Ted White

[Division No. 359, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Chairman, could the minister then please give us the lowest hourly rate, the highest hourly rate and the average hourly rate under the old contract?

[Division No. 359, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister could tell us what will be the lower level of the hourly rate, the highest hourly rate and the average hourly rate under the new contract.

[Motions For Papers, March 17th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On January 28, 1999 I submitted a notice of motion P-70 for the production of papers in connection with section 31 of the Elections Act and the Communist Party of Canada.

I took this action after withdrawing a written question on the order paper that had been there for almost a year. The government knows very well of my interest in this subject.

Could the parliamentary secretary give me some idea of exactly how long I have to wait to get the production of papers under P-70?

[Supply, March 16th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned how pleased she was that we have an independent judiciary. The fact is that many of our judiciary are political patronage appointees, especially at the higher levels. They are clearly setting out to accomplish a social engineering agenda and the public does not like it.

As the member mentioned, she can be held accountable by the voters. She has the opportunity to defend her record and to ask her constituents to return her to this place. That is exactly why Reform has suggested a more transparent and open process of appointing judges. There really should be a system that more publicly examines a person who is going to be in a judiciary position so the public can have confidence in that person's ability to be totally independent.

Frankly I think perhaps a lot of the judges like the rule where they cannot defend themselves because they cannot defend themselves. They cannot defend the decisions they make, as being completely out of touch with the community standards.

I have sat in the courts in North Vancouver and I have seen plenty of decisions made that are completely out of touch with the community standards. The people in the court have almost booed at what has been done there. This is a problem that needs to be addressed. It is as if the judges have become desensitized over time because they have seen so much crime in their courts.

I refer the member to the case of New York which had a zero tolerance policy. Taking care of the small things automatically takes care of the big things. If there is a zero tolerance for small crimes, the big crimes do not happen.

Finally, with respect to the aboriginal affairs situation, around 250 Squamish band members have contacted me in relation to Bill C-49. As part of that process a number of them submitted to me budgets of the Squamish band. In one social services part of that band budget which is supposed to look after children, the budget is $1.5 million and almost $900,000 of it is used on administration. The band members are complaining about it because it is not flowing to the people who should be getting the help.

That is the point Reform is making. There is plenty of money in Indian and northern affairs. It is just not getting to the right places.

[Supply, March 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a lot of time telling us about how the government is consulting with this group, that group and the other group. All I can say from my observation of almost six years here in the House is that the Liberal government for all the consultation it has ever done has never taken the slightest bit of notice of the input it receives from ordinary Canadians.

[Supply, March 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about crime decreasing, but youth violent crime has been rising, as I am sure the member knows, particularly among young women. If he doubts that, he can get on the Internet and look up the website for North Shore News . He will find an article within the last two weeks with plenty of statistics for the Vancouver area.

In addition, the member talked about how Citizenship and Immigration Canada strives to protect Canada's borders and to do screening during entry. Yesterday afternoon on Vancouver's top radio station, CKNW, a Mr. Johnston from Citizenship and Immigration Canada was on the line for an hour. I invite the member to call in and get a transcript of the program. He will find out that it is just not so.

Certainly fingerprints of refugee claimants are taken at the port of entry. What happens is that those fingerprints are sent to Ottawa where they are hardly ever checked. During a recent drug arrest in downtown Vancouver when 80 Honduran refugee claimants were arrested for drug trafficking, a local policeman from the Vancouver area took it upon himself to check the criminal records of these claimants. He found that 20% of them had criminal records in the United States. Yet here they were coming into Canada. It is absolute bunkum.

The member would have us believe that things are getting better by talking about how the number of deportations has risen 67%. I am not the least bit surprised. Probably the number of criminals getting into Canada has gone up by at least 67%. If the member doubts it, he needs only to come out west, take a little visit to the Vancouver area and find a dose of reality, what is really happening out there.

[Supply, March 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the speech I noted that the member mentioned some inmates had sued the government because of their exposure to drugs in the prison system.

I am sure the member is familiar with the fact that in downtown Vancouver and on the Vancouver east side the government is also, by its actions, exposing its own citizens to this sort of thing through allowing these criminal drug dealing refugees to come into the country. I am sure everyone in the House has heard about the Honduran drug dealing problem in Vancouver. We have it with Iranian and Chinese refugee claimants as well.

There is frustration among the police trying to deal with up to half of the people arrested every night in Vancouver being illegals trafficking drugs. It is a major problem and certainly places the citizens of Canada at risk.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I remind colleagues what the legislation is about. It is intended to renew the current five year equalization agreement which expires on March 31 of this year. It is a typical example of the government trying to rush things through at the last minute.

Specifically the bill makes technical amendments to the formula that determines equalization payments. It also maintains provincial income tax revenue guarantee payments for provinces that have tax collection agreements with the federal government. The legislation will allow those payments to be continued beyond the end of this month until March 31, 2004.

There would not be any need for equalization payments if the government took a position of encouraging the free market principle, that people will go where the work is, and started to enact policies which reorganized how people function within the country to build a secure future.

I have had people in my own riding say to me it probably would be doing the country a major benefit as a whole if we worked through the House to try to entirely remove the need for equalization payments over a decade or so. The present system that has been in place for 40 years has done absolutely nothing to solve the problems of inequality. It just keeps topping up the money and perpetuates a cycle of dependency, never, ever making things better.

Common sense tells us that if the money were left in the pockets of workers and companies in the provinces of Ontario, Alberta and B.C., which are the have provinces that contribute to everybody else, they would produce much greater economic benefits offering even more jobs and needing even more support services from the have not provinces that presently provide things like dairy products from Quebec and telephone centre services from the maritimes.

This is the same principle as the one which says that a dollar in the hands of an entrepreneur, a parent or somebody who gets to spend it in the private sector will be much more productive for the economy than the same dollar given to government.

Governments unfortunately always waste a portion of the money. They simply shuffle it around in the paperwork and it gets lost. It is quite obvious that maybe they collect a dollar in taxes but that dollar never reaches the recipient it is supposed to get to.

It must be obvious even to the most cerebrally challenged Liberal that some of the money collected in the taxes for the purpose of equalization will be lost. I do not know how much that is, but I would be surprised if it were less than 15%.

Wasting money is the government's special skill. I have an example that was sent to me by one of my constituents, a Mr. Jim Galozo, last week. He came to my office and gave me copies of advertisements that were placed by the federal government in the North Shore News on February 19, 24 and 26. They were full page advertisements that must have cost $10,000 to $12,000 each. There were only a few words on the page: “$11.5 billion more is a real shot in the arm for our health care system” and then “the Government of Canada”. This is a terrible waste of money as identified by my constituent. It is the type of waste of money that we see throughout the government. It is certainly there in the transfer of payments.

I know my constituent, Mr. Galozo, and all my other constituents do not really believe that the waiting lists a year from now will be any shorter than they are today. The problems will still be there.

No wonder B.C. voters get angry over these programs of equalization. All they see is waste and more waste. Frankly it perturbs them and puzzles them how we can be sending money to provinces when they have travelled there and do not see them as have not provinces.

My colleague mentioned Saskatchewan and the richness of what it can do for the economy. B.C. farmers are very disturbed by the fact that they are forced to take butter, cheese and dairy products from Quebec. The B.C. dairy farmers are not allowed to make butter or cheese. There is something wrong with that scenario. Nobody really believes that Quebec is a have not province. These are real problems that need to be addressed.

I see the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration sitting here on one of those rare occasions. She comes in for a lot of criticism in B.C. as well. She shows so little concern for the criminal refugee problem in the province that most people think she might as well be a cardboard cut-out.

The member from Coquitlam has said he has the ear of the Prime Minister, although I wonder when he has it whether it is attached to the Prime Minister. That seems to be a problem as well. While the minister of immigration is here, I hope she will take a serious look at the problems in B.C. which she could address if she really put her mind to it. I can see by the expression on her face that she does not have the slightest intention of doing so. Since we will get absolutely nowhere with the cardboard cut-out, I will continue with the bill that is in hand.

As I mentioned the have not provinces are listed as Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Manitoba. Manitoba will loose about $37 million by the end of the five year term. Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia do not qualify at all as have not provinces, so we are picking up the bill.

Does the government really understand how the people in B.C. feel? I am a member from B.C. and I know that there are other concerns from the other have provinces. Speaking for B.C., does the government really understand how B.C. voters feel when they have to pay enormous amounts of money, billions of dollars to the federal government, only to see it transfer to these other provinces that do not appear to be have not provinces?

British Columbians do not have any problem with assisting provinces that obviously need help to get out of a depressed economic situation. Reform has proposed in the past that the way to correct these economic problems is not to throw money at it the way the Liberals do and have done for 40 years under the equalization program, but to do things that actually stimulate the economy.

For example, in the last parliament the Reform Party proposed that one way this money should be spent is on developing meaningful infrastructure, not on the boondoggle giveaway patronage laden infrastructure the government runs. It would be the type of infrastructure that would, for example, build a freeway from the eastern part of Canada down to Boston. This would start to assist north-south trade.

Last week on one of my flights here I was sitting beside a lady from Halifax. She was telling me how important the amount of tourism from the United States is to her small craft store. I asked her if it would be helpful if there was a decent highway system that ran north-south to encourage tourism. She thought that it would be a great idea to put in a major freeway running through to Boston to get more tourism.

I mentioned earlier about how B.C. farmers are forced to take cheese and butter from Quebec when they are quite capable of making it in their province.

During the last provincial election in Quebec, the leader of the PDQ was on a radio show in Vancouver. The talk show host, Rafe Mair, asked him about his knowledge of transfers to Quebec. That leader of a political party in Quebec, the PDQ, said that Quebec did not get transfers. He had no knowledge of it at all. He did not even know there were equalization payments that came from B.C. and were transferred to Quebec. He seemed to be quite muddled.

In terms of basing equalization payments on the ability of a province to tax, Alberta should get a transfer payment if that is the logic. I wonder what would happen if Alberta tried to introduce a provincial sales tax. Since there is no chance of Alberta ever managing to introduce a provincial sales tax its ability to tax is reduced. Maybe it should be a have not province. The government should add the ability to add a PST to the other criteria on the list for equalization payments.

I would like to repeat that instead of constantly renewing these arrangements where we transfer huge amounts of money from one part of the country to another, we should be looking at ways of breaking the welfare dependency cycle that gets created by these payments. We should look at ways of tough love.

Maybe there should be a 10 year phase-out period where the provinces get their full transfer payments for 10 years but they have to be working on programs that get them off equalization payments. The federal government should do its best to assist them in making that happen.

[Prostate Cancer Research, March 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in the past year, thousands of men and women wrote letters to the Minister of Health asking for more funding for prostate cancer research. Unfortunately instead of acknowledging the efforts of those dedicated people, the minister told a media conference in Vancouver last week that the four Liberal MPs in attendance deserved the credit for the increase in prostate cancer research funding.

The people who worked so hard to make this funding a reality do not appreciate being told that a bunch of Liberal trained seal party hacks made it happen. So I am doing what the minister should have done. I am acknowledging the dedication and resolve of those who successfully lobbied the minister to loosen the purse strings.

To the members of prostate cancer support groups across Canada and on behalf of every Canadian family affected by prostate cancer, I extend a sincere thank you to you for your efforts. It was because of you that more prostate cancer research funding was made available.

[First Nations Land Management Act, March 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the debate we cannot correct wrongs against one set of people by implementing rules or bills which work against another group. With all due respect to those members who are from the Ontario area, I do not think for a moment that they understand the impact this bill will have on our province of British Columbia where about 90% of all of the Indian bands are located. I just do not believe that they understand. Even if they do not understand, can they not look at all the letters of protest from the people who are supposed to be their friends? The Liberal Party of B.C. is opposed to this legislation. Two hundred and sixty Squamish band members in my riding have signed petitions, sent me letters or phoned my office in opposition to this bill. Can these members not at least ask themselves the question that perhaps there is something wrong with this bill?

Three mayors in north and west Vancouver and the union of B.C. municipalities are now opposed to it, contrary to what was said by a member earlier this afternoon who was reading historical material. It was because the union of B.C. municipalities did not understand the implications of the bill.

When some of the mayors started to talk to the UBCM and said what about this and what about that, suddenly they became aware of the implications.

I read from the Vancouver

Sun

of Saturday. There was a major article about this bill in which band members were quoted. Squamish band member Wendy Lockart Lundberg says federal Reform members are the only elected officials who have helped her and other native women concerned about this bill.

Reformers are also the only members who have taken seriously the concerns of the mayors of the municipalities in our region. I have spoken to Liberal members on the other side, a few of them from the Vancouver region. They know the problems with this bill. They have spoken also with the mayors in their areas. Some of them have even been to the meetings of the Musqueam leaseholders. They know this bill is defective. They would like to see it changed and they have told me that they have tried to get that message through to the minister.

It is a shame that the minister is being so obstinate about the bill. I just do not understand why they will not make a few simple amendments to the bill that would make it possible for us to support it. The basic idea of the bill is excellent. Everybody agrees this is the right thing to do, but we cannot have expropriations that do not have to comply with the Expropriation Act.

Elders on the Squamish reserve are afraid that their own chiefs will expropriate their certificates of possession, their right to live in the homes on the reserve. We cannot pass a bill that allows that to happen.

The municipalities are concerned that the land code can be developed in complete isolation of the surrounding communities. That just does not happen at a provincial level. The municipalities of West Vancouver, the district of North Vancouver and the city of North Vancouver must consult with one another. There is no veto power, but when there is a new development they must consult. That is what should be happening in the bill.

I would like to read from a piece which appeared in the North Shore

News

this last Wednesday because it involves the Minister of National Revenue. We just saw the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue stand to support the bill. Yet her boss knows nothing about the bill. He does not understand it.

He met with the three North Shore mayors in North Vancouver just prior to last Wednesday and told them they could appear as witnesses at the committee. The hearings are already done. It is all finished. Here is the minister, from a Vancouver area riding right in the middle of the problems, and he does not know which way is up.

The mayor of West Vancouver, Pat Boname, whose husband ran against the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast as a Liberal, a self-confessed Liberal, a card carrying Liberal, said, as quoted in the Vancouver

Sun

on Saturday, that it was a genuine concern, not a Reform ploy. That is what West Vancouver Mayor Pat Boname said of the mayor's request that the bill be amended to require bands to consult with neighbouring communities before undertaking major development.

The member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast and I organized a meeting in late January with great difficulty. We managed to get Chief Bill Williams to come along and we met with the three mayors. At that meeting the chief indicated that we would be entering a new era of consultation and co-operation.

A week and a half later the chief is on the front page of the North Vancouver newspaper turning sod on a new housing area, 380 housing units. He had not mentioned it a week and a half earlier to the mayor of West Vancouver who has to provide all the policing, ambulance, sewer and water services, all the services that have to be provided. After he said that there would be a new era of consultation he did not even mention it to her when he had the opportunity.

That is why the bill needs a requirement for consultation. It is not a veto. It is just so people know what is going on. The difference between the Burrard band and the Squamish band in my riding disappoints me greatly. The Burrard band has good relationships with the chief. He is very progressive. I have had lunch with him. We get on well. We can talk. We do not agree on anything but we can talk, and that is what it is all about. It is a completely different attitude from that of the Squamish band.

I am terribly disappointed the chief cannot see that the best way to achieve his goals would be to sit down with people and talk about them. The Squamish reserve is probably the most valuable piece of land in the entire country with beautiful views of downtown Vancouver, spectacular views of downtown Vancouver. There is nothing wrong with developing and earning a living from that land and doing what the Squamish band wants to do, but it cannot be done in isolation from the rest of the community.

West Vancouver does not go ahead and build roads and high-rises without talking to neighbouring districts. We do not want that to happen here. We want harmony in the community and the harmony comes from talking together, not from acting as if it is a separate nation. Unfortunately that is the kind of attitude that we are getting.

I would certainly be remiss if I did not recognize people like Marcie Baker from the Squamish reserve and one of the elders, Maizie, who has worked so hard with the people on the reserve. When they first came to my office in December to ask me how parliament worked and about the bill, we provided them with copies and helped them get information about it. How they have worked on that reserve to build the support levels, the understanding, and how they have pleaded with their chief to at least call a meeting to explain the bill. It has never happened. I offered to go down and be part of that meeting. I never had an invitation.

Why is it that we only have letters opposed to the bill? Where are all the letters of government members that are in favour of the bill? Where are their petitions in favour of the bill? How come there are only letters against it? Does that not ask a question? Could there be something wrong here? That comes back to the beginning when I stood.

Supposed friends of the government, the Liberal Party of B.C., oppose the bill. The municipalities of the greater Vancouver area are opposed to it. The leaseholders on the Musqueam reserve and native band members themselves are opposed to the bill. There is something dreadfully wrong with that scenario, especially when the government side cannot produce a single letter or a single petition to support their side, other than from chiefs, often unelected chiefs. They are bulldozing ahead with it.

I will say in closing that I was very impressed with the land code that was produced by the Muskoday, the first exposure that I had to the type of land code that there could be. I would sincerely hope that such a good land code could be adopted in the Vancouver area for the bands that are affected. Unfortunately the present climate is not conducive to the development of that sort of land code. The band members themselves are expressing concern that they will not have the input that they should have.

I would like to ask the government one more time to please slow down, stop for a little while, have some more committee hearings and get some more input before we proceed with what is basically an excellent idea. It just needs a few amendments.