Ted White

[Aboriginal Affairs, October 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, barely 60% of the Nisga'a themselves voted in favour of the Nisga'a treaty. The fisheries minister should abandon his name calling for a while and ask the Nisga'a why they voted against it.

The fact is that the absence of land ownership rights is a major flaw in the Indian Act and the Nisga'a deal. Hundreds of band members from the Squamish reserve in my riding have come to tell me that the lack of land ownership is the single biggest impediment to self-sufficiency for aboriginal people in Canada.

How can the government support a treaty that works against individual property rights and that has been completely rejected for that reason by some of the Nisga'a and the Liberal Party of B.C.?

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

One of my colleagues on this side says that there may be is a snap election election coming. It is interesting that he says that because I notice Bill C-2, which is pretty much a replacement for Bill C-83, which was introduced just before we broke for the summer and ended the first session, contains an extra couple of clauses that were not in Bill C-83. Those clauses deal with the registration of and reporting of parties prior to June 2000 if the bill is passed before then.

When I read those clauses, I just wondered if some sort of quick election was being planned and the government wants to make sure that certain things are in place by June of next year. It is interesting that my colleague mentioned that. I am not sure if he read those clauses but that was certainly there.

Even the debate we are having this morning is an affront to democracy. The House leader stood and talked about the democratic process and how he supports it. However the debate we are having now is an affront to democracy. We do not get to ask any questions of any speaker on the government side. We get the opportunity to put up four people, 10 minutes each, no questions and comments, have a vote that the government side will win and it is rammed into committee.

We have all been here long enough to know exactly what will happen behind closed doors. We are all adults. The bill will be rammed through clause by clause with no meaningful input. It will be back here in the House again in its final form. That is just not good enough.

I would urge the minister, if he truly believes in what he said this morning, to permit the bill to have a thorough investigation in committee and to permit meaningful amendments. The one which I will propose will surely not be too controversial. It is simply to build in the opportunity for the chief electoral officer to investigate and experiment with electronic voting. Since that has been in the Elections Act in Ontario for three years there is no reason it should not be in the federal act.

I look forward to being in committee. I also look forward to a meaningful debate once the bill is back in the House.

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is a shame that we would not get the chance right at the beginning of this debate to ask the minister a few questions. It would help clarify the issues. Even if we all had to give up a half minute of our time, it would have helped to focus the debate.

The practice of referring bills to committee prior to second reading frankly is nothing more than a way for the government to fast track legislation that it really does not want the public and the media to get a good handle on.

I know that I am not allowed to use props, but we are looking at a bill that is 253 pages thick. This bill was introduced last Thursday in the House by the minister and just a few days later he wants to ram it into committee behind closed doors where the public and the media cannot see it. It is so full of objectionable stuff that he does not want anyone in the real world to catch on to what is happening.

The government House leader is denying the public and the media the opportunity to hear a meaningful debate of the extensive provisions in the bill before it goes to committee. How are the public and interested parties going to get enough information about this bill to come to committee and make meaningful comments, answer questions and suggest amendments when they are not going to know the bill is here?

The reality of the situation is that when this bill disappears later today after the vote into committee, nobody except a few special interest groups—and if they can get a few talk show hosts or media commentators to talk about it—will know it even exists. That is an absolutely appalling situation for such a comprehensive piece of legislation.

In the six years I have been in the House I have seen very few pieces of legislation that have been this thick. One of them would be the gun control bill, Bill C-68, some years ago. Look how long that bill took to move through the House. Here we have something that is going through in a flash.

If I had had the opportunity a few minutes ago, I would have asked the minister a couple of questions in connection with the Communist Party of Canada challenge to the elections act and the number of members that constitute a party. Why is it that the government House leader is so concerned that the Communist Party of Canada or the Green Party of Canada might actually have its party name on the ballot? What is the minister so afraid of that he wants to reinstate a rule that requires 50 candidates for a group to be labelled as a party? Why on earth is there anything wrong with two, three or 10 people getting together and saying they would like to be the such and such party and have their name printed on the ballot? Is the House leader so afraid of competition that he cannot stand the thought that some other credible group might actually be on the ballot?

If we look at Germany or New Zealand, both of which have mixed member proportional systems in their elections, or any other country that has a proportional element in its electoral system, there are up to 35 parties on the ballot. Yet the voters in those countries seem perfectly capable of making sensible decisions about which parties to elect and which to reject.

Why would the government House leader believe that Canadian voters are too stupid to make those same decisions? Surely when he stood there and argued that the final decision should be that of the Canadian voter, why does he not let them make that decision? Put anybody's name on the ballot, anybody who wants to apply under the rules and pay the candidate deposit. Let them put whatever name they want on the ballot and let the voters decide. I certainly believe that voters are sensible and smart enough to make that decision themselves.

Another question I would have asked the minister is in connection with patronage which riddles like a web the field operations of Elections Canada. Elections Canada has begged the government for years to remove the patronage provisions from the elections act. When Elections Canada advises third world governments and emerging democracies how to set up their electoral systems, it never recommends the system that is used here in Canada of political patronage in all of the field positions of Elections Canada.

The registered parties get to appoint returning officers, deputy returning officers and polling clerks. A whole host of people get paid positions as rewards for supporting the government or other parties. Elections Canada has begged for the right to hire and fire on merit. The government will not give it the right because it suits the government to reward political supporters.

The government House leader mentioned that he is going to give ROs the right to vote. We all know right now because of the patronage appointments that the ROs are all Liberals. I guess they must be afraid they do not have enough votes already so they have to claw in every single vote they can get.

In terms of third party spending, I heard the government House leader quote extensively from a decision of the court in Quebec because he really did not want to take any notice of the decisions in Alberta. It amuses and puzzles me that the government is prepared to ignore court decisions in B.C. that allow child pornography to run rampant. The government is quite prepared to ignore court decisions that endorse race based fisheries, but it rushes quickly to block any tiny little court decision that might diminish its advantage in elections, such as the 50 candidate rule and the third party expenses. It wants to retain the patronage. It pays lip service to democracy but its actions speak a lot louder than its words.

I mentioned the size of the bill. We have already started to contact a few parties, groups and individuals who have shown interest in the bill. We have not even been able to send them copies of the bill until yesterday by courier.

The minister wants to appear before committee as early as this Thursday. How can we expect it to be reasonable for interested people in the country, who may or may not have legal training, to go through 253 pages of a complicated bill, work out the implications for their group or part of society, prepare submissions, apply to come to Ottawa and transport themselves here by Thursday or maybe next week?

When the committee begins discussions on the timetable for the bill, I hope it will show some reasonable consideration for those outside this place who are interested and who would like to come here as witnesses and talk about the provisions in the bill. I hope the committee will have a realistic timetable that will perhaps extend into the spring of next year. I do not see why we should rush through on something as complicated as this bill.

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In the spirit that has been shown by the government House leader, I wonder if the House would give unanimous consent to question the minister for five minutes.

[Refugees, October 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, more than 10 years ago the Tory MP at the time, Chuck Cook, called a meeting to discuss immigration at the 800 person capacity Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver. So many people came to express their dissatisfaction with Canada's sloppy refugee processing system that hundreds had to be turned away at the door.

Within a couple of years of that meeting Chuck Cook was privately telling voters in North Vancouver that the only way to get the laws changed would be to vote Reform in the next election.

How right he was. More than 10 years later, even though the solicitor general's department has now confirmed that Canada's sloppy immigration system has turned us into a haven for organized crime, absolutely nothing has been done to address these problems. The present minister sends out meaningless form letters to the concerned Canadians who are contacting her on this issue, and Chuck Cook's truth of 10 years ago remains the truth today. The only way the system will ever be changed is when people vote Reform.

[Prostate Cancer, May 31st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday Mr. Jim Pattison, perhaps B.C.'s most well known and respected entrepreneur, pledged $20 million to help fund the Vancouver prostate cancer research team headed by Dr. Larry Goldenberg. The team also includes Dr. Martin Gleave who helped me with the Prostate Cancer Awareness Day for MPs which was held on the Hill in March 1998.

Thanks to the dedication of professionals like Dr. Goldenberg and the generosity of Jim Pattison, work on finding a cure for prostate cancer can proceed in Canada at a level that was previously only dreamed about.

The fact remains, though, that Mr. Pattison pledged more funding for prostate cancer research in one afternoon than the health minister has promised over five years, even though prostate cancer kills as many men as breast cancer kills women.

In the light of last Wednesday's announcement, I urge the minister to revisit his medical research priorities list and to significantly increase funding for prostate cancer research.

[Petitions, May 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, this petition is on behalf of my constituent Bryan Thirsk and 81 other constituents from North Vancouver who are concerned about the child pornography ruling that came out recently in B.C. They are petitioning the House to do all things necessary to rectify the problem by legislation instead of allowing it to persist. Mr. Thirsk gave me this petition because he had previously sent it to the minister asking for it to be presented and that has not been done.

[Petitions, May 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the first petition I am presenting is on behalf of some constituents of my colleague the hon. member for Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan.

Mr. Hans Karlow and 29 others of Oliver, B.C. have drawn the House's attention to their concerns about the Cassini space mission. The plans are to execute a slingshot manoeuvre around the earth to give the spaceship the speed necessary for its trip to Saturn, but the spaceship has onboard 72.3 pounds of plutonium. The petitioners are concerned about the high risk of an incident which would expose the earth to catastrophic radioactive fallout.

The petitioners call upon parliament to support the UN General Assembly resolution as outlined in an emergency resolution of February 24, 1999 CRC.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1999, May 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the debate today has been fairly wide ranging. We are discussing the Budget Implementation Act for the 1999 budget and in particular the Bloc motion that refers to the speed at which the government dispenses money.

For the first time in a long time I have heard the Bloc arguing that the government is dispensing money too quickly. That is usually something Reformers are arguing in spades. In fact, part of the reason I rose today was to talk about how the Budget Implementation Act authorizes the finance minister to spend far too much money once again and far too quickly for most people.

A couple of weeks ago we received a rather lengthy document sent out from Heritage Canada telling us about all the spending that has been done at the millennium bureau of Canada. I remember the Prime Minister making the promise in the House a year or so ago that we would not be having a big send up party and nothing left at the end of it.

In looking through the spending at the millennium bureau of Canada I have come to the conclusion that it is an almost unbelievable binge of questionable spending. To me, it looks like a bunch of giveaways that have absolutely nothing to do with leaving us something after the party. I can give some good examples. The folder which came from Heritage Canada had each province in a separate booklet. I made a quick scan through it. It was unbelievable some of the spending that was going on.

The millennium bureau seems quite happy to have been dispensing $145 million on all sorts of crazy projects. The bureau is quite proud of the spending. It is almost guaranteed that the average taxpayer would be appalled at what is going on with the dispensing of money to special interest groups, especially as many of the projects have only the vaguest connection to the start of the new millennium, especially when we consider that the true start of the 21st century is not until December 31 in the year 2000. It is not at the end of this year, it is at the end of next year. Everyone has been caught up in this millennium fever in the wrong year.

I will give some examples of the sort of spending at the millennium bureau which in my opinion and my constituents' opinion is the dispensing of money far too quickly and is a complete waste. It should not have even been in this budget at all.

There are impressive undertakings such as $15,000 to detail the experiences of garment workers in Canada. Tell me how that relates to the millennium. There is $300,000 for concerts featuring a separatist singer; $15,183 for the Apple and Cider Interpretation Centre in Quebec; and $5,333 to build two giant mastodons in Carroll's Corner, Nova Scotia. Any of these projects may be justifiable as standalone projects, but they do not have anything to do with the millennium. They are an excuse to spend money.

I will give a few more examples from B.C. and Ontario in particular. McDonald's Corners/Elphin Recreation and Arts will receive $2,003 to help organize the building of a labyrinth on the grounds of the 1868 McDonald's Corners schoolhouse. They claim that the project will be constructed of willow bushes which grow about two metres annually allowing them to be harvested for use by local artisans, and that this living labyrinth with its roots in earlier millennia will provide lasting effects into the new age. Frankly I am absolutely convinced that the artisans will forget to harvest the willow, so we are going to be on the hook for more grants next year to trim the bushes. Of that I am pretty sure.

There is a really big one in the Vancouver area. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra thinks it would like to break three Guinness world records with a grant of $129,667, almost $130,000. They are going to amass the world's largest collection of musicians to perform O Canada, Beethoven's 9th Symphony and a new work which will reflect the music of the future.

According to the project description “The orchestra along with more than 21,000 students and possibly as many as 40,000 from throughout British Columbia will enjoy a once in a millennium experience”. We can be sure of that because the millennium only comes once in a millennium. Listen to this, Mr. Speaker. This is a project description to justify $130,000. “It will increase their appreciation for music and their self-esteem and over the long term discourage crime, drug abuse and participation in gang violence, a worthy legacy for a new millennium”. That is a quote directly from the project.

Another example, “The Canadian Canoe Museum will steer unerringly into the new millennium”, says the millennium bureau, “with $1,057,933 to develop a new 15,000 square foot exhibit in the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough”. The project summary states, “The travelling and educational exhibits will focus on the canoe as a unifying national symbol that brings Canadians together as we enter the new millennium”.

If members are not yet convinced that these projects are a complete and utter waste of money, let me give another one. The Friends of the Ruins of St. Raphael's will spend its grant of $146,000 on ensuring that the fire gutted ruins of St. Raphael's Church survive as an interpretive site well into the new millennium. This church burned down 30 years ago. I do not know why nobody has rebuilt it but obviously not too many people are interested. For some reason a special interest group has managed to extract $146,000 from taxpayers to ensure that it remains as an interpretive site well into the new millennium.

The Waterfront Trail Artists of Etobicoke are guaranteed not to have any problems with bird droppings in its project. The Flight of Passenger Pigeons, thanks to a $13,614 grant from the millennium bureau, involves only birds made of papier mâché. The project organizers hope to convince, and they still have to do this, 2,000 students from 13 area schools to make life size replicas of the extinct passenger pigeon for display in their schools and public places.

In addition, “those too young to sculpt will draw their passenger pigeons”—sketch them instead—“and have their messages attached to the sculptures, bringing the total number of messages to 4,000”. The project says “the replicas will remind people of the fragility of our environment and the importance of nurturing it in the next millennium”. I suspect that the papier mâché pigeons, once they get a little wet, will gradually disintegrate and the paper will blow all over Etobicoke, Ontario and make a huge mess, probably more than the real passenger pigeons would have made if they were alive today.

This is another big one also in B.C. Unfortunately, some of the big ones have gone to B.C. The Leadership Initiative for Earth will use $599,514 to help finance the building and sailing of a sustainable Lifeship 2000 tall ship. “The life story of every tree used in its construction will be documented”. This is very worthy. I do not how they are going to get the life story of every tree. I know if we cut them in half we can count the rings and that tells us how old they are, but I have never read anything else in there that tells me what they were doing along the way. I am not sure if we are going to get $599,000 worth of action out of that project.

In an absolutely rare display of common sense, the millennium bureau turned down a project that emanated from North Vancouver. It was called the Multicultural Mask experience. It was submitted by Earth Muffin Productions of North Vancouver. I think most of us know what earth muffins are. It was submitted by Earth Muffin Productions but it was turned down mainly because the proposal, and I quote from the turn down letter, “did not demonstrate a sufficient level of support from the community or other financial partners”. I wonder why. I did read about the project and it was appalling.

That is the millennium bureau. It is a big excuse to spend money and is a real example of the waste that is in this budget.

In the last couple of weeks when we have talked about the west, members on the government side still seem to think that throwing money at things is the way to make friends. They keep talking about the western diversification fund and how wonderful it is to throw away hundreds of millions of dollars, as if westerners want money spent on them. They do not. They would get rid of the western diversification fund in return for tax decreases. That is what should have been in this year's budget.

[Supply, April 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I was to use 10 minutes for my speech and 5 minutes for questions and comments.