, clothing and food.

No computer, no e-mail, no fax, no phone and the typewriter ribbon has died.

I am an expert and I know it can't be done.

Solution please.

There was no solution for Mr. Shephard in the throne speech. Joe will have to struggle just to make ends meet. There was no such action because this throne speech is out of touch with the everyday lives of Canadians.

On Tuesday of this week, following the Speech from the Throne on Monday, a call came in to my office from a senior citizen in Edmonton, Ernie Psikla. I dare say that some of my colleagues from Edmonton know this gentleman. Ernie called to say that he can no longer afford the costs of the drugs that help his wife. At $12 per pill he finds it a struggle, especially when his health plan does not cover the cost of new and improved medicine. Ernie wonders if people like him, living on a fixed income, could not find some relief through a fairer tax deduction for the costs of medication. Ernie also mentioned that he will be moving soon, leaving the apartment he has lived in for the past 12 years, because he can no longer afford the rent, which has increased by 50%.

He mentioned that he was disappointed with the Speech from the Throne because the government was not recognizing where the real difficulties lie for people like himself and his wife. He was not complaining and he was not looking for a handout. Ernie is not even giving up. I was surprised at that. He was simply asking that the government recognize the increasing difficulty people like he and his wife are facing. Did it? No.

Is it right that people like Joe and Ernie and his wife are asked to shoulder the burden of the government's overspending? Is it right that the Prime Minister and his government say nothing about reducing the tax burden for these families? How do these citizens feel when the only concrete solution to come from the government on any problem, like improving the health care system, is to raise taxes?

I cannot not help but refer to that one line in the Speech from the Throne which went something like this: We will have a fairer relationship between the tax burden and the GDP. That is all very well, but it does not help these people at all, because what it means is that if the GDP goes up so does the tax rate. There will always be a relationship like that. These people are on a fixed income and that is a real problem.

Exactly where does the Liberal government think Canadians are going to get the money to pay? Why is it acceptable to the Liberal government that every year the standard of living falls for people like Joe and Ernie?

However, Joe and Ernie are not without hope. There is hope when they hear what the official opposition is saying. When the leader of the official opposition said yesterday that necessary health care should be available for every citizen regardless of ability to pay, that there should be no delays for critical treatment and that Canadians should not be saddled with enormous bills for catastrophic health problems, Canadians were relieved to hear that.

When I stood in the House yesterday and said that the Canadian Alliance is committed to achieving and sustaining a good standard of living for all seniors in Canada, that not one Canadian senior in this country should be in distress because of a lack of services or support, Canadian seniors like Joe and Ernie were glad to hear that.

We know, as they do, that the only way to achieve and sustain a good standard of living in Canada is to ensure an economy where the pillars are strong and where the workers, small businesses and homegrown industries are given every advantage to get ahead. There are two elements that have to take place: one, there has to be a reduction in taxes and, two, there has to be a reduction and simplifying of regulations.

As the hon. Leader of the Opposition said in the House yesterday, as late as the 1960s, 42 years ago, Canada's standard of living was on a par with that of the United States. Today it is more than one-third lower and falling.

The Speech from the Throne includes no concrete plan to reverse what is happening in the country in that regard. The Speech from the Throne reveals only that we are being led by a government that stubbornly refuses to see what is happening to Canadians and continues to insist that the path of 1993 is good enough for 2002, when clearly the lives of Canadians are not improving. So crippled is the government by its size, its lack of solutions and its internal infighting that it fails to heed cries from the opposition to concentrate on an agenda that will build strength in this economy from the bottom up, in our families, our small businesses or homegrown industries. Members opposite do not seem to hear any of that because they are out of touch with ordinary Canadians.

I cannot help but refer to the hon. member a moment ago mentioning going to the corner store and having to get into a car. That sounded like such a terrible thing to do, but I would like to ask the hon. member how he would get to his corner store if it were 30 miles away. We have a gentleman sitting in the House, the hon. member for Athabasca, and I will ask him where his nearest corner store is. I ask the hon. member: surely there is a difference between going a block or going 30 miles. Yet he made no such distinction.

That is the difficulty with the Speech from the Throne. It zeros in on things that do not relate to the ordinary Canadian. That is where the difficulty lies. There is a better way to protect the environment without sacrificing the economy. It really touched me and grabbed me in place that I do not like, that is, right down in my emotions. It had to do with the Prime Minister announcing in South Africa that he was going to ratify the Kyoto accord. There was no consultation with industry, no consultation with provinces and no indication of what the implementation of a plan like that might cost, not even how such an implementation would actually be done.

There he was, standing as the leader of this country, which he is, and saying on his own behalf, for a country that is supposed to be a democracy, that he will cause this to take place. I am sure there are many members opposite who sit in the backbenches who wish that the Prime Minister did not have quite as much power as that.

Canadians are no longer willing to accept that kind of tyrannical behaviour. The time has come for us to recognize that we are a democracy and that our Prime Minister and all of the members of Parliament are accountable in the first instance to the people of Canada and not to the Prime Minister. It is time that we curtailed the power of that office.

[Speech from the Throne, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Speech from the Throne was totally silent about a fairer and more equitable distribution of infrastructure money particularly with regard to excise taxes on gasoline. When will the government become fairer in its equitable distribution of those funds? It collected $572 million in excise taxes on gasoline.