Lost his last election, in 2004, with 36% of the vote.
Points Of Order September 30th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact that the private member's bill introduced earlier today by the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest had previously passed all stages in this House and had been referred to the Senate where it passed all stages, I would like to ask the unanimous consent of the House to deem it to have passed all stages again.
Speech From The Throne September 29th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the member brought up really good questions and I thank him very much for that. He knows very well that most of us, except for one, ran on a platform associated with a party. So the people who voted for us supported the general principles of that party platform.
He also knows very well that his constituents do not support every single plank of that platform. He is far too arrogant to suggest that therefore he has permission to vote a certain way on every single issue that comes up in this House.
There is another problem because, as he also well knows having been here before, there are many issues that come before this House that were never in a party platform and were never part of any policy material. Those especially are the types of issues where he should be very sensitive to the will of those who are paying his salary I remind him.
He says he is actually afraid that I may be serious. I certainly am serious. He is also very concerned that I am using the example of New Zealand for referendums. Of course he completely ignored the fact that the Harris government in Ontario is introducing similar legislation.
In addition to that, we have as a very good example the country of Switzerland which conducts most of its business, at what we would call the equivalent of the federal level, through citizens initiated referendum. Nobody could say that the Swiss are not smart, that their country does not have a high standard of living and that they do not conduct themselves in a civilized manner, but the difference there is that those people who want input to the government truly have input.
Finally I would like to mention that of course many of the issues that come before this House are not issues that all of the constituents are interested in. Many of them are housekeeping items and minor changes and amendments that affect very few people. It is unrealistic to expect people to take part in a referendum process for such issues.
Nevertheless there are many major things, like the Young Offenders Act, capital punishment and various bills that came through here last year on sentencing reforms on which the public should have had more meaningful input. If the committees of this House genuinely reflected the will of the people instead of the political agenda, most of those bills never would have gone through last year.
All I can say again to the member is to please open his eyes and begin reflecting the will of the constituents because the writing is on the wall: the times they are a changing.
Speech From The Throne September 29th, 1997
One of the PC members mentioned that she has heard the same thing.
The public perception of politicians as people who will say anything to get elected and then do whatever they like would disappear if we were truly representing them. Cynicism would be replaced by respect and we would be doing the job that the majority of voters thinks we should be doing. If we ask them they think we should be representing them, not ourselves or a hard party line.
During the summer I collected a folder full of issues brought up in letters and later some phone calls from my constituents. I tend to do this throughout the year. I pick up the issues and bring them to this place so that I can express them on behalf of my constituents.
Unfortunately I will not have time to go through the whole folder today but I can promise members they will hear about it all over the coming weeks. They are issues that I really should not even need to talk about in this place and there would be no need to talk about them if as I mentioned earlier we were truly representing our constituents.
If we had citizens rights to initiative and referendum at the federal level it would make a major difference. For those who always claim that citizens rights to initiative and referendum are not compatible with our style of parliamentary democracy, I say bunkum.
New Zealand which has a similar parliamentary system introduced citizens rights to initiative and referendum in 1990. The Ontario government is in the process of introducing those same rights for Ontario voters. All it takes is the political will. Members will have the chance to see how it can be done at the federal level when I reintroduce my private member's bill on initiative and referendum hopefully next week.
The city of Rossland in B.C. which is just a small city actually stands as an excellent example of how initiative and referendum can work for citizens. It really cleans up the politics. Prior to the introduction of citizens initiative in Rossland in 1991, four mayors had been tossed out of office in consecutive elections and councillors were being replaced all the time. It was very chaotic.
Since citizens initiative and referendum power was introduced not a single council member or mayor has been voted out of office because the constituents have been able to concentrate on the issues and the council and mayor carried out the wishes of the constituents. They voted themselves some tax increases for repairs to the community as well as voted against some other things.
In the absence of the tools of direct democracy in this place we really remain captive to the will of the prime minister. Unfortunately that means Canadians will have virtually no input to this place over the next few years.
Canadian voters will probably be stuck with the same inadequate justice system which has degenerated under the old line parties into little more than a legal system incapable of protecting them from criminals. Canadian voters will probably be stuck with an immigration system incapable of preventing the entry of hundreds of bogus and criminal refugees every day, also incapable of deporting the offenders after years of taxpayer funded appeals. I wonder how many members know that there are more than 30,000 illegals under deportation order in this country right now.
Canadian voters will probably be stuck with the Liberals embarking on a special interest group spending spree wasting money on the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council while they claw back seniors pensions and increase the CPP premiums for workers. Canadian voters will probably be stuck with higher and ever increasing taxes that eat away at their disposable income and kill jobs. Canadian voters will probably be stuck with record levels of political patronage using their tax dollars and borrowing against their children's futures.
They will probably be stuck with the ongoing Liberal social engineering programs which assign rights, privileges and money based on race or gender instead of on achievement or equal opportunity; state sanctioned racism and sexism completely out of touch with the realities of the marketplace.
In a way it is depressing. But in a way it is also invigorating because it will give me the opportunity over the next few years along with my colleagues to speak about these problems in this place. In my role as the direct democracy critic for Reform I will continue to apply pressure for change in this place, changes which would make it more effective and deliver real value for those who pay our salaries.
A strong sense of the need for change was reflected in the results of a vote held here last Monday. I hope there is sufficient resolve to carry that feeling through into meaningful changes as the business of this House progresses.
Speech From The Throne September 29th, 1997
It amuses the members opposite as much as it thrilled my supporters on the night of the election.
I would like to repeat my sincere thanks to my constituents for acknowledging and supporting the style and type of representation that I gave them in the 35th Parliament. I will certainly try to do even better in the 36th.
The victory was sweet because apart from the Liberal campaign that was run in the riding of York South—Weston in an attempt to unseat the sitting member there, I would say that the campaign run by the Liberals in my riding was probably one of the dirtiest and sleaziest in recent history. I do have to mention this to lead into my attack on the parliamentary system if we can call it that.
The Liberal candidate was personally endorsed by the prime minister and he launched into a litany of vicious personal attacks, innuendoes and mud slinging which detracted completely from the issues. The entire campaign turned into a personality thing distressing a lot of people.
My wife and many of the emotionally sensitive people in my campaign were in tears on a daily basis. If any other members were subject to that sort of abuse in a campaign they will appreciate that it is not a very nice way to go. My mother who is 84 years old had come from New Zealand thinking that it was going to be a joyous, happy campaign and she was reduced to sobbing her heart out on the first night that she was here.
As a public figure I am used to the criticism from political opponents. However it has often struck me that those who claim to have the monopoly on tolerance, compassion and understanding turn out to be the least tolerant, compassionate and understanding as they attempt to force through their agenda. The voters of North Vancouver could see through that and they gave the prime minister exactly what he deserves, a Reform representative from North Vancouver and a loyal official opposition from the rest of Canada.
One other thing. He can no longer call us the third party. Some of my constituents are waiting to see if he will use that label for the Bloc. I just have to mention that.
Election campaigns are about power. They are not really about democracy. They are about power for political parties at any cost. As new members in the House will soon learn, this House is not a place for the most part where we carry out the will of the people.
It is unfortunately the place where government members almost always obediently vote the will of the prime minister. And that is not because they always support what is being put in front of them, but because the consequences of voting against the government are so serious. Whether to stick to a principle or to represent constituents, the member for York South—Weston whose achievement in being re-elected to the House as an independent I admire, certainly knows the consequences of standing up for a principle. Sadly what happened to him I believe will act as a strong disincentive for government members to defy or even mildly depart from the instructions of their whip.
Nevertheless we do desperately need some reforms to the workings of this place, reforms that will make it a place of the people rather than a place of the parties. If each and everyone of us perhaps being guided by the general principles and polices of the party had been elected as independents with a mandate to vote the majority will of the constituents, this place could actually turn out to be useful to the average Canadian instead of being an overtaxing, overregulating, overinterfering hindrance to their lives. In fact some of my constituents have made the comment that they think the country runs better when we are not in session.
Speech From The Throne September 29th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your appointment to your position as Deputy Speaker, an exciting, stimulating position during these speeches.
I would like to take this discussion in the direction of parliamentary reform and the lack of mention of it in the throne speech. I would first like to lead into that with a little story.
On the evening of June 2 this year when it was clear that I had won my riding with an 11 per cent increase in support, I stood in front of my supporters and I thanked them very much for their assistance. One other thing I said to them was that I could not wait to get back to the House so that I could stand here and look at the prime minister and say “I'm back”. And here I am, his worst nightmare.
Before I get right into the nitty-gritty of my first speech—
Prostate Cancer September 25th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among Canadian men, with an estimated 80 men being diagnosed every working day. Its incidence is 40 percent greater than that of breast cancer and only lung cancer kills more men than does prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer, because it strikes one man in eight, is, like breast cancer, a serious disease which affects huge numbers of Canadian families. Yet prostate cancer, which kills 4,000 men each year, was ignored in the government's throne speech. It continues to receive just one-ninth of the funding of breast cancer research and one-fiftieth of the research money given to AIDS.
September is prostate cancer awareness month so let us begin adequately funding prostate cancer research, not at the expense of funding for other cancer research, but at least to the same levels. We owe it to ourselves, our families and our constituents.
Election April 23rd, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan just issued a householder claiming that the Reform Party has been urging the government for three months to have an election. He should have been paying attention because the Reform has been asking why we are having an election.
Surely the Prime Minister does not think he can win based on the conditional sentences bill or his section 745 lack of action or his refusal to do anything with the Young Offenders Act. Is he calling an election because Aline Chrétien told him to do it now? If he is, could he please give me her phone number so I can call and ask her why we are doing this?
Budget Implementation Act, 1997 April 22nd, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the member from the Bloc mentioned that the time for deficit control was over, that deficit control was no longer the issue.
With all due respect to the member, in starting my speech today I really feel that is a bit of an irresponsible attitude to take toward the deficit. At $19 billion, and maybe it will get down to $10 billion, it is a little muddled about where the figures actually are, what an irresponsible attitude.
It still adds $10 billion to the $600 billion that the federal government now owes. The way to get meaningful job creation is not to have that deficit balloon upwards. That could easily happen anyway if interest rates go up two or three percentage points. Our deficit could easily balloon right back over $20 billion or $25 billion per year.
We really must get that deficit under control first. We have to start running surpluses. Perhaps the hon. member who spoke before me and maybe many members of this House have had no direct business experience. However, speaking as a business person on behalf of my colleagues in Reform, many of whom are business people with business experience, the way to create jobs is to get taxation down.
When a business' taxes are lower, when its employees' taxes are lower, both the business and the employees have more disposable income. When the business has more disposable income it is easy to reinvest and to create new jobs, to expand, to advertise. That is how jobs are created.
In addition, when the employees have more disposable income because their taxes are lower, they spend money on furniture, on cars and vacations, extra treats that maybe they would not have had before. This stimulates growth in the economy. It causes businesses in turn to reinvest the money that they have. That means massive job creation and that is the way to job growth. It is not by having the government spend money to create short term jobs, as it did with the infrastructure boondoggle where the auditor general calculated that each job created cost us something like $75,000. What a terrible waste of taxpayer money.
We could have used that infrastructure money to help pay down the debt. Then we would be closer to tax reductions and meaningful jobs.
A colleague of mine from the Reform Party, the member for Yorkton-Melville, brought in a private member's bill recently, Bill C-361, in which he proposed that there should be a people's tax form. The bill was called the people's tax form act.
The member proposed that when people fill out their income tax, in the income tax envelope there should be a one page questionnaire inviting opinions about specific major programs.
I suspect that defenders of the status quo would find three objections to the people's tax form act. First, they would say that too few people would be willing to fill it out. Second, too many people would fill it out and create too much work. Third, citizens do not know what they are talking about and should keep their noses out of the government's business. I do not suppose we will ever really know what the citizens think. I am certain the government would not have supported the bill anyway.
In the experiment that was run by my colleague in his riding, the overwhelming results from the 500 people who returned the questionnaires were that the federal programs endorsed in one form or another were the ones that all four major parties in this House support. They are old age security, health care, justice, the RCMP, the Canada pension plan, debt reduction, veterans pensions, universities, natural resource development, environmental protection and practical research.
Then there are the ten most strongly opposed programs. The budget we brought in last year could have dealt with them and saved taxpayers a bundle of money. The ten most strongly opposed expenditures were all the fat little Liberal pet ponies: official bilingualism, subsidies for special interests, gun registration, for-
eign aid, multiculturalism, that National Film Board, subsidies for business, subsidies for sports, Indian affairs and the CBC.
There are themes that are noticeable here. People want to retain public security for those who cannot afford it themselves. We have an obligation to help those who need our assistance. They want government to encourage but not interfere in the marketplace.
Unfortunately we cannot seem to convince this government to take a more businesslike approach to the running of government. The policies of this government really do affect the average person on the street quite dramatically.
I received a letter last week from a constituent by the name of Ms. Munday: "I am a registered nurse, so every year I am charged GST on my registration fee and every year I have to waste time on the telephone getting through to the income tax office to send me a GST rebate form". She describes in detail the process, the hassles, the number of hours she wastes to have a form sent out to her which she needs every year. She has made a suggestion which I hope the Minister of National Revenue will hear. Surely the revenue collection department can get its act together well enough to send out the appropriate form with the tax forms it sends to her every year, knowing that she will need them.
I am sure the minister will act on that suggestion, but the underlying theme of the letter is that if we did not have the GST there would not be a need for this lady to fill out the form every year. The whole exercise of filling out the form to get the rebate is a waste of taxpayer money.
There are a number of people involved in creating the refund and their time is not being used productively. First the tax has to be collected. It has to be processed and banked. Then a form has to be sent off to this lady, after hours of negotiation on the telephone. Then she has to fill it out using her time. It has to be mailed and processed again. Then there has to be a print run on stationery paid for by the people. It goes back to her. It gets processed through her bank account and out of the government account again. It is a wasteful process and the amounts can be very small. I am sure in many cases the amounts are extremely small. It must be a tremendously unproductive and costly exercise.
There are places in the House of Commons where we could save a lot of money and cut the deficit significantly. For example, a couple of weeks ago I brought to the attention of the House an issue concerning the heritage committee. It was proposing to spend about $214,000 for a travel junket around the country to define Canadian culture. Defining Canadian culture? It is like trying to define what makes a cat a cat or what love is. What a ridiculous thing to be wasting money on.
The heritage committee was not very happy with me. I know that because the chairman circulated a memo with a copy of my speech and complained bitterly about me at the subsequent committee hearing. Of course he did not invite me to the hearing. I found out about it by accident when I read the transcript.
I am glad the election will interfere with the plans of that committee. It will save taxpayers about $214,000. I give notice to the committee that if it regenerates the plan after the election I will ensure it gets plenty of publicity.
In terms of whether the government takes any notice of taxpayers desire to get rid of some of the waste, I saw a very interesting article in a local newspaper. It appeared in the February 24 edition of the Vancouver Sun . It was about a gentleman who decided he had a problem with the finance minister. He discovered that the finance minister had an E-mail address. He promptly sent off an E-mail. He received a personal reply, in both official languages, with a ``thank you for taking the time''. It went on to say that this would be the only reply he would receive because of financial constraints.
He was particularly impressed with the E-mail, noting that he had sent it at 1800 hours Vancouver time, nine o'clock at night Ottawa time, and within five minutes of sending it he had received the reply. He thought "my goodness, we have a lot of very overworked public servants in Ottawa in the finance minister's office answering E-mail at five after nine at night".
He thought that a bit suspicious. Right away he sent another E-mail on a totally different topic and he received the same E-mail message five minutes later, in both official languages, thanking him once again for his opinion and saying that this was the only reply he would get because of financial constraints.
More than a tad suspicious, he sent a third message to the finance minister which consisted entirely of "fuzzy-wuzzy was a bear, fuzzy-wuzzy had no hair". Five minutes later, sure enough, he received the same answer again, in both official languages, saying that this was the only reply he would receive because of financial constraints.
This is a very good example of how taxpayers' money is being wasted on meaningless responses to concerned taxpayers. The government has no intention of taking their input seriously.
I have another letter that was sent to me by a constituent who had written to the Prime Minister. This constituent received an answer from the Prime Minister's office dated March 27, 1997. This concerns input into the budget process. It reads:
Dear Mr. Campbell:
On behalf of the Prime Minister, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence of March 16 regarding.
Yours sincerely, Jill Bowerman, Special Assistant.
They forgot to even put in the topic. It just ends.
This is probably another example of nobody having read the input or could care less about the input from this person. He was sending suggestions about the budget process and received a standard form letter where the person answering even forgot to plug in the topic.
If there was a little bit more direct democracy in our system the people in this place would care a bit more about taking notice of the input they got on bills like this budget bill that is before the House. They would be concerned that the people would have power, if there was more direct democracy, to change the laws.
I will give an example. An article appeared in the Financial Post of Wednesday, April 9 about California's affirmation action ban being upheld. Members may know about the controversial proposition 209, which was put forward in California a few months ago to get rid of the affirmative action programs in California. They had distorted, with discriminatory practices, the job marketplace in California showing preference to specific groups not based on their skills but because they could fit into certain boxes. It so outraged the people of California when they could see the unfair distortions that were created by these programs that they started proposition 209. They were successful in overturning this politically correct legislation that had been introduced by their politically correct legislators. On a court challenge, the result of that proposition was upheld.
What a wonderful victory for taxpayers when they can take their legislators to task in that way and get rid of legislation which they see as improper that has been foisted on them because legislators think they know what is best for them.
The pressure for change to give more meaningful input to bills like this is building all around the world. There was an article in the Hill Times a week ago headed ``polls show that Britons have a clear desire to radically change Parliament and the voting process''. It is quite an interesting article and is very easy to obtain here on the Hill. I would recommend to all members to get a hold of it.
The article mentions that the British show a readiness for radical change in their system of government. Keep in mind that they are way ahead of us anyway. They permit free voting in the House of Commons. It is a commonly observed process for members to be voting on opposite sides. Yet they are still showing a desire to see even more change and more input into the process.
Specifically there is a strong and accelerating dissatisfaction with Parliament and the parliamentary system, but interestingly enough not with the local MPs. People feel that the local MPs listen to their concerns and perhaps even take them to Parliament. Much as happens in this place, the concerns can be expressed here but they end up falling into a big black hole and disappear.
Every day we present petitions, sometimes tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of names. I remember just after we came to this House after the election of 1993, Reform proposed that we have one day a month where we debate the major petitions so that we could get the government's position on these things. Our idea was defeated.
These petitions still, to this day, get presented and then just go down to the vault in the basement. I do not know if any member has been down there to see the petitions that are stored from the turn of the century. Can anyone imagine the millions of names that are down there on petitions asking for things and the government has never taken any notice? There really is no democratic part to the process. It really is a great shame.
Because of the lack of democracy, we get the type of examples I gave where letters remain unanswered, E-mails are answered with meaningless text and we get government dispensing money without requesting permission from the taxpayers.
The premier of Alberta has introduced legislation to make it necessary for the government to get permission from taxpayers to increase tax rates. What a wonderful sign that we are actually starting to get some improvements in the democratic process. What a radical idea, that taxpayers might actually be able to tell the government not to increase taxes. I congratulate the premier for doing that. I also congratulate the Ontario premier for seriously considering the introduction of meaningful initiative and referendum legislation to give the people the power to direct the government in the way it spends their money.
There are certainly plenty of things we could do with direction here in spending taxpayers' money. The government has handed out vast sums of money to Bombardier. I have a letter from another constituent, Mr. Currie, that is dated March 27. It is actually addressed to the member for Waterloo. My constituent says: "On March 21 in reply to a question from the member for North Vancouver regarding Bombardier's apparent use of a federal grant of $97 million to increase its reported profit by $93 million-"
Bombardier reported a profit of $93 million last year but it received a federal grant for $97 million so it is very easy to see where its bottom line came from. I asked a question of the member for Waterloo about that. The member replied that it was a perfect example of a critical investment in research and development and that it was money we would get back with interest.
Three days later, on March 24, Bombardier announced it was moving its production of the Sea-Doo water craft to Benton, Illinois. After receiving $97 million from the federal government, it promptly closed down a plant and put 165 employees out of work. Adding 165 people to Canada's unemployment roll hardly seems like an investment we will get back with interest. The $97 million might have been better spent on transfers to the provinces to offset their increasing health care costs.
That raises an interesting point because the Liberals claim to be the only party-I have seen it in advertisements-that can be trusted to preserve quality universal health care. The fact is the Liberals have cut more than $7 billion from transfers to the provinces in support of health care and social programs.
During the 1993 election campaign, in response to public input, Reform's zero in three plan to balance the budget specifically exempted health care transfers and transfers in support of higher education from any cuts. It was in the plan because people had told us that those two items were their highest priorities. The Liberals have cut $7 billion from those transfers and have pretended they have not done anything. Reform's fresh start program for the 1997 election campaign states that we will restore $4 billion of the $7 billion that has been cut by the Liberals.
The Liberals also claim in some of their election campaign material that they have cleaned up federal finances and dramatically reduced the deficit. The fact is the Liberals have actually added $100 billion to the debt in the last three and a half years. That means taxpayers are paying about $8 billion more in interest payments than they were when the Liberals took office.
Reductions in the deficit have not come from cuts to federal spending, not to the government's special departments. Only $5 billion has been cut out of its $160 billion budget for federal departmental spending. The bulk of the reductions have come almost exclusively from huge cuts in transfers to the provinces, enormous increases in taxes and user fees and good luck in the form of lower interest rates.
Sitting on the opposite side of the House is a member who comes from the banking industry. He knows very well the effects that increasing interest rates have on the amounts people pay for their mortgages. He is probably also well aware of the amount of Canada's debt that is in short term securities, two to three year periods or less. He knows that we are constantly rolling over that debt, that if these interests rates shoot up three, four or five points, that debt will be renewed at increasingly difficult payment levels. The country could quite easily slip into a terrible crisis if interest rates jump dramatically, especially if it is necessary to defend the rather failing dollar we have right at the moment.
I can see that the other side of the House is getting a little bit antsy and that members would probably like to ask me a few questions which I always welcome.
I will wind up by saying that if we want to get this country back on track and create jobs, we have to get taxes down, spending under control and begin paying off Canada's $600 billion debt.
Petitions April 21st, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition on behalf of my constituent, Helen Hawthorne, and 24 others who are concerned that paying income taxes which go toward the Canadian military is an infringement of the freedom of conscience of those who object to participating in military activity.
The petitioners ask Parliament to establish peace tax legislation by passing into law the conscientious objection act which recognizes the right of conscientious objectors to not pay for the military but to apply that portion of their taxes that was to be used for military purposes toward peaceful, non-military purposes.
Rights Of Victims April 21st, 1997
Mr. Speaker, there is nothing wrong with asking the government to compensate people for confiscated property that was lawfully obtained. The minister can stand there and say people are laughing about that. People are upset the government would take their property without compensation.
In terms of the anti-gang legislation, if the minister would give the same priority to the victims bill of rights it would have much greater impact not just on gangs but on everybody across the country.
Why will the minister not admit he is playing election politics prior to the election and has no intention of ever passing the victims rights bill?