Quebec is the issue.
Lost his last election, in 2004, with 36% of the vote.
Speech From The Throne November 1st, 1996
Quebec is the issue.
Speech From The Throne November 1st, 1996
Mr. Speaker, that was such an enthralling speech I could have sworn I saw you dozing off for a moment there.
I would like to question the member on two particular issues. He rambled on at great length about the wonderful health care system we have and how universal it is.
The first question deals with the province of Quebec, which refuses to properly reimburse other provinces for the health care given to its citizens when they use the health services of other provinces. The present health minister, when he was in opposition, regularly complained about that in this House and said the Liberal government would do something about it. Then on the TV program "Ottawa Inside Out" just a few months ago he suddenly says it is not at the top of the priority list anymore. Yet he was more than happy to punish Alberta and B.C. for trying to find alternative ways to fund their health care systems. Why is the Minister of Health now ignoring the serious violation of the Canada Health Act by Quebec?
The second question deals with waiting lists. Can he please explain why the Liberal government has given the entrepreneur of the year award to a company in Winnipeg that provides waiting list insurance for Canadians so that they can go to the United States for medical services when they have to wait too long in Canada?
Finally, what does he have to say to one of my constituents, Mrs. Gawenda, who waited nine months for an operation in Vancouver that should have been done within weeks? She ended up going to Seattle and paying $15,000 of her own money to have it done. The doctors down there said what sort of a country would have allowed a person to go nine months waiting for an operation that should have been done in three weeks.
Resumption Of Debate On Address November 1st, 1996
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spent quite a bit of time patting himself on the back for what a wonderful job he has done representing his constituents and for the tremendous job the government has done, he claims, on reducing the deficit and getting the whole country into such splendid order.
The fact is that if the Reform Party had not been sitting on this side of the House opposite them, we would still be mired in the days of Liberal tax and spend. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Everybody across the country knows that if it were not for Reform having brought the issues of the debt and deficit to the notice of the public during the 1993 campaign, the Liberal government would not have done a darn thing about it.
I was at a meeting in the Vancouver area and the member from Halifax was present. I heard her say to the audience: "As a tax and spend Liberal, I crashed and burned with the way the Minister of Finance has handled the finances of the country". She crashed and burned. What a tremendously visual thing that is. Her entire being as a Liberal was destroyed by what was being done by the finance minister. He would not have done it had it not been for the public pressure built by the Reform Party of Canada, the Alberta government, following up with the Harris government in Ontario.
The Liberals have addressed the deficit to a degree and let us be sure, they certainly fiddled the figures a bit by increasing the deficit in their first year. Even if we agree they have done something, what they have subjected the country to is the torture of a thousand small cuts. It has been cut here, cut there, cut here. Nobody has had the time to heal and get on with their lives. The public resolve has been broken down to fix the problems. The Liberals should have done it rapidly and quickly the way it was done in New Zealand; amputate entire departments so that we could get the budget balanced quickly and get on with our lives. This was not done.
The Liberals take credit for some of this but in fact while they have fiddled and made this torture of a thousand small cuts, our debt has built up almost to the $600 billion level, and that has eaten away at our social programs. By the year 2007 they will have cut $7 billion from health care transfers because they will not get on top of the problem fast enough.
The Liberal claim that all sorts of jobs have been created is baloney to the 1.8 million people across the country who are out of work, the 18 per cent to 24 per cent of young people who are out of work. I am lucky because in my riding it is only around 4 per cent. I am in an area where the youth are well employed.
Since the hon. member is so proud of his representation for his constituents, could he please give me some examples of how he has represented his constituents in his votes? There are plenty of examples here of how he has suppressed his colleagues when he was the whip and forced them to toe the party line. I am sure his constituents would love to hear how he perhaps canvassed their views and represented them in this place as opposed to representing the party line.
Citizen-Initiated Referendum Act October 30th, 1996
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-343, an act to provide for the holding of citizen initiated referenda on specific questions.
Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be rising today to present this bill. It is 25 pages in length and was worked on by more than a dozen people over a two-year period. It is a workable initiative and referendum legislation that is based on working legislation in a similar parliamentary democracy. It includes new methods of voting such as electronic voting. It is very detailed and I urge all members to read it.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)
Fiscal Responsibility Act October 30th, 1996
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-342, an act to establish principles of responsible fiscal management and to require regular publication of information by the Minister of Finance to demonstrate the government's adherence to those principles.
Mr. Speaker, this act would require, among other things, that the crown's financial reporting be in accordance with generally accepted accounting practices so the people of the country could see what the debts and assets of the country are.
In addition, it would require the government to publish before each general election an economic and fiscal update prepared by Treasury Board for the next three years and also to include forecasting of the estimated actual financial statements for the crown.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)
Health Care October 30th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, as we come to the end of Breast Cancer Month in Canada, I would like to draw the attention of the House to another disease which affects the lives of woman, albeit in a little more indirect way.
Prostate cancer causes a great deal of stress and suffering, yet there is relatively little public awareness of the serious nature of the disease. In B.C., for example, while the breast cancer rate is 30 per 100,000 population, the prostate cancer rate is 177 per 100,000. The corresponding death rates are 25 per 100,000 for breast cancer and 121 per 100,000 for prostate cancer.
Just as we need to find a cure for breast cancer, we also need to find a cure for prostate cancer. Every one of us has a father, just as every one of us has a mother. Prostate cancer affects us all.
I urge all members of this House to actively assist in the raising of funds for prostate cancer research and to help raise public awareness of the warning signs of the disease. Call 1-800-263-6750.
Supply October 29th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, I will be voting against this motion.
Committee Of The Whole October 28th, 1996
Madam Speaker, I wish I could do this in one minute. The fresh start platform of the Reform Party of Canada is worthy of at least a 20 minute speech. It is really unfortunate that I am not going to have enough time to do that. If I can relate it to one thing the member mentioned, it is this whole issue of partisanship and the need to get rid of that. Part of the Reform vision of Canada is getting rid of the partisanship. We want to appoint people based on their skills and competence with open tendering and a much more open style of government.
Partisanship leads to waste and to the sort of situation that we saw last week with an $87 million interest free loan being given to a company like Bombardier with billions of dollars in assets and quite capable of funding itself. Eighty-seven million is a tiny drop in the bucket to Bombardier. It is totally ridiculous to have a situation like that going on. It is being done clearly for partisanship reasons. Everybody in the country can see that is the reason. There simply is no need for it. Reform would put an end to that.
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
Committee Of The Whole October 28th, 1996
That was prearranged, yes, thank you very much to my colleague for reminding me.
The number ten promise was that the Liberals would eliminate trade barriers between the provinces, red book, page 22. We know that those have not been eliminated. In fact, those trade barriers are still costing the economy between $6 billion and $10 billion a year.
We are back at the beginning again. A situation developed today because the government did not keep its promise. Despite all the hoopla at its convention during the weekend, despite all the resolutions that were rammed through so fast that we all got wind burn, as mentioned by the whip, we are debating an issue that is very important. It is related to democracy in this House.
We really should object to this closure motion that has been moved. We should request that the government stand up and support democracy and allow a member of an opposition party to be appointed as a junior Chair.
Committee Of The Whole October 28th, 1996
That, frankly, as one of my colleagues says, is shameful. They are trying to deceive the public into thinking that things have been achieved and promises have been kept when they really have not.
One of the favourite promises was to scrap, kill and abolish the GST. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister made good use of that on the campaign trail. Boy, did they whoop that one up. When they were asked how would they do it, they just said: "Wait till after the election. Do not ask me now. Ask me after the election". My goodness they did not take long to break that promise.
Now we have this unsuccessful attempt to have every province buy into a scheme to harmonize the GST with the PST and create all sorts of new distortions and dissatisfactions like the tax on books. We are faced now with all manner of new problems instead of curing the basic problems that are there with the most hated tax
in Canada, the GST. That just came from yet another broken promise of this government.
I know there is one here that strikes a cord with a number of people in my riding. One of the broken promises is stable multi-year funding for the CBC. What a joke.
The Reform Party was attacked during the 1993 election for telling the truth about the subsidies to the CBC and the need to cut some of the fat out of that organization. What happens? The government says it will never cut a thing, and cuts much more than the Reform had ever said it would cut. How the government gets away with breaking these promises I do not know.
Promise number six was to renegotiate NAFTA, red book, page 24. Two months after taking power the Prime Minister signed NAFTA. Thank goodness he did. If we had not had free trade helping this country stay afloat we would be in deep trouble today. However, the Liberals made a promise and they did not keep it.
Then we have-my goodness, this is a hot one that we have had fun with the last couple of weeks-a code of conduct for politicians, red book, page 95. There has not been a new code. The Prime Minister only uses his secret ministerial guidelines when it suits him to do so. In the U.K. the guidelines are made public. In fact the whip of the Reform Party had a copy of the guidelines from the U.K. in the House just a week or so ago. It is a large book that sets out all of the rules to which ministers of the crown have to adhere in order to be ethical. What a change it would be here if we had something like that.
If the Prime Minister wants to claim that he is keeping with the traditions of parliamentary democracy, let him produce his ethical guidelines for ministers. Let the public read them so that everyone can understand what is happening on that side of the House.
Then we have number eight, appointments based on competence, red book, page 92. I do not want to embarrass anybody by naming names in the House. I know there are a lot of people can identify a couple of hundred Liberal patronage appointments. I know the member for Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia mentioned this amazing thing that happened in his riding. Two people who were Liberal supporters suddenly were qualified to take up amazing jobs on parole boards and receive wonderful rewards for their loyalty to the Liberal Party. We see that happening right across the country. It happens in my riding. Liberal supporters are being rewarded with blatant patronage appointments.
The number nine promise was more free votes with which I already dealt earlier. I should mention the red book page number in case there is anybody out there who has not used the red book for firewood yet. They can read it on page 92. The Prime Minister has only permitted one free vote in three years-