House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was report.

Last in Parliament September 2008, as Liberal MP for Saint John (New Brunswick)

Lost his last election, in 2008, with 38% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Committees of the House May 31st, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Discussions have taken place among some members and parties with respect to Bill C-440, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (mail free of postage to members of the Canadian Forces), which was introduced in the House of Commons on May 8.

I believe that if you were to seek it, you would find consent for the following motion: That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-440 be deemed to have been read a second time, referred to a committee of the whole, reported without amendment, concurred in at report stage, and read a third time and passed.

Summer Career Placement Program May 17th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, for 20 years both the Saint John Y and the Rotary Boys and Girls Club have received funding for summer career training. This year? Denied. More than 50 other Saint John not for profits were denied.

Will the Prime Minister instruct his minister to come to New Brunswick next Tuesday for a meeting about why that meanspirited party is denying students? Why has the Prime Minister let his minister for buzz cuts pull a full monty on our students and our not for profit communities?

Republic of Macedonia Recognition Act May 16th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place among some members and parties with respect to Bill C-440, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (mail free of postage to members of the Canadian Forces), which was introduced in the House of Commons on May 8, 2007.

I believe that if you seek it you may find consent for the following motion, “That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-440 be deemed to have been read a second time, referred to a committee of the whole, reported without amendment, concurred in at report stage and read a third time and passed”.

Canada Post Corporation Act May 8th, 2007

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-440, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (mail free of postage to members of the Canadian Forces).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a very important piece of legislation entitled, an Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (mail free of postage to members of the Canadian Forces). This legislation would amend the Canada Post Corporation Act to allow mail to be sent free of postage to and from a member of the Canadian Forces serving outside of Canada.

This bill was inspired by Saint John resident Mrs. June Dobson, whose nephew, Master Corporal Stephen Maher, is serving in Afghanistan. Mrs. Dobson's brother has passed away and she holds Master Corporal Maher close to her heart and writes to him two or three times a week. Recently one of those letters was returned because it was 6¢ short of postage.

It is for that reason I am introducing this bill. It is free to send mail to one's member of Parliament. It would make sense that it should be free to send mail to our brave men and women who are putting their lives in danger for all of us.

I would hope all hon. members would support June's bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

David Greenslade April 18th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honour the memory of Private David Robert Greenslade from Saint John, New Brunswick, who died tragically on Easter Sunday while on duty in Afghanistan.

Words cannot express the pain that we all feel in our hearts for his parents Laurie and Donnie Greenslade, who have been shining examples of poise and dignity in the face of this tragic loss.

David enjoyed spending time with his family and friends and his dog Colby. He enjoyed golfing, which he learned from his grandfather David, and he amazed his friends with his abilities and his zest for life.

His friend Pat LeBlanc said, “I've never seen a guy that skinny hit a ball that far”.

David was always entertaining his friends with his sense of humour.

A Saint John High School graduate in 2004, he will be fondly remembered by his own “Band of Brothers” in the 2nd Royal Canadian Regiment and 1st Royal New Brunswick Regiment.

David gave his last full measure of devotion at the age of 20 and his was a worthwhile life that will always live on.

On behalf of the citizens of Saint John, New Brunswick, and of Canada, I offer our deepest sympathies to the family of David Greenslade. Our prayers are with them at this difficult time.

Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 16th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, the reality is they will be unable to deliver programs. We will end up with a checkerboard. We will end up with region against region, rich provinces and poor provinces. We will end up with Quebec and Ontario doing very well and Atlantic provinces, Saskatchewan and even parts of northern British Columbia in a situation where, I am afraid to say, they would be unable to deliver any national program that looks vaguely like Canada has looked in the past.

Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 16th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I really do not think we want to start looking too far back in history as to messes that were created by previous governments.

Most members of the House will remember 1993 when the mess was a $40 billion deficit. When I see the fiscal prudence that occurred with the Liberal government and the difficult choices that had to be made in the 1990s and then when I see the sheer abandonment that has occurred in housing, in literacy, in seniors and when I see a $13 billion surplus being given to the people of Canada and the equalization formula not being respected or followed in our province of New Brunswick, it is a bit disingenuous for the hon. member to try to allege that there has been a less than fair approach taken by the previous government.

The previous government tried to equalize some very serious inequities that occurred. Equality in the country is not about giving everything to Quebec and Ontario. We need to remember that the Atlantic provinces and Saskatchewan are provinces too.

As you think about inequity, I would appreciate you thinking about New Brunswick and the 1.8% increase that it received.

Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 16th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore well knows that our views on shipbuilding are probably not much different. I regret and wish that the world labour markets would have made shipbuilding more progressive and more competitive for us in Atlantic Canada. I agree with my hon. colleague.

I also agree with my hon. colleague on the point he raises on veterans and widows. The minister is from New Brunswick. I believe the hon. minister will be given the opportunity over the course of the next weeks to hopefully fulfill the promise on which he and many members on the opposition side are working. I do not want to be in the position of defending the Minister of Veterans Affairs, but I know the hon. gentleman and I know he is listening to and watching very carefully the interventions today.

Hopefully in view of the tragedies that have occurred in Afghanistan over the last weeks and the media attention that has been paid to the families of these veterans, some of our senior veterans will start to get the attention they deserve. I agree with the hon. member on that very important point.

Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 16th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I could quote some very prominent Progressive Conservative leaders in the country, like Premier Danny Williams, who object to the promises that have been broken by this budget. If members do not like Premier Danny Williams, then let me suggest they listen to some of the comments made by Premier Rodney MacDonald. Both are Progressive Conservative premiers who are outraged at the breach of promises that have occurred in the budget.

However, I agree with one premise of the hon. member's point of view. Over the past fiscal imbalance period that they continue to allege exists, why then would the present government and the present Prime Minister not have paid attention to any of the independent reports that were prepared? Why have they turned their backs on New Brunswick, on Atlantic Canada and on the west? Why have they broken their promises to the people of our region?

Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 16th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the federal budget and the impact of this budget not just on Atlantic Canada but on New Brunswick.

This federal budget, as many colleagues in the House know, is a major disappointment. Over and over again, the Prime Minister spoke about this budget representing his Canada. As a member of Parliament from New Brunswick, I can tell members that this budget does not look anything like the Canada I know and love.

The Prime Minister promised New Brunswickers and Canadians that he would fix the equalization program and respect the Atlantic accords. He has done just the opposite.

While Quebec received an increase of 29%, or $698 million in the next fiscal year, New Brunswick's share grew by a meanspirited 1.8%, and Atlantic Canada receives little more than 4% of this new money. New Brunswick's finance minister, Victor Boudreau, has stated this about the Conservative budget:

If [this budget] was to fix the fiscal imbalance, as far as New Brunswick is concerned, I wouldn't give it a passing mark.

Glaringly, this demonstrates that the Prime Minister does not care about Atlantic Canada and builds on his reputation as a divider pitting one region of the country against another. The Conservative government has squandered a golden opportunity to show Canadians that leadership is representing the rich and the poor, the east and the west, big cities and small towns. It has failed miserably.

Let us ask Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador. What did he have to say about this budget? He said:

Fairness...is about keeping your word. Fairness is about making a commitment and making a promise to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan and living up to that promise. If your government doesn't keep this promise to us, then how can the people of Canada in any province rely on any promises or commitments that you make to them in the future? And I would caution the people of Canada on a go-forward basis.

Let us ask Premier Rodney MacDonald of Nova Scotia or perhaps Premier Lorne Calvert of Saskatchewan why they are so outraged that this budget has divided Canadians.

One of the first things the Prime Minister did upon taking office was to increase income taxes for those in the lowest income tax brackets, hurting working New Brunswick families. The lowest income tax rate was raised from 15% in 2005 to 15.5% in 2007, hurting those who need it most.

Despite the spin of the Conservative government, this budget does nothing to fix this situation. The fact remains that tax relief for hard-working New Brunswickers averages a mere $80 per taxpayer and the tax hikes imposed by the Prime Minister cancel out the benefit of the new child tax credit, which does little for poor parents who pay little or no income tax.

John Williamson is someone whose name should be very familiar to some of the members opposite. He is president of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and has said this about this Conservative budget:

The fellow working the line or anyone or anyone with a salary income and no children will receive no tax relief. That's disappointing. Ottawa is running huge surpluses. This is a good time to cut the rates for all taxpayers up and down the economic ladder. Government decided to broadly target, for example, seniors, not tax relief, in this document for all taxpayers.

When it comes to child care, the Conservative government has not created one single child care space despite promising to create 125,000 new spaces over the next five years. This promise was not worth the paper it was written on.

What is worse is that the so-called universal child care benefit is fully taxable. This is the Prime Minister's sleight of hand: giving parents $100 and taking back $99.

The Liberal government signed an early learning and child care agreement with the previous Liberal social development minister, the member for York Centre, and then premier Bernard Lord. That would have invested $146 million in our province of New Brunswick for New Brunswick kids. This would have created real and lasting child care spaces.

However, we do not have to ask the politicians about it. We can ask front line workers like the YM-YWCA's child advocate Janet Towers, who promotes child care and early learning to keep our New Brunswick children globally competitive. The Prime Minister killed this deal and took this money away from the province.

Budget 2007 allocates $6 million in child care funding for New Brunswick, with no money trickling to Saint John, New Brunswick. This will do nothing to create child care spaces.

The Prime Minister's approach to child care is to offer tax credits, not child care, and that is not our Canada. Never has a government done so little, with so much, for average working Canadians.

Just last year the previous Liberal government left a $13 billion surplus. Yet rather than investing in affordable housing, which was not in this budget, rather than investing in tax breaks for seniors, which was not in this budget, and rather than investing in literacy, which was not in this budget, the Prime Minister chose to make drastic ideological program cuts.

The Conservative government has not allocated any new money for affordable housing. This has huge implications for Saint John, New Brunswick, which has some of the oldest housing stock in Canada.

There is also nothing in the budget that corrects the inequities in the employment insurance program.

This budget does little or nothing to address poverty or child poverty, which is a national disgrace, and it does not stand up for working class families. This budget does nothing for them.

This budget fails to offer new support for students. It does not put a penny in the pockets of Canada's undergraduate students. It gives graduate students a little money while the vast majority get nothing at all. That is the kind of Canada the Prime Minister wants to create with this budget.

The Conservative government's budget fails to help Canadians safeguard their environment or fight climate change. It cuts back on our commitment to renewable energy. It reduces funding to New Brunswick by one-half. Without an overall plan for the environment, we cannot meet our Kyoto commitments. That is not our Canada.

The Prime Minister's budget does not provide the long term, predictable, stable funding for cities and communities that mayors across Canada have been begging for so they can meet their basic infrastructure and transit needs. A massive infrastructure deficit remains in Canada as a result of this budget's lack of support for cities and communities.

While there is some new money in the budget for recreational infrastructure through the Canada building fund, this money is being allocated on a per capita basis, which disadvantages smaller provinces like New Brunswick. While we may have a smaller population in New Brunswick, we still have very pressing recreational infrastructure needs and a smaller tax base to fund them.

I am currently working as part of Team Saint John toward the construction of a new multiplex facility. Letters to my office, conversations with community leaders and recent town hall meetings held throughout Saint John have all confirmed that there is both a pressing need and widespread support for a multiplex project in greater Saint John.

The recreational and health needs of our children are at risk as a result of the lack of current facilities available. As greater Saint John experiences growth, it is imperative that a viable solution to the current shortage in recreational facilities be resolved so that the quality of life in our community continues to advance.

With rising levels of obesity in Canada, the government needs to ensure programs are in place that provide funding to meet the recreational needs of our cities and our communities across Canada.

The feasibility study that has been commissioned by the recreational implementation committee of the city of Saint John recommends a multiplex facility. The cost of this facility is in the neighbourhood of $34 million. I urge the government to ensure that the allocation of money for recreational infrastructure takes into consideration the unique needs and challenges of smaller provinces.

The lack of infrastructure funding in the budget puts projects like the one-mile interchange in jeopardy. We need to have this interchange in New Brunswick completed by 2010 at the latest in order for our region to better leverage investments and opportunities in our industrial parks.

This interchange will take truck traffic off Saint John streets, which is vital for our tourism industry, and will also reduce the wear and tear on our downtown community. Taking this traffic directly to the industrial areas of our city will also promote growth for the industrial parks and help support new investments in the oil refinery, the LNG project and the proposed green industrial park on Bayside Drive.

The importance and significance of this one-mile interchange cannot be overstated. With an expected $5 billion to $7 billion reinvestment in a proposed second refinery being considered in the eastern part of our city, the largest single private investment in Atlantic Canada, and an anticipated completion date of 2012, we need to ensure that this key piece of infrastructure is in place.

There is nothing in the budget on forgiving the debt on another important issue in Saint John, the Saint John Harbour bridge. The bridge was built at a cost of $18 million. It is the only federal bridge in Canada that has a toll on it. The citizens of Saint John have paid approximately $23 million toward the bridge, yet we still owe $23 million.

There is something seriously flawed with that model. It is like a mortgage that is impossible to repay, and it keeps growing. Our community has more than paid for this bridge already. We cannot be expected to continue payments in perpetuity. It is just simply not fair. It is time for the government to do the right thing and forgive the debt on the Saint John Harbour bridge.

The Prime Minister's budget breaks more promises than can be counted. He has broken promises on equalization and on child care. He has broken his promise to seniors not to tax their income trusts. He simply cannot be trusted to protect the interests of our province, our region and our country.

A leader unites a country. The Prime Minister is a divider. He has shown his true colours and his colossal and shameful abandonment of New Brunswick and all Atlantic Canada.

We work hard. We pay our taxes. We contribute to the betterment of Canada. A government cannot pick favourites. It cannot pick winners. It cannot pit one region of the country against another. It cannot force the poor to subsidize the rich. It cannot ignore the plight of working families, of children, of aboriginals and of seniors. This may be the Prime Minister's Canada, but it is not ours.