Ted White

[Supply, April 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support of the motion of my colleague, a motion I will read one more time for the benefit of the members. The motion is to introduce a bill for victims' rights:

That the House urge the government to direct the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs to proceed with the drafting of a Victim's Bill of Rights, and that, in such areas where the Committee determines a right to be more properly a provincial concern, the Minister of Justice initiate consultations with the provinces aimed at arriving at a national standard for a Victims' Bill of Rights.

It is a very well constructed motion because it takes into account some of the points that were raised by a member a moment ago that the jurisdiction of the federal government does not extend to all areas. Some are under provincial control. It really requires provincial co-operation in order to make this work. I am pleased to note that a lot of Liberal members support this type of action. We certainly do need a victims' bill of right.

As I listened today to the speeches and I heard the reasons why we need this victims' bill of rights it really started to make me think about what has led us to this point where we have to talk about this victims' bill of rights.

What is the root cause of all this crime that has us so concerned about our safety and the type of environment that we are in that we have to go to this point of protecting so many victims? What is it that has led us to this point where we have the "Stop the Rock," "Get Rid of the Rock" and the CUSJ, CAVEAT and other groups? Why are they there? What has caused it?

Why is there graffiti all down the Sparks Street Mall that was not there just a year ago? I see graffiti on my office building in North Vancouver that was not there a year ago. Why is it that my parents felt safe walking the streets at night when they were my age? It was perfectly safe for them to let me out as child to play in the park or to go with my friends to the local forest to play games without having to be concerned?

Why was it safe for me to walk to school instead of the situation you see today where every morning hundreds of thousands of parents across Canada feel obliged to put their children in the car to drive them maybe half a kilometre or a kilometre to their school because they do not feel confident of the safety of their children?

How come there are drive-by shootings in Vancouver? There was at least one here in Ottawa in the last year. There were not drive-by shootings even five years ago. What is going on here?

Why does my wife have to be accompanied to her car in the car park in the evening when she leaves the office when she did not have to do that five years ago? There is something dreadfully wrong.

The more I thought about it today as I was listening to these speeches the more I could see that the root cause of the problem, the reason that we are standing here today working on this victims' bill of rights is that something terrible has happened over the last two decades that has brought us to this point.

I challenge every member in the House to ask themselves what has changed and they will soon come to same conclusion that I did. It has all happened because we do not treat criminals like criminals anymore. We have sent a message to the criminals, to the young offenders, to all of those people out there who are destroying our society that we owe them a living, that what they are doing is okay.

When the police come to my office building because young people are spray painting on the side of the building they stand back and they try to have some discussion with these young people, these young punks just tell the police to F-off. I cannot say the words here in the House but I think we are all familiar with the type of contempt with which the police are treated from these types of punks.

We have told these people by our actions is that it is okay to spray paint on buildings. It is okay to do all these petty crimes that increase our tolerance of crime.

Over the past 20 years or so the justice system has tended to concentrate on this theory of rehabilitation, claiming that we really need to get to the root cause of the crime. If we can just say to people we love you, please be good, that they will be good. Twenty years has shown us it does not work. With all of the examples that I have just given, I challenge members to think of their own examples. I hear a member on the other side saying nonsense, but of course he does not have a wife he has to worry about going to the car park to get to her car every day.

I invite members to think about that. I would also like them to think about the aggressive policing that has been taking place in

New York over the last little while and the effect that longer prison terms have had on the crime rate in that city.

It seems that perhaps a more punishment oriented system will actually get control of the type of crime that has led us to this point where we are asking for a victims' bill of rights.

I remind members about a police commissioner of New York, William Bratton, who said the root of crime is criminals. If we start to recognize that it is criminals who cause crimes and begin addressing that problem we will reduce the number of victims dramatically and we will not need all of the extra money, hundreds of millions, that we a pouring into victims' rights groups to help all the people who have become victims of these criminals.

In 1990 when Mr. Bratton was the security director for the New York subway system, he took a hardline approach in terms of the graffiti, loud radio playing and spitting on the sidewalk. He told his security people that he wanted to clamp down hard on all of these minor crimes and send a message of zero tolerance. There was an impressive drop in serious crimes. Robberies within one year were down 75 per cent and serious felonies were down 64 per cent in just five years.

Mr. Bratton so impressed the people of New York that he was subsequently elected police commissioner of New York where his methods have resulted in a 31 per cent drop in murders, a 25 per cent drop in car theft and a 22 per cent drop in robberies. These improvements appear to come directly from an increased concentration by police on minor crimes, the sorts of things that we have come to tolerate, the graffiti, the foul language in public, all of those minor crimes. If we would just send the message that we do not tolerate that, we could restore some sense to our system.

Like many other members in the House, I have visited high schools from time to time. Any time I ask high school students if they think the Young Offenders Act needs changing, at least 99 out of 100 students put their hands up and say the Young Offenders Act needs changing.

When I asked them if they think they are being influenced by the hype in the newspaper, the crimes that are reported, and really the problem is not that bad, that they are really being influenced emotionally and have not really thought about it, 99 out of 100 still thought it was wrong, that it badly needs changing.

I have an article which appeared in the north shore news. It is in the youth views section. It was written by a grade 12 student in my riding, Sarah Duro: "Get out of jail free is basically what the Young Offenders Act does for youth today. Children between the ages of 12 and 19 are protected for crimes that rank from shoplifting to murder. The consequences for the more major crimes are a mere slap on the wrist. It appears that young people have special needs since they are not fully mature and should not suffer the same consequences as adults. But surely if a child is mature enough to take someone's life, they are mature enough to pay the price".

That is the sort of feeling I hear regularly in the schools. I again challenge members across the House to think about the times they have asked questions about justice issues in high schools. They will know I am telling the truth about the reactions.

Sarah wrote: "If you are committing an adult crime you should be treated the way an adult would be treated instead of being treated as a helpless child". She goes on to say how they had a discussion in her class all about the Young Offenders Act and how the penalties should be increase.

It is my experience that students in high schools would be a lot more harsh on their piers than we would ever be as parliamentarians in the sorts of punishments we would propose.

Sarah finishes by saying: "Here is a small suggestion. Maybe our government should start issuing a licence to kill for youths today. Wait a minute, they already have. It's called the Young Offenders Act".

That is the sort of attitude youth have. The adults in my riding are also extremely upset about the way the justice system is operating.

In the August 29, 1995 edition of Investor's Business Daily there was close to a full page of statistical information in an article by John Barnes on the effects of punishment on crime rates. He headed the piece: ``Does crime pay? Not if criminals do hard time''. I urge members to get a copy of this article.

Mr. Barnes wrote that in 1994 University of Arizona economist Michael Block and researcher Steven Twist compared some victimization rates with imprisonment rates from 1960 to 1992, a period of 32 years. They found that the ten states which had the highest imprisonment rates experienced an 8 per cent drop in violent crime during the period under study. In contrast, the ten states with the lowest imprisonment rates saw their violent crime rates jump by 51 per cent in the same period.

Very clearly incarceration does work to reduce crime. That does not mean, as members opposite keep claiming, we need to lock up everybody. Obviously we need to use common sense. If a person who commits a minor crime or a robbery could be put on electronic surveillance and be permitted to stay at work, supporting his or her family, that would be much better than locking up that person. However, if a person is a danger to society they really should spend a little time behind bars, away from society.

In 20 minutes or so we will know for certain whether victims' rights will become a reality in Canada. At that time the bells will

ring, we will have a vote and the members who support victims' rights will be on the record.

I hope the Minister of Justice takes the issue seriously. When he votes in favour of the motion, as he said he would, I hope he takes it seriously. When the issues goes to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs to draft the victims' bill of rights I hope he will enthusiastically put his weight behind the bill. I hope he will enthusiastically contact the appropriate people in the provinces and work with them to put together a workable victims' bill of rights.

I congratulate my colleague for bringing this subject to the House today. I support the victims' bill of rights. I hope members of the House will consider what I have said about the cause of crime and how, if we would place a little concentration on that aspect, we could probably reduce the need for the victims' bill of rights.

[Supply, April 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the cost of keeping people incarcerated. Does the member know that in 1989 the bureau of justice statistics issued estimates of how many crimes are prevented when people are locked up rather than walking the streets? Analyst Patrick Langdon concluded that higher incarceration rates between 1973 and 1989

cut the number of rapes by 66,000, robberies by 323,000, assaults by 380,000 and burglaries by 3.3 million.

In addition, in 1995 a Princeton University criminologist wrote that the best available estimates of prison operating costs led him to calculate that imprisoning 100 convicted felons who offended at the median rate cost $2.5 million, but leaving them on the streets cost $4.6 million. It is actually cheaper to keep offenders in prison.

Has the member heard of those statistics?

[Pensions, March 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the following comes from a letter which appeared in the Vancouver Sun :

Dear Mr. Finance Minister,

I was delighted to learn that you are seeking input from Canadians on CPP reforms. Here are my suggestions.

CPP should start at age 55, not 67 as you have suggested, and for citizens who have worked more than 6 years prior to 1994, CPP should start immediately the citizen quits, or is fired from a job.

CPP should be fully indexed, and I would be willing to pay higher premiums for this benefit.

However, I would also like someone else to contribute $4 for every dollar I contribute to CPP.

And Mr. Minister, please be sure to arrange for my pension to accrue at twice the maximum rate legally permitted for everyone else in the country.

I realize that these requests will sound greedy and unjustified, but if they are good enough for you and your parliamentary colleagues, they're good enough for me.

Your truly,

Dr. Philip Alderman

West Vancouver

[Privilege, March 14th, 1996]

As the hon. member says, that is that. They left only the word "that". It is ridiculous. It is an absolute insult to the people of Canada. They took all of the words before the word "that" and all of the words after the word "that" and substituted their own Liberal Party spin, which made the motion virtually meaningless. They suggested the actions of the hon. member for Charlesbourg might be offensive to Parliament and that we should take it in that vein rather than using the word "sedition".

The people of Canada could not care less if the actions of the hon. member for Charlesbourg are offensive to Parliament. The actions were offensive to them. They want this matter discussed.

They want it debated where they can see what we have to say. They would like every member to have the opportunity to stand and say what he or she thinks of the motion.

The hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt placed the motion before the House because the people of Canada are offended. They have been telling us that they want this matter to be dealt with. They want us to treat it seriously. As our Speaker has indicated, it is serious. He considers it serious. However, the government obviously does not consider it serious. It has placed us almost in a position of defiance of the Speaker's words by causing us to wind down the debate within a very restricted timeframe.

For those of us on the Reform side of the House who have been standing to speak, we have been doing so because it is called representing our constituents. It is a concept which may be intellectually unattainable for some members opposite because they are lap dogs to the whip. It is totally foreign to them. I think they are far enough away from us sometimes to be foreign.

Times are changing. We are in the information age and taxpayers, the people who pay the bills to run this place, will not put up with this sort of thing much longer. They feel it is about time we started to properly represent them. They will not be pleased the debate is being shut down on this motion.

I like to quote a famous politician of the past when talking about things like these attacks on democracy. I like to quote him not because I admire him but because he represents the politics of the past, the old line parties and the old line ways so detested by the people of Canada.

That parliamentarian is Edmund Burke. I am sure everyone has heard of him. In 1774 he said: "Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment. And he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion". Mr. Burke made this statement more than 220 years ago, nowhere even close to the information age. The level of education was pretty low and it probably would have been true that an MP would not have been doing his constituents a favour if he sacrificed his judgment to the opinion of the voters.

Today we have the information age and people get well informed on things like the motion before the House right now. They have had the opportunity to read the communiqué put out by the member for Charlesbourg because it was faxed to every corner of the country using the tools of the information age.

In response, MPs around the country received communications about the communiqué using fax machines, Internet, E-mail and regular mail, by telephone, by all of the modern means available to constituents these days. It is a vastly different place from what is was in 1774 when Mr. Burke spoke.

Constituents today are truly interested in what happens in this place and they are able to follow what happens in this place either by reading a hard copy of Hansard or taking it off the electronic system of the Internet or by actually watching the procedures on television. They have a right to be properly represented here and to see what happens.

In the 1990s when people are well educated and well informed, I think a modification of Mr. Burke's quote is in order. I would like to hear modern politicians saying: "Your representative owes you not his industry only but his commitment to alert you to the affairs of government that affect you so that you may become informed and so that you may instruct him on how to represent you".

In case members are curious, Edmund Burke was thrown out of office by the election that followed his famous statement. Even 220 years ago it did not pay to insult your constituents, just as it does not pay today.

The problem is that even if every member of the House agreed today that they would represent their constituents on this discussion of the motion before the House and decided they would support the motion of the member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt in its entirety, intact, without taking away all the words in front of the word "that" and all the words after the word "that", but to actually look at it, listen to their constituents sending faxes and letters and making calls, and say yes, it is true and we should support it, the whip for the Liberal party runs around telling them they must toe the party line.

Let us imagine they decided they would support it. The problem is in order to get to that point we really have to overcome the power of this old line whip controlled system. As people learn more about the procedures that happen here they take great interest in the debate, because this debate is also a serious matter for them, as it is for our Speaker and everyone here.

This debate has come to the attention of the whole country. It is a serious debate. As they watch, listen and understand what we are saying, they begin to realize when they watch the votes what is happening here. The pressure will increase for change in the system, change that is well overdue, change that needs to be made in the information age we have entered today.

I recommend to members a television comedy on the women's network which aired each Sunday night last year. It is called "No Job for a Lady" and is based on the experiences of a rookie woman MP in England.

While the program is funny, it is also a fairly accurate portrayal of what happens in the U.K. Parliament and in this place too. The writers obviously have a good knowledge of the workings of the

House of Commons and they have no difficulty showing viewers that committee meetings and travel junkets have very little use other than to keep MPs busy between votes. Busy between engineered votes, the result of which we already know, before we even enter the House.

My colleague for Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia said it very well last year in one of his speeches and I will quote from Hansard : My colleagues and I on both sides of the House know, and the public knows, that what we say about a bill is of little consequence''. This could just as easily apply to a motion.A dozen or so people make the decisions and all the debate in the world will not change those decisions. Even if government backbenchers and members of the opposition were here in great numbers, the ministers, the people we might hope to influence are almost never here except for question period''.

It is a shame that we have a situation here where what we say about this motion will be of little consequence in the end because a few people or perhaps just one person on the other side has already decided what will happen to the motion. It has already been decided. As we continue with this debate for the rest of the day, maybe through the night, who knows, the decision has already been made. In the end when the vote comes on Monday or if it is deferred until Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, eventually the will of that one person or few people who are running everything will be seen to be the will of the House.

There is a growing awareness among the public that the deliberations here have very little relevance to the overall scheme of things. The taxpayers, the people who pay our salaries, are getting very very interested in what is happening here. They are going to be applying pressure to change the system so that we really and truly begin to reflect the will of the people here.

The evidence is out there. Parliamentary democracies around the world are finding ways to adapt to the information age. The 30 years of experience under the old system that the Prime Minister has are not going to be worth anything in the next few years of dramatic change that we are facing.

In the country I came from, New Zealand, the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act was passed in 1993. We were always told that initiative and referendum was incompatible with a parliamentary style of democracy. It was not. It all came down to political will.

We are masters of ourselves in this place. We can do what we wish. If we had the political will to support the motion of the member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt, if we had the political will to be independent and if those members opposite particularly had the political will to be independent on this motion, the most important motion to come before the 35th Parliament, we would see a totally different outcome to the one we all know will be the result on Monday.

In New Zealand where initiative and referendum legislation was introduced, the people now have the power to direct the operations of Parliament. Several initiative petitions have been successful in getting the number of signatures necessary to force a referendum.

Instead of having to have a referendum at perhaps great cost to taxpayers, in each case where that happened the Government of New Zealand moved to enact legislation consistent with the will of the people. What a powerful tool. It did not even have to go to a referendum. The very fact that the people had the power to gather the signatures to force a referendum was enough to make the government enact the people's will. We badly need that here. Boy do we need that in this place.

For the moment the Prime Minister still has power over his MPs forcing them to toe the party line in defiance of the wishes of the voters of Canada. Lots of them will get letters after they vote on Monday or Tuesday. People will be watching what they do. People will know that they took out every word before the word "that" and every word after the word "that". They will know. They will read it in the newspapers. They will have heard it on television. They have seen it in this debate. They can read it in Hansard . They will know and they will send letters and faxes and will make phone calls. The message will get through.

Times are changing. In the next election true democratic representation is going to be a bigger issue than any one of us realizes at this time. It will be the issue of the 1990s. The information age will change this House in ways members cannot even imagine today. For those members who have been here for 20 or 30 years they are going to be shocked at the changes that will take place in five, six or seven years. They will be embarrassed.

Little by little the demand for real democracy is gaining ground. Hopefully soon all members of the House will be free to build a Canada consistent with the wishes of the people who pay the bills through taxes.

No wonder MPs are held in such low regard by the taxpayers. They see very little being done in this House that reflects their wishes. No wonder they consider us to be porkers slurping at the trough. It is a well deserved label.

In the next election the political elites are going to suffer damage they cannot even comprehend at this time. In the future when a motion like the one of the member from Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt comes before this House there will be an opportunity to see the truth, to see the opposite side of the House stand one by one and truly represent their constituents. They will truly represent the feelings of those constituents instead of worrying that the government whip will look at the papers and tell them that they cannot say this but they can say that. What sort of democracy is

that? It is changing and I condemn the government for its failure to keep its red book promise to make government more open, to permit MPs to be accountable to their constituents and to start having some free votes in this House.

It is ridiculous to watch what has happened over the last couple of days. In the votes associated with this motion, 100 per cent of them stand up and vote the same way. It is ridiculous. Anyone with a brain in their head can see it is engineered. That is not a reflection of the will of the voters. It is about time some of them had the gumption to stand up and do what should be done.

I urge members of this House, on such an important motion, to stand and represent their constituents when the House votes on the motion.

[Privilege, March 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with another member from the Reform Party.

On March 12 when my colleague, the member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt, stood in the House to raise a point of privilege against the member for Charlesbourg the Speaker said the House was being faced with one of the most serious matters we have faced in this 35th Parliament. It was so serious that it did not matter that some months had passed since the incident under discussion took place, and so serious that the House should deal with the accusations forthwith.

Later that day following a short but heated exchange between two members of the House the Speaker rose again and stated that everyone would have an opportunity to speak to the issue: "My dear colleagues, this is one of the most serious debates we have had here in this House. We shall all have the chance to speak here in the House. We are Canadians, we are democratic, and you will have the opportunity to speak".

There can be no doubt for any member listening to and watching our Speaker as he said those words that he did assess the situation as very serious and that he was concerned that we would have the opportunity to speak to it.

I can honestly say I have never seen our Speaker look so disturbed by the events he was called to deliberate over, and I have never heard such emotion in his voice. The only time I have ever heard our Speaker use a stern and almost angry tone of voice has been during these debates.

In addition, the outpouring of emotion from members of all parties during the debate leaves no doubt for any observer that this is a very serious matter. Obviously a great number of members wish to be heard, although I notice the PC members have yet to show any interest at all in the debate.

Some MPs want the opportunity to represent the views of their constituents while others want as badly to represent the views of their party, as they are accustomed to doing, using their canned speeches prepared by the spin doctors upstairs.

It struck me this was probably the reason the government wanted adjournment of the debate on the first day. I noticed that when the member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt introduced his motion it did seem to catch the government by surprise and it was afraid to follow through and allow its members to begin speaking to the motion right away.

We watched as the government whip rushed around between the benches checking on what his members might want to say of a spontaneous nature. He made sure none of them would say anything that would embarrass the government side or be contrary to the call of the whip.

Even so, there can be no doubt the people of Canada want this matter discussed; they want it fully and publicly discussed. They want to see every aspect of the issue explored in the House where they can observe and read, if they do not get the opportunity to watch, the deliberations.

We heard the Speaker say everyone in the House would have the opportunity to speak. I repeat that quote because it is important: "My dear colleagues, this is one of the most serious debates we have had in this House. We shall all have the chance to speak here in this House".

Now what happens? The government effectively takes away our right to have everybody speak. It has invoked a form of closure by not adjourning the debate. I will explain for members who may not understand what that means. It means we must continue putting up speakers without interruption. If there is no one available to stand immediately when someone else sits down, the debate will cease.

Is that reasonable? It is like passing a law that people can mow their lawns any time, one at a time, starting now, but when the last mower is finished if there is no one to take his place the right to mow lawns ceases immediately.

Obviously people will not stay up all night starting their lawn mowers one after the other to mow the lawns. Sooner or later someone will say: "It is too late. It is not reasonable. We will all go to bed and we will start mowing our lawns again in the morning".

That is exactly the situation we are faced with now by this motion. I have been lucky enough to be one of the people who can rise to speak to it. However, there will come a point at which it will become unreasonable to expect any of us to be here until the small hours of the morning so that we can continuously have our opportunity to speak. It is unfair and it is impractical.

In the end, I guess the outcome of this entire debate was known even before it began, just as the outcome of debates on legislation in this place is predetermined. The government will always get its way.

This place costs something in excess of $125,000 an hour to run, but it is not a place which enacts the will of the people. It is simply a place which enacts the will of the parties, particularly the party in power. All of the debates, questions, statements and committees associated with this motion or any piece of legislation rarely change anything. In this case I am certain that will also be the case.

In the case of this motion, the most serious ever to come before the 35th Parliament, the Liberals will get their way. In the end they will get their way. They will rework the motion so that they gut it completely, so that it has not the meaning with which it started, so that they can force it through to committee where they can control the end result. The first step in that process was to amend the motion of the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt. The next step was to effectively cut off debate. The third step will probably be to make the motion disappear somewhere into committee.

They insulted the people of Canada by taking the member's motion and removing all of the words preceding the word "that" and all of the words after the word "that".

[The Budget, March 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, before question period a member asked that if we had implemented the Reform's zero in three program, whether would we have zero today.

As I said in my speech, example in countries like New Zealand, provinces like Alberta and states like Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey show that exactly the opposite would have happened. We would be talking today about how to spend the surpluses today instead of witnessing the Liberals trying to introduce their new LST, the Liberal super tax.

As I explained in my speech, business has explained how to create jobs. We have to cut the spending, run surpluses and get taxes down so that there is more money in the pockets of consumers so that demand can be increased, which creates new jobs and investment. It has been proven to work all around the world. Cut spending, start running surpluses and the money will flow in through that method.

Surely the member can see that his way simply does not work. Two decades of deficit spending; if it worked we would all have three jobs each by now. Instead we have continuing 10 per cent unemployment.

[The Budget, March 7th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, after studying the finance minister's budget I could just about give last year's speech. We are still on the debt and deficit treadmill and nothing much has changed.

The one good piece of news is that last weekend it seems that the Deputy Prime Minister went through some sort of fiscal conversion. I heard her on "Ottawa Inside Out". She said that a dollar invested by the private sector in jobs was a dollar going a lot further than one put into job creation by the government.

Most people in Canada instinctively know this is true. The Reform Party has been saying so at public meetings and in its election brochures since 1989. A dollar left in the hands of an investor, a business person, a consumer or a taxpayer will be much more productive in the economy than that same dollar in the hands of politicians.

The Deputy Prime Minister now realizes that the Liberal $6 billion infrastructure program was a complete waste of money. It did not create a single job, just like we told her. The Prime Minister's solutions of 30 years ago simply do not work.

Business has told the government how to create jobs: stop running deficits and reduce taxes. The resulting flow of money back into the hands of consumers and taxpayers will guarantee generous job creation from increased demand and new investment.

It is not really a hard concept to grasp. However, instead of doing what is required, the Minister of Finance has chosen to keep us on the treadmill of deficit and debt, exceeding $30 billion per year for the deficit and a debt which is now approaching $600 billion, with enormous interest payments of almost $50 billion per year on that debt.

In the time that it takes me to give this short speech the government will have overspent by another million dollars. As long as there is no swift action to really balance the budget and to begin running surpluses, taxes are certain to increase, the debt will continue to grow and interest payments will get larger.

It certainly does not take a rocket scientist to calculate that the cancer of interest payments will within a few short years completely consume our social programs and virtually wipe out every government service which is offered today.

Since the end of 1993 the Liberal government has added almost $90 billion to the national debt and, as a result, almost $10 billion in interest payments. That extra $10 billion per year has to be cut out of government services before we make one step forward in reducing the overall deficit.

Are sensible decisions being made about spending cuts? Absolutely not. There are major areas of waste not properly dealt with in the budget, such as the massive Indian affairs budget which is forecast to expand by 15 per cent over the next three years while services to other Canadians are being reduced by up to 70 per cent.

There is the excessive and unwanted spending on multiculturalism and grants to all manner of special interests and businesses. The government also fails to exhibit any will to control incremental spending waste, the little things that together add up to billions of dollars.

For example, a few days ago I received in the mail a certificate from the minister of heritage. It was beautifully printed, multiple colours with gold ribbon on it. It said: "Canada Day Certificate of Merit: Awarded to the Hon. Ted White in recognition of your contribution to Canada Day 1995". The award was signed by the minister of heritage. When I showed that certificate to a number of people in my riding I had comments like: "What sort of pea-brained, cerebrally challenged idiot would approve the expenditure of tax dollars on a certificate of merit to MPs for doing their job on Canada Day?"

I do not know who the pea-brained idiot was but the minister should have had enough common sense to put a stop to that project before it even started. The fact that she did not shows that she has a flagrant disregard for other people's money. It is certainly easy to spend it, is it not, when they just have to dip into the trough.

As a second example of incremental waste, a travel agent in my riding approached me and showed me the actual computer records of how taxpayers ended up spending much more than was necessary on a fare from Vancouver to Ottawa return.

A conscientious federal employee, knowing that a visit to Ottawa was coming up, approached a travel agent and requested the cheapest fare. The agent showed how a certain combination of fares would result in a total cost of $880. Instead of being pleased, the employee's supervisor instructed the employee to use Rider Travel here in Ottawa which subsequently issued a ticket costing $1,963, almost $1,100 more than that employee would have spent purchasing the ticket in North Vancouver.

Every MP gets letters and calls with examples of that type of waste but absolutely nothing is being done to control it. No wonder the voters have lost respect for the politicians. People see MPs as puffed up porkers slurping at the trough, handing out hard earned taxpayers' dollars to people who will not work, to special interest groups and to businesses that do not need and should not be getting the money.

Meanwhile the Minister of Finance is subjecting Canadians to the torture of a thousand small cuts. That is not the death of a thousand small cuts, but the torture of a thousand small cuts, nothing large enough to get us off the debt and deficit treadmill, but just enough to prevent an immediate fiscal crisis. Irritating little bits of pain for absolutely no gain. It is a course of action that will guarantee years of suffering and no measurable benefits for all of the action taken.

It represents a failure to learn from the experience of countries like New Zealand, provinces like Alberta and states like New Jersey, Massachusetts and Michigan which have shown that the more quickly the budget is balanced the faster the benefits accrue.

The man who was the Prime Minister of New Zealand during the debt crisis, the Hon. David Lange, who is roughly equivalent to an NDP type of prime minister, told me in 1994 that the only regret he had was that he had not moved faster to balance the budget. In hindsight he could see that the benefits would have accrued much more rapidly, shortening the adjustment period and creating jobs more quickly. Today the New Zealand economy is even in better condition that when I spoke about it last year. I used it as an example and I am pleased to update members.

The government sector is about 40 per cent of the size it was in 1984. The abolition of various marketing boards has allowed entrepreneurs to develop new products and markets. Income tax reductions approaching $23 per week for the average worker are being introduced in the next couple of months, and a further tax cut of the same size next year is promised, while the government continues to run large surpluses, paying down its national debt and increasing spending on social programs at the very same time.

Imagine how stimulative it would have been for the Canadian economy if the Minister of Finance had been running surpluses and yesterday had announced a $46 per week tax cut for Canadian workers. This could easily have been attained if the Minister of Finance had adopted Reform's zero in three program the day he came to office in 1993.

We would not today be talking about how to balance the budget. We would be arguing about how to spend the surpluses. With more money in their pockets Canadians would have spent more, increasing domestic demand which in turn would create jobs and increase government revenues.

In New Zealand and in Alberta revenues increased faster than expected after the budget was balanced, allowing spending on social programs to be increased, for example in New Zealand by almost $1 billion in one year.

It is also important to note that the 12 per cent unemployment rate in New Zealand is now down to 5.6 per cent. When did Canada last have a 5.6 per cent unemployment rate? Canada has proven government deficit spending kills jobs and it will continue to kill jobs as long as it stays on this track.

The failure of the Minister of Finance to decrease taxes in yesterday's budget guarantees that even more jobs will be killed. It also guarantees ongoing deficits and a crippling tax load for our children and our grandchildren.

[Petitions, March 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present a petition today on behalf of Helen Hawthorn and 25 other residents of North Vancouver and Vancouver.

The petitioners draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Constitution Act of 1982 guarantees freedom of conscience and religion in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that recognition of conscientious objection exists in Canada.

They pray and call on the Parliament of Canada to establish peace tax legislation by passing into law the private member's bill of the member for Burnaby-Kingsway, the conscientious objection act.

[Points Of Order, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I felt it was a perfectly reasonable point of order I raised earlier. All I asked for was the judgment of the House under the circumstances-

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In recognition of the way the Minister of Human Resources Development has been treating B.C. over the changes to the welfare rules, I would like to ask for the unanimous consent of the House, on behalf of the North Vancouver Riding Association, for me to present to the minister at this time its annual 1995 horse's ass award-