Gurmant Grewal

[Tobacco, November 24th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, half of the respondents to my Surrey Central survey said they were not satisfied with the federal government's efforts to prevent Canadian children and youth from smoking.

While speaking to many students at schools I have seen 12 and 13 year olds smoking.

Our youth have been targeted by tobacco companies and still this government is not doing enough to prevent smoking.

Canadians do not trust the Liberal government to deal with previously secret information from tobacco companies about efforts to sell tobacco and get Canadians hooked. The health minister is using smoke and mirrors by hiring the tobacco insider. Canadians are not fooled for a minute.

Canadian tobacco prices are below those of the United States and that causes cigarette smuggling. But Canadians know that this government refuses to combat cigarette smuggling.

The Liberals are not serious about preventing 45,000 deaths a year caused by smoking.

The Liberals talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk.

[Shipbuilding Act, 1999, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to Bill C-213, an act to promote shipbuilding in Canada. The purpose of the bill is to make Canadian shipyards more competitive.

The member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière in Quebec wants to establish a federal loan granting program that will cover up to 87.5% of money borrowed to purchase a commercial ship built in Canadian shipyards.

The bill would also provide a favourable and generous tax treatment of lease financing for the purchase of Canadian built ships.

Finally, the bill proposes a refundable tax credit for refitting commercial ships in Canada.

As a Canadian, I can commend the hon. member for the intent of the bill and what he is trying to accomplish.

Surrounded on three sides by water, one would think that Canada could have a viable, thriving and prosperous shipbuilding industry. However, that is not the case. There are so many who remember the great ships built on our east coast in particular, and the shipbuilding industry in Canada takes on a romantic notion.

The Tories make a great deal of noise lamenting the sad state of our shipbuilding industry. In fact, they are to blame as much as the Liberal Party of Canada for the loss of this industry in Canada.

As all Canadians know, the current Liberal government is maintaining a high and artificial level of taxation. They are hurting our economy, our productivity and our growth with their high taxes. They are hurting our consumers, and they are discouraging foreign investors from coming to Canada. They have caused a brain drain that threatens the future of our country.

Just this past weekend, the International Monetary Fund recommended that the Liberals abandon their policy of delegating 50% of the budgetary surplus to new spending because something has to be done about the high level of taxes that are killing jobs, our economy and our industry in the country.

Our employment levels are too low. With our vast resources and our ability to create wealth with other nations in the global economy, we should be doing a lot better.

On this side of the House, we appreciate the initiative shown by the member in bringing forward Bill C-213. He is trying to find solutions to the government's mismanagement and its effect on our shipbuilding industry. Regrettably, he is using the wrong approach.

Loans, grants and incentives will not accomplish what low taxes across the board would accomplish. Would the member go sector by sector, industry by industry, company by company offering tax breaks, granting loans and other things? That is what the Liberals do. They give away government contracts and opportunities to those who contribute to the Liberal Party. A hotel can be saved from bankruptcy if enough money has been given, and CIDA contracts will be awarded. We know this is a long story.

Lower taxes would help all sectors of our economy. If the government lowered taxes, that would help our industries. Lower taxes would help all companies across the country. High taxes caused the problems. Lower taxes would solve much of the damage that has been done.

The official opposition policy calls for private sector self-reliance without the federal government providing tax dollars to support any specific sector. Why would the hon. member single out shipbuilding? There are so many other sectors to be propped up with tax dollars.

Let us look at the shipbuilding industry in Canada. With only .04%, that is 1/25th of a percentage point, of the world's shipbuilding production, it is time to admit that Canada does not currently have the right environment to sustain a shipbuilding industry. Rather than try to match the subsidies and other incentives offered by other countries, we should concentrate our efforts on negotiating down unfair export subsidies. Far from guaranteeing loans to Canadians who purchase Canadian built ships, we should drop the 25% tariff we have on non-NAFTA ship imports so that all Canadian shipowners are not penalized.

Industry Canada can tell us about the problems in the shipbuilding industry. It is a declining industry, a dead in the water industry. There is an overcapacity in the world of over 40%. Canada is not even in the ballpark. We have 25% duties against imports of ships.

What the Liberals and Tories have done to the shipbuilding industry in Canada is a study on what not to do in terms of productivity. Yet the industry department continues to have a shipbuilding policy which has technology partnership grants, research and development grants, and the Export Development Corporation supporting it. Why?

The technology partnerships Canada program is available to a number of firms to do research and development if they so wish. It is repayable based on success. It is a risk sharing, reward sharing program. No one should use this program for shipbuilding. There would be no way to pay back the loan.

Let us look at the world shipbuilding industry. The industry has moved away from North American markets and European markets to southeast Asian markets. Japan and South Korea continue to control over two-thirds of the total international market for shipbuilding and ship repair. China is emerging as a rival. Combined, these three countries control over 75% of the world market. Due to extreme pressure from Asian shipbuilders, many traditional shipbuilders, including the Norwegian company Kvaerner, have chosen to get out of the industry altogether.

Canada cannot build major ships, only minor and smaller vessels. Both of these markets are already operating at over 40% of their capacity. Demand and prices are already weak and are forecast to continue to decline. Prices for 1999 are down by 6% to 24% from last year.

The international market is experiencing a significant downsizing. Since 1976 the number of shipyards in the world has dropped by half and direct employment has significantly declined to about one-third of what it was.

Let us do those things that we can do well. We can reduce duties in a multilateral forae, and we will be going into the WTO round in Seattle. If we will be dealing with duties, then I hope we will deal with this one.

All tariffs will probably be on the table for discussion and I would expect, depending on what we can get in return, that we may be able to drop the 25% duty.

Market conditions for shipbuilders are not about to change. Maybe we would be better off in Canada helping our ship buyers by reducing the 25% duty. Maybe the ship purchasers in Canada could help generate employment, creating jobs and developing the business. Protecting shipbuilders did not help in the past.

The total employment in Canada's shipbuilding and ship repair industry as of May 1999 was about 4,950. The rationalization of this sector of our economy took place between 1986 and 1994 and resulted in a loss of over 7,000 jobs. The loss of those jobs cost the federal government $198 million. That is a lot of money.

The federal government has already assisted in helping the industry phase down through $200 million in adjustment payments. That experiment, as usual, has proven to be a dismal failure.

We should not turn to taxpayers and make them pay for a shipbuilding industry in Canada that will never be viable. Let us not hinder the choices of the firms in Canada that want to buy ships or force a duty on them if they do not buy a Canadian ship because we wish to have a shipbuilding industry. It is the government's fault that this industry and others are not thriving in Canada. In fact, it is hindering us with high taxes, preventing prosperity. We support de-politicizing economic decision making by eliminating grants, guarantees and subsidies.

[Canadian Institutes Of Health Research Act, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is such an important bill that I was surprised only two Liberals members were listening. It is an important bill. In the last few minutes quorum had to be called twice.

In any event, I was talking about the government reporting to parliament. We hope that the annual report of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research will really provide information to the elected representatives of the country so that we may decide whether our constituents' tax dollars are being spent wisely. We will be anxiously awaiting the auditor general's report.

I know that time is limited and there are many things I want to say about the bill. I cannot even pretend to deal with the process of research grants that will be administered by the new institutes. The selection process could attract foreign participants who would provide us with a wealth of new perspectives, experience and products.

We also know about agencies created by Tories and Liberals that are at arm's length from the House of Commons. We see the terrible waste of tax dollars squandered on million dollar dinosaur statues, pornographic movies, free flags and hundreds of thousands of dollars for constructing dead trees and many other things.

We hope that these new institutes, created to operate at arm's length from the government, will not turn into pork barrels that the Liberals will use to pay off political favours and other things. Hopefully high ranking scientists will be allowed to make decisions without interference from the government.

This reminds me of the BST hormone fiasco. The government pressed hard for scientists to approve and declare that the bovine growth hormone was safe, but the scientists refused. They ended up leaving their jobs over the issue. Liberal senators on the Senate committee dealing with this were appalled at the situation.

The effort in Bill C-13 represents our federal government's single largest investment in research and knowledge. We want to develop affordable and accessible health care. We need to work on the prevention of disease, detection of disease, health care services and treatment, new discoveries, new products and new patents. We need to meet the health challenges of the future, including new treatments for new strains of bacteria. We need to fight those new strains with new antibiotics. We need to be innovative and evaluate and improve our health care resources. We need to deepen our understanding of health care issues and services. We need to identify and fill in the gaps between what we have and what we should have. We need to confront questions of ethical standards. We need to research all of those things. We have to work closely with the provinces, territories, our universities, health institutions and numerous NGOs.

The minister talks about a cutting edge research centre. We hope he can deliver it. Canadians want to see accountability, not more bureaucracy. The minister said today that 95% of the funding will go to research and 5% toward administration costs. We will hold him to those figures. We will see if that happens.

When President Reagan met President Gorbachev at the first nuclear disarmament meetings, he said trust, but verify. We have to verify whether the government sticks to its promise before we start trusting.

Let us look at the record. We have seen the Liberals drop the ball on an organ donor transplant system. They did not deliver. They continue to study it while Canadians die.

We have seen the government ignore the head start program which was supported by all sides of the House. That motion was introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, who has worked hard on the issue. The Liberals have done nothing about extending the head start program from aboriginal children to all Canadian children, even though it has been a successful initiative elsewhere.

We all know about the Moncton and Hawaiian head start programs. It is said that for every dollar invested there will be a saving of $6, there will be fewer youth dropping out of school, a reduction in teenage pregnancies and a reduction in youth crime. It increases the bond between children and their parents. These are all the things we know the head start program will deliver, so why do the Liberals not go ahead with it? We will have to wait to see what they will do on research.

Another example is smoking. We saw the government raise taxes on tobacco and then lower them because it could not do anything to stop tobacco smuggling. The Liberals caved in. They did not have the political will to tackle the problem of smoking, particularly as it concerns our children. Why not tackle the cause of smoking related diseases by working to prevent people from starting to smoke? Why do the Liberals limit work on smoking problems and merely treat the diseases that flow from chronic, long term tobacco use?

Another example is fetal alcohol syndrome. Why not stop the syndrome instead of merely dealing with the results? That is what the government has done on so many other issues. It addresses the symptoms but not the cause.

Another important issue is the drug problem. Governments at the municipal level, the provincial level and the federal level are not dealing with this issue. The federal government could contribute a lot to this issue. I have not seen any strong initiative from the federal government to deal with the drug problem. Drugs are being imported into this country and nothing is being done. Nor has anything been done to effectively treat drug users. The government is turning a blind eye to this serious issue.

Other problems stem from it, for example AIDS and HIV, but nothing is being done by this government. It believes in looking at symptoms but not treating the causes. We hope this will not continue to be the case.

We know that we need to work with, consult and include our scientific community in the work that our federal government does in the field of health. We need the input of our scientific community to direct the research. On this side of the House we hope that this bill will result in the creation of successful research institutes. We want to help the Liberals achieve this if we can.

Another example is the Surrey and White Rock Home Support Association, which is in my riding. In Surrey Central we are trying to establish a wellness centre for seniors. The energy behind this effort is Mr. Ron Watson and the Surrey and White Rock Home Support Association. Ron is a wizard when it comes to matters of health care. He is one person who many people in our community, myself included, look up to. The Surrey wellness centre will benefit the elderly in our area. There is a need for this type of accommodation.

So far the Liberals have refused to allow Surrey to use millennium project funds to get this going. The Liberals have financed dinosaur statues, tree statues, all kinds of parties and other things, but they will not allow the spending of millennium project funding on such an important project that will help our seniors. The Surrey wellness and health centre will have 1,000 beds. It will serve Alzheimer patients, geriatrics, the general population and the terminally ill.

As I said, there is a need for that facility, but this cold-hearted Liberal government has no vision and will not help us. Instead, it insists on trying to get us to build a dinosaur statue for $1 million or have a big party. We cannot use the millennium project funds to get the home care unit going. It is absolutely incredible.

On another issue, Alberta is creating a health care system to try to keep Canadians from having to go to the U.S. to get medical treatment because the health care in this country is not working. This country has a sickness care system, not a wellness or health care system.

There is already a three tier health care system. One tier is regular treatment which is status quo and only in a medical emergency. The second tier is a waiting system and 200,000 people are waiting for various treatments. The third tier is when people do not get the desired health care and they have to go to the U.S.

In conclusion, it is very difficult to trust the government knowing its misguided priorities and propensity to mismanage whatever it does.

[Canadian Institutes Of Health Research Act, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the people of Surrey Central and on behalf of all my colleagues to respond to the government's proposal to replace the Medical Research Council and create the Canadian institutes of health research.

The objective, as I understand it, is to create new knowledge and then translate it into improved health for Canadians. Before I go into the details, I would like to extend my appreciation for the work of Dr. Henry Friesen, who is the president of the interim governing council, and other members of the council who have cared about the importance of cutting edge research and who have worked hard to put this idea together.

We want, of course, to provide Canadians with more effective health services and products from a strengthened health care system, not a weak system as the government has made it.

I hope the Liberals can do this with Bill C-13, which is one of the major pieces of legislation they have proposed before the House. I have some problems with what they say they can do, what they will actually do, and what they will cause to be done. These are the three different things I am concerned about.

Before I go into the details, I have many questions in my mind that I would like to have answered by the government members. Why are we not extending the mandate of the previous organization, the Medical Research Centre? Why are we not putting it on the right track? Why do the Liberals not give the current institution the vision and the tools to get the job done? Why are the Liberals reinventing the wheel? Perhaps it is cash-strapped because of the $23 billion the government cut from our health care spending. Maybe it is because of the lower morale and the confidence of the health care providers in the system. Maybe.

Is the Medical Research Council failing because of the brain drain that the government has caused? Are doctors, nurses, scientists and researchers leaving our health care system and research facilities in such large numbers that we are falling behind in research? Maybe.

Is it that the researchers and scientists cannot afford the technology necessary and the tools required in order to conduct their research?

All these questions have remained unanswered so far in this debate. I have been listening very carefully.

Why would the government allow that to happen to our research? Did it destroy our research capabilities in order to balance the budget? Maybe.

How much democracy is going to be created with this new institute?

The government members should be answering these questions during the debate today. Canadians want to know the answers to these questions. Canadians want accountability in our research system. The Medical Research Council has 85 employees and it costs about $14 million per year. However, instead of creating a new entity, why do the Liberals not work with the 85 scientists we already have in the system and give them the tools and the technology they need to get their work done?

The Liberals will have 20 directors to appoint if this bill passes, 20 patronage-ridden appointments which shows from their record. Will they be awarding these positions based on merit? Will these positions be advertised? I doubt it, that is important.

There is much work to be done on the bill and many considerations to be made. There has been very little time to consult with the various scientific communities. Who will co-ordinate, integrate and focus the research? How will this be handled? Will the applicants themselves, the people allowed to do the research, direct the bulk of the research, or will the nature of the research be directed by the advisory board forcing applicants to apply for funding in areas dictated by a central body?

Again, there are many areas that the health committee of the House will want to investigate. Witnesses will need to be called in to clarify certain aspects of the bill.

I recently received a letter from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada asking to appear before the health committee of the House. They are looking forward to appearing before the committee because they want to express their support for the bill. They also have concerns that they want to put on the table. They want to bring the foundation's unique perspective to the work of the committee.

The represent Canadians in the cardiovascular community: doctors, nurses and patients. The Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada speaks for many Canadians, including those who have died from cardiovascular diseases. We hope they will be allowed to give testimony before the committee, unlike the Nisga'a hearings in B.C. As we see, the government stacked the witnesses on the list.

The Liberal dominated committee makes it very difficult for us to work with it. We on this side of the House want to help the Liberals. We know they cannot see they do not have vision. We know they do not listen to Canadians. We will hold the flashlight for them and give them direction in their darkness. We will try to help them do the government's committee work. However, it is very difficult to work with the partisan-ridden committee system that we have in the House.

We would like to support this bill. We would like to support whatever we can that will improve, develop and facilitate medical and health research in Canada because we know that is very important.

This bill could address the concerns of the brain drain. It could be used to attract and retain Canada's brightest young researchers. It is going to be hard enough to keep them in Canada because they are overtaxed. It is shameful that many successful young medical science graduates would go immediately to the U.S.A. to make some serious money and pay very little tax on the six-digit salaries they make there. It is going to be difficult for the Liberals to convince our finest young minds to stay in this overtaxing country. Maybe Bill C-13 could be used to expand what we have to accommodate our scientists.

Another issue is that Bill C-13 promises a clear and concise statement in a yearly plan that promotes the development of research in health and science. We know that the auditor general is continually calling on the government to be more transparent in its reports to parliament. There are many examples of the government not being overly forward in terms of providing the House and Canadians with the facts and figures concerning many initiatives.

The performance reports that the Liberals offer as supplementary budget estimates on a semi-annual basis are not all they are cracked up to be. They are a sham.

Let me give the example of CIDA. Parliament is quite far removed from its operations. CIDA is left running wild, out of control, while the government provides parliament with as little information as possible about the mismanagement and lack of—

[Canadian Institutes Of Health Research Act, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians thought or at least assumed that medical or health research was already being done by the Medical Research Council, or at least that is what the Medical Research Council was supposed to do. Now the Liberals are creating the new research institute called the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to do probably the same job and same work as the Medical Research Council was supposed to do.

Why are we reinventing this wheel? Can the member shed some light on this and answer this question? Why was the previous organization not doing its job properly and why is the new organization expected to do the same job in a better way?

[Petitions, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I want to present two petitions with 100 names on them. These petitions are from concerned Canadians, mostly from my constituency of Surrey Central.

The petition is about the development and safety of children put into jeopardy because of the B.C. Court of Appeal decision that made the possession of child pornography legal. The petitioners are asking why parliament was not recalled immediately to invoke section 33 of the charter of rights and freedoms, the notwithstanding clause to override a B.C. court decision, and to ensure that the possession of child pornography in B.C. is illegal. The careless, heartless government that lacks vision is constitutionally inept. The Liberals cannot change the constitution, but this is their position. I am proud to present it.

[Tara Singh Hayer, November 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in Canada we enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

The media's role is to report the news in a fair manner. Canadians do not believe everything they read. The media is under close public scrutiny. The pen is mightier than the sword, but is the pen mightier than the bullet?

One year ago, Tara Singh Hayer, the editor of Indo-Canadian Times newspaper, was murdered execution style with a bullet. Mr. Hayer was the recipient of the Order of B.C. After serving the Indian army, years ago he migrated to Canada.

His editorials were controversial. No matter how many people disagreed with him at times, every one agrees that he was entitled to his views. He exercised our right to freedom of expression and paid the ultimate price.

I urge all members of the House and Canadians to condemn such cowardly acts of violence.

[Petitions, November 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present 12 petitions with 300 names on them. These signatures are of concerned Canadians mostly from the constituency of Surrey Central. They draw the attention of the House to the discrimination they declare is caused by Canada's old age security system. The act discriminates against seniors from certain countries. Therefore, they call upon parliament to grant old age security benefits to all seniors over the age of 65 based on the needs of the seniors and not based on their country of origin.

[Reform's Territorial Protection Act, November 18th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-326, an act respecting the territorial integrity of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to introduce my private member's bill entitled Reform's territorial protection act. I wish to thank the hon. member for Elk Island for seconding my bill.

The purpose of this enactment is to affirm Canada's sovereign indivisibility. The bill is based on the fact that there is no provision in our constitution for the withdrawal from the federation of a province or a territory.

I want to accomplish three things with the bill. First, I want to ensure that the Canadian federation may not be deprived of any part of Canada's territory except with Canada's consent through constitutional amendment; second, to ensure that no province or territory may unilaterally withdraw from the federation; and third, to declare any province or territory cannot declare its intention unilaterally to secede from the federation and form a separate state.

I present this bill for the consideration of the House.

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

[Statutory Instruments Act, November 18th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-325, an act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act (disallowance procedure for statutory instruments).

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce my private member's bill entitled an act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act. I thank the hon. member for North Vancouver for seconding my bill.

This bill seeks to establish a statutory disallowance procedure for all statutory instruments that are subject to review and scrutiny by the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations of which I am a co-chair.

This bill will ensure that parliament has the opportunity to disallow any statutory instrument made under the authority delegated by parliament or the cabinet. The bill would empower the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations to take action on this. It would empower the members of the House and the Senate to democratize our right here in parliament.

I present this bill for the consideration of the House.

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