Darrel Stinson

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On a vote as important as this I wonder if I could beg the Speaker to give a few minutes for the Tory leader-

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am standing today to oppose Bill C-110 for a number of reasons.

I find this bill extremely divisive. After listening to the hon. member from the other side who just spoke I find it even more divisive. Here is a government that had its opportunity during the referendum in Quebec. The Prime Minister said: "Don't worry, be happy. We are happy. Canada has no reason for concern over what might happen in Quebec".

Government members told us and all of Canada that it was only a small movement in Quebec that was looking for separatism, and the Canadian people believed them. The Reform Party never believed them. We told them there were all kinds of warning signs that this was a stronger movement than government members were telling the Canadian people. The Prime Minister likes to play like an ostrich and bury his head in the sand, unfortunately. We almost lost that province through acts such as this. This great government decided to tell the people. It tells them anything but the truth.

Now we stand here today, the day after the vote on distinct society, on which closure was invoked. We stand here today discussing the veto. No matter how we look at this we see a government that has gone on its hands and knees begging a separatist government to please on board. In order to do this it is willing to sell out the rest of Canada. When government members start talking about veto powers to certain provinces, when they start telling people that because of the regions they live in they will have more power than other people in different regions, they are asking for trouble.

When I was brought up and in school I was taught the number one law in Canada is equality of all of its citizens, not a select few, not for the few who sit here in government, but for all citizens of Canada. The bills we have seen in the last few days absolutely contradict everything we have been taught about Canada. The government has decided that because of our ethnic backgrounds some of us can no longer be classified as Canadians; they will be distinct Canadians. What does it think this does to the rest of the people in Canada?

We hear from hon. members on the other side that there are two founding nations. That went out over a hundred years ago. There are many Canadian citizens and they want to be called Canadian citizens, not on the basis of their ethnic backgrounds. They came here to be Canadians and yet bills such as this cut that all apart.

The government will create a backlash that will see once again in all probability the ugly head of western separatism rise. Yet the government has no fear of that. It does not worry about that. Its members say: "We gave B.C. the veto. Shouldn't you be happy?"

The Prime Minister was led kicking and screaming to give B.C. the veto. I remind the government there is no way he wanted to give B.C. the veto. It is not so much that B.C. wanted that veto; it was to appease the rest of Canada. It is backfiring.

We heard another member say the Reform Party was in favour of the five regions. Let us set the record straight. We put 20 questions out to be discussed by the people of Canada, not by some high and mighty, so-called little tin god the government thinks it is.

If there are concerns about any part of these 20 questions, please come back to the Reform Party and address these problems. We stand by taking it to the people and letting the people decide what our policy should be. Not one of these becomes policy until passed by our members, not by the elite few like the government members with their policies.

Let us look at what we give up. Under this veto power there will be no change. The status quo will go on forever. One region may decide it is against its best interest or another region will decide it is against its best interest. Therefore nothing will change except the fostering of greater discontent from the Canadian taxpayer's not being able to see change made.

We will not see a centralized government which is what the government is trying to pull here. If anything, it will be torn further apart. We will see the people finally rising up and saying they have had enough of this dictatorial state from a one person government. We will find that people will look at this as a return to the Charlottetown accord, soundly defeated across Canada. Because the accord was defeated, the government will find those back doors

to open this up, bring it forward and pass it into law. It will pay no attention to how that vote went.

The government does nothing to listen to the people. It has no intention of ever listening to the people of Canada. Its members' only intention is to make sure their plates are full of whatever they need to eat, that they are warm, safe and cuddly while their pay cheques comes in on time. That is the only concern I can see that the Liberal government has ever thought about in the last two years.

Look at their vision. The Liberals say they have a great vision, a vision of a united Canada. All Canadians have that vision. It might come as a shock to the government, but it does not really have to go out and sell that. It has to be honest to the Canadian people. It must tell them exactly what it is giving to the separatist government in Quebec. People will understand. The government is selling them out. It is selling out the Canadian public and making a poor job of it.

These proposals will do nothing to promote national unity. We sit here every day and listen to the sell, sell, sell idea from the government. I have to admit, some members over there could sell snow in Alaska. They practice very well. They study this: "Be happy, it will not hurt". However, every time one of these things is implemented it hurts. The Liberals will come back in about six months and say: "We did not realize there was any concern. Nobody told us there was any concern". That is their standard answer on anything they do.

We came back here thinking we still lived in a democratic country. No, we do not. When governments can put time closure it is no longer a democracy.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 12th, 1995]

Be honest for a change.

[Hmcs Calgary, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian military performed a miraculous rescue at sea recently when five air crew aboard an aging Sea King helicopter rescued 30 people from a sinking cargo vessel during a raging mid-Atlantic storm.

Thirty times during that terrible storm, Master Corporal Rob Fisher was lowered on to the heaving deck of the bulk carrier Mount Olympus , epitomizing the best traditions of brave men in fearful conditions.

Piloting that chopper was Captain Dan Burden, a 36-year old naval officer from Salmon Arm in my riding of Okanagan-Shuswap, where he attended elementary and high schools and where his proud parents, James and Norene Burden, still make their home.

Captain Burden recently spent six months in the Persian Gulf. Over Christmas he plans some r and r with his wife Catherine, four-year old son Alexander and infant daughter Elizabeth.

I ask the House to join me in congratulating the Canadian Navy and especially the officers and crew of HMCS Calgary for their heroic efforts.

[Employment Insurance Act, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I ask members on the other side if they really think the people out there, the taxpayers, the working people, the people who have to give up their home lives in order to support the government, do not know what is going on. I think they know full well what is going on. The government will have to answer to them in a few years, unfortunately. In Canada that is what it takes, years and years of trial and error.

Here is another example of government regulations. The cost of logging on the British Columbia coast has gone from $67 per cubic metre in 1992 to over $100 per cubic metre today. Does government, federal and provincial-we might as well throw it in because it is one and the same-forget these people have to be competitive in the world market in order to sell their product? I think it does. When jobs shut down, when companies shut down we have unemployment.

It is nice to sit here and talk about how concerned we are for the Canadian people as we chase their jobs out through regulations, through overtaxation. We can sit here and pat ourselves on the back and say what a wonderful country we have. It really makes one wonder what a wonderful country we have.

We have a government that does not know how to live within its means. It can only raise taxes in order to survive. It says "this is a big deal, we are cutting here. The employee will not have to pay as much". It forgets it jacked the prices up for two years running. It jacks them up 7 cents and cuts back 5 cents. It is a five-year increase no matter how one looks at it. However, the government thinks we will overlook it because of the 5-cent reduction. People have a long memory and the government will have to answer to them at the next election.

[Employment Insurance Act, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to oppose Bill C-111 because I see this as the government playing political football with the UI system.

I had the opportunity recently of doing a householder questionnaire in my riding with regard to UI. Out of 1,110 replies, 608 said the government should get out of UI and turn the entire program over to joint management, as it is already being funded by employers and employees.

I have to go along with that when I look at the cost of administering the unemployment act today: $1.2 billion taken right off the backs of the working people. It is too unmanageable.

If there are concerns in terms of the unemployment insurance program, it should be left up to the people who are contributing directly to it, the workers and the employers, not the government. This government, along with the other governments, has done absolutely nothing with regard to correcting unemployment.

Out of that survey, 436 or 39 per cent said to tighten up and streamline the existing programs; 675 said to give employers and employees greater say in how it is run; 633 said to have the same qualifying period across Canada and forget all these differences; 628 said to shorten the period people can collect; 608 said to establish a separate fund for fishermen outside of the UI program; 569 said there should be a longer qualifying period but only 369 or 33 per cent out of 1,110 said to lower the amounts people can collect.

From this survey there seems to be a widespread awareness with regard to seasonal workers. In my constituency there are a number of seasonal workers in agriculture, tourism and forestry. These are the three biggest areas in my constituency. These are the three biggest contributors to the UI program. They see nothing here that would do anything to help that situation in order to collect.

Families are hard pressed in Canada today. We look at what is going on. We wonder what has really happened here. We have forced both parents out into the work world in order to pay rising taxes. We have lost the total concept of family unity because of government policies.

I regard this tax grab by the government as just another policy, another penalty to put on the working people, another way to keep the government satisfied with the way it lives and not the way the working people of Canada have to live.

Why are so many people unemployed? What has the government been doing for two years? This is the question out there. We can

talk to educated people coming out of our universities. They are the people looking for work. What has the government done? Its fancy spin doctors put in all kinds of things they have done, this and that, but the bottom line is the unemployment level is still there and the people on welfare are still there.

There is a mine waiting to come into production in northern B.C. It is called Kemess. There has been a large amount of money spent on the exploration work of this mine. There are a lot of people waiting, a lot of jobs waiting. They went through the whole scenario, through the provincial jurisdictions. They went to every office they had to go to.

The province passed the environmental part of it. It passed everything. It signed off. It told these people to go ahead. Now comes the federal government. Here comes this caring, sharing, worrying federal government. It says: "We checked this lake out and there are nine pair of bull trout and so this mine cannot go ahead". Five hundred jobs this caring, sharing government has put on hold; $350 million. It means nothing to the people in the House sitting over there. Do we really have much faith in any program regarding unemployment which the government can bring in? I think not.

Where has industry gone? What has happened to our jobs? We spend too much. The government spends too much so it has to raise taxes. When we raise taxes we drive industry out. When we drive industry out we have high unemployment.

We listened to the government. It made promises in its beautiful fancy red book. It was presented on a platter for the people to look at so they could judge the government. This was before the election. It mentioned the GST. The GST has hit employers something fierce. They spend a lot of their time after hours trying to collect taxes for the government while not getting paid for it.

They have no more holidays like they used to have. Again it takes away one or both from the family so the government can feed off the taxpayer. The government promised it was to get rid of the GST. Liberals stood on the platforms all across the country. They swore to the people out there because they wanted their votes. They said the GST will be gone within two years. If I remember correctly the Deputy Prime Minister offered to resign; another unkept promise and the GST is still there.

The big fear now is maybe the Liberals will try to introduce something else twice as expensive. They say they will change the name: UI to EI, unemployment insurance to employment insurance. I ask the hon. members on the other side, what is the cost to the taxpayer of the government's changing a lousy name in order to introduce this?

Why could you not still call it unemployment insurance and make your changes, because one of you wanted to get a little star on a book beside your name? That will cost us another million dollars or so. You think people out there are stupid. They are not stupid. They know exactly what you are doing.

[Petitions, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table two petitions today, both on the same subject concerning the taxation of native Indians. The petitioners also ask Parliament to halt land claim negotiations and ensure that one and the same law applies equally to all Canadians.

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting that it has taken the hon. member for North York two years to figure out that there are separatists sitting in the House. I congratulate him.

Since the change in government in Quebec has unemployment gone up that drastically? From her speech I take it that it is running rampant in Quebec under the separatist government.

I have listened to members opposite saying what a good job the government has done in addressing the unemployment problem. All the investigations I have done indicate that the greatest employment has been created through patronage appointments.

There are two different seats of power in the country. I have not seen much of a difference in the unemployment rates. Young people in Canada are still searching for jobs. That has not been addressed. They say this tinkering will help. Since I have been here in Parliament I have noticed that when the government tinkers with programs, usually the situation gets worse.

My question to you is: What is the unemployment rate now in Quebec and what was it before the separatist government took over?

[Questions Passed As Orders For Returns, December 4th, 1995]

For each of the fiscal years 1992-93 and 1993-94, which groups received the ten largest amounts in federal grants for multiculturalism, and what were the amounts?

Return tabled.

[Fur Industry, November 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is not as if this is a new problem. The European Union now buys about 75 per cent of Canadian fur.

Will the Minister of International Trade explain what action he is taking to broaden the market for Canadian wild fur and reduce our dependence on the European buyers?