Jim Gouk

[Points Of Order, December 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, during his reply, at which time I expected a lot of rhetoric, the Minister of Transport made a particular remark stating that the air traffic control system was safer because I no longer work for it, because I am here in the House.

I would ask the minister to clarify this point. Is the air traffic control system safer because I am here in the House fighting against his unreasonable measures, or was it a direct personal attack on my abilities, in which case he must withdraw-

[Aviation And Marine Safety, December 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it happens that several airlines now refuse to fly into airports as alternates that use the AWOS system.

Transport Canada recently agreed to put human weather observers back into Dorval and Edmonton municipal airports. This causes one to wonder why the safety of Canadians using those airports are more important than the safety of those using one of the 48 other AWOS sites and those of the coastal marine and aviation users.

Will the minister agree to cancel destaffing of aviation weather observers and light stations until AWOS systems can be proven to work and are accepted by marine and aviation users?

[Aviation And Marine Safety, December 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, automated weather observation systems are being installed at airports across the country to replace human observers. This is the same technology that is being used with automated lighthouses. I would have no problem with this as a cost saving measure if the system worked, but it does not.

Why is the Minister of Transport prepared to jeopardize aviation and marine safety with unreliable technology that is being asked to do a job it was never designed for?

[Pearson International Airport, December 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-22, a bill denying the rights of Canadians to due process before the courts, is coming back again. This time it is the Liberals in the other place who are trying to find an eleventh hour solution to the mess which the Liberals in the House now find themselves in.

Our Liberals are in trouble due to their insistence on using the Pearson airport as a smoke screen to hide the real issue: the rule of law. They are trying to rewrite the rules of this land to suit their own purposes. This is a precedent we cannot allow to occur. If it does, what can we expect next? Expropriations without compensation, a change in the basic concept of innocent until proven guilty?

The government needs a conscience. This is often portrayed as a small person sitting on a shoulder. In the case of the Liberals their conscience is sitting on this side of the House.

I offered the Minister of Transport a solution to this mess back in October but he did not even respond to it.

The Reform Party has been consistent on the issue. It is nice to see the Liberals finally agreeing not only with us, but the respected legal opinions throughout this country.

[Cp Rail, December 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I can go along with the minister's decision not to accept CP's offer but not the part that states the government is not prepared to entertain any further offers for the sale of CN Rail.

The formation of CN Rail began in 1917 when numerous small rail companies found themselves in severe financial trouble. The root cause of the rail industry problem even then was an excess of trackage. Once formed, CN commenced an aggressive program of expansion, despite evidence that there was already excessive trackage in Canada. In order to compete CP Rail was forced to expand as well. The results were inevitable.

In 1937 CN's debts were a major problem so the government of the day cancelled them. It was a Liberal government. No one addressed excess trackage which resulted in CN again finding itself in severe financial trouble in 1952. Once again the government of the day entered the picture and bailed them out. Once again the government of the day was Liberal. Still no one addressed the problem of excess trackage.

During the next two decades CN, despite losses of approximately $25 million a year, continued capital spending of up to $200 million a year. The results were once again inevitable. Enter the government in 1978 with yet another bail-out and, yes, once again it was a Liberal government.

It appears the latest Liberal government is now prepared to be the fourth to bail a government company out of trouble so that it can compete with a public company using the taxpayers' money as a subsidy. That is not acceptable.

A task force to study this, made up of only Liberal members who have an obvious political agenda to maintain this unviable rail company, is not acceptable.

Yesterday I made a statement in the House indicating my expectation of the government's position based on my observations of the task force in action. The task force had a predetermined policy and only went forth to manipulate people into accepting it.

The only solution to Canada's rail problem is the privatization of CN. Whether it is sold as a whole entity or sold in part is not the issue. After almost 80 years of problems it is time for the government to butt out. Government interference causes rather than resolves problems. Reduce government's role to a regulatory position and allow the marketplace to resolve the problem. They will do a far better job than politicians and bureaucrats ever could.

[Canadian National Railways, December 12th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, On December 9, I made a presentation before the Liberal task force on the Canadian National Railways system. It was a waste of my time.

It appears all too obvious that this task force is determined to make this the fourth Liberal government to bail CN out of its crippling financial debt load with the taxpayers' money. I watched in disgust as one witness was manipulated into saying what the task force wanted to hear. When CP Rail testified it turned into an inquisition.

The government should be neither subsidizing nor closing crown corporations. It should be privatizing them. Government involvement should be reduced to a regulatory role.

Major changes are needed for the survival of Canada's rail system. Free enterprise can do a far better job of determining the right steps to take than political or bureaucratic decision making ever can.

The decision to get out of the airport business is the right one. Why does the Liberal government not have the foresight to see that it is the right move for railways as well?

[Supply, November 22nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I have had a great deal of dialogue with people on a variety of subjects in my riding, as many of us have done. It is very frustrating that we are placed in this position in which we have to go out to the public and say we are cutting back on these services and we want you to identify to us what you are prepared to give up.

We are looking at cutbacks in some types of pensions, various types of services that we are going to not only be willing to but are able to offer to the Canadian public. It is very hard to stand there with a straight face and tell the public this when we are faced with the kind of gold plated benefits that are currently available to people in this House.

These are the types of things that we have to address. I am one of those people who take a 10 per cent reduction in my pay. I do it through donations to charities within my riding. I do not do this because I think MPs are overpaid, far from it. Those MPs who do their job, truth be known, are probably underpaid in general terms. Most of us do not come here for money, we come here to serve. We can serve the Canadian public best by leading by example and that is what our motion is all about.

[Supply, November 22nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, when I was getting ready to come to the House today to speak I turned on the parliamentary channel and I listened to the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. As a result of listening to what I think was fairly accurately described by my colleague from Prince George, I found it necessary to change a lot of what I was going to say.

The hon. member suggested that this is an honourable profession and that it is great of us to be here, him included. In the same breath he went on to talk about the remuneration of an MP and the benefits, referring to it as "those things that bring us here". Perhaps that is what brings members of the Liberal Party here but I can assure you, Madam Speaker, that it is not what brings members of the Reform Party here.

He also discussed at length the concept of the RRSP as an alternative to the MPs pension. He talked about the suggestion that this is what should be done with our pensions. Then he put out a challenge to the gentleman who raised this, suggesting that if he can show how he could make more through RRSPs and this type of thing that he would in fact resign. It would be wonderful if we could bring that about.

That being what it will, he is suggesting he wants the maximum dollar he can get, the maximum benefits. The only way he is interested in change is if we can prove to him that he is actually going to get more. There is no intent of sacrifice there, no intent of recognizing the financial situation Canada is in, only will he make more if we make some change in that direction.

He then went on to suggest that it was a red herring, that the Reform was cooking up false numbers because there really is no deficit in the pension plan, that although people retire and get these huge gold-plated pensions there are more people coming into the House and as a result they will pay in and this will make it all right.

The member obviously does not know anything about the concept of cumulative effect. In fact that may well explain why we are five hundred and thirty-some odd billion in debt and going up at the rate of almost $1,500 a second because of the cumulative effect not only of the overspending by the Tories in the last nine years but the Liberal Party before that.

The cumulative effect is if a member retires and starts collecting this money and is relying on those people now in the House to make that payment, which I might add is what is destroying the Canada pension plan, then the problem is that that first member who retires is still collecting while the second member retires and joins him at the trough. This is the problem with the type of system we have now.

The hon. member suggested that this is part of the remuneration package. It is an unreasonable, unrealistic way of trying to compensate people for coming to the House of Commons. A realistic way would be if a member simply got a responsible proper amount in terms of annual compensation. The difference between that and what we are getting right now is the fact that no matter what you pay a person, it stops when that person stops making his contribution. If it becomes a matter of a difference in salary or a matter of a shared contribution to an RRSP, the government's obligation ends when that person ceases to be a member of Parliament but the member then benefits from whatever resources were built up during that period of time.

I heard about double dipping from the same member. There are two things I would like to say with regard to double dipping. I am glad to see they are talking about the concept of looking at double dipping for those people who come here, leave, collect a gold-plated pension, and then get appointed to a government board. He referred to three people on this side of the House who in his opinion are double dipping. I am not one to hide behind anything. I believe I am one of those people he referred to.

In looking at double dipping let us first look at the type of concept by which he suggests I am double dipping and the actual benefit that I receive.

First, I am getting a pension as a result of having worked as an air traffic controller for twenty-two and a half years. In addition to the normal amount that people pay for their superannuation contribution, I paid an additional 2 per cent of my gross salary for what is referred to as an early retirement benefit. That is something that I paid over and above the normal superannuation deductions for the benefit of being able to retire early from a profession in which very, very few ever make it to full retirement.

In addition to that 2 per cent I paid, I took a reduction of 20 per cent of my calculated pension because I retired early, over and above the extra 2 per cent that I paid. I have paid well and good for the benefits that I receive.

Let us look at those benefits. I worked 22.5 years as an air traffic controller. After 22.5 years I have a pension of approximately $17,000 a year.

As did other members, I replaced a member in order to come to this House. The member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke that I replaced after two terms of office collects a pension of $27,000 a year, 70 per cent more than I get for 22.5 years of service as an air traffic controller. I think the hon. member might take this into consideration both in terms of pointing the finger over here at people like myself with regard to double dipping and, second, in regard to trying to defend the justification and reasonableness of a pension plan that pays someone after two terms of office $27,000 when someone who worked 22.5 years paying 9.5 per cent of their salary receives $17,000. There is something far apart.

Everyone who works in this House, except for MPs, the clerks at the table, the Sergeant-at-Arms, all the people who work in the House who make the machinery work, who work behind the scenes, what do they have? They pay 7.5 per cent, two thirds of what an MP pays. What benefit do they get for that? They get 2 per cent per year based on their best six year average. What does an MP get? He gets 5 per cent. If we were trying to do it in proportion it would reduce the MP's pay to 3 per cent. They cannot retire until they are 55 years of age. They cannot get any pension whatsoever if they retire before age 50. If they retire after age 50 they lose 5 per cent of their calculated pension for each year they are short of age 55.

When you start drawing the comparison to what everybody associated with the government, every single person with the exception of the MPs and of course those in the other place gets, the pension they get is wholly out of line. It is out of line with industry and it is out of line with every other single person in government.

I would suggest that the government look very closely at changing the whole concept of the program of pensions for MPs. It has to change it to a system that is based on the benefit due a person for the work they do while they are here that allows them to put away for their retirement. God knows, the way the government is going there will not be any other kind of pension available through the government.

We are telling people that they are going to have to reduce and we have to start doing it ourselves. Adjust it so that whatever payment MPs receive from the pension plan stops when those MPs stop serving the Canadian public. They will then make do with the resources they have developed as a result of putting money aside, as most people in the public have to do.

[Social Security Program, November 21st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it seems to be a fairly standard procedure for me to end up in adjournment proceedings whenever I ask a question of the Minister of Transport. The purpose of adjournment proceedings is to try and get an answer when you did not get either a full answer or any answer at all during Question Period. That occurs almost every time I pose a question to that minister.

The question that brought me here tonight is can the Minister of Transport advise the House how he justifies denying any Canadian the right of due process? It is not the first time I have asked that question and it is not the first time that the minister has declined to answer.

The minister instead came up with his usual type of rhetoric. One of the comments he made, which of course I have heard before, is that I want to help my friends, that I want to help my Tory friends.

I would deal with that the same way I would deal with it when it has been brought up before. Only 18.5 per cent of those on the Pearson consortium were known to have close Tory ties, while over 50 per cent are known to have close Liberal ties. I have never heard the minister suggest that I am out to help the Liberals, although God knows they could use some help.

What I would ask instead is with regard to due process. How can he justify denying it to any Canadian?

Had the Pearson consortium been made up of American companies or Mexican companies, the minister would have had to give them the right of due process because it is guaranteed under the North American free trade agreement signed by the Liberal government.

Interestingly, the Prime Minister rose in this House in early October and stated for the record that José Salinas Mendoza, a sexual predator who has been deported from this country and is back again now claiming refugee status, has the right to due process.

I had a conversation on air with the chairman of the Standing Committee on Transport who says that is not valid, that is criminal law and we are not dealing in Pearson with criminal law, while the NAFTA argument was civil law.

Civil law or criminal law notwithstanding, it seems that everyone including foreign companies and illegal immigrants have the right of due process. Why will the minister not grant that to Canadians?

This could set a dangerous, unbelievable precedent for all kinds of different companies and organizations throughout Canada that have contracts with government.

Where is the actual break point between what happens with Pearson and what happens with any other company in Canada that has a contract with the government?

The minister said in answer to my question, an alleged answer, that if this thing ends up in the court the court could find that the contract was valid and entered into in good faith, in which case damages would be awarded, and we do not want to pay that money, so consequently we will ban them from the court.

He also said Reform has no respect for the court or the law. On the contrary, we have respect for both of those institutions and, more important, we have respect for all Canadians and their right to due process.

I will repeat my question to the minister, hopefully to get an answer. How do they justify denying the right of due process to any Canadian or Canadian company?

[Social Security Program, November 21st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, certainly there are problems. I assume the hon. member was referring largely to such things as the underground economy and how a lot of revenue the government should be collecting is disappearing. There are two ends of the scale. There are allegations that at the top end of the scale there are people who use tax loopholes to escape paying their due portion and at all ends of the scale from the bottom up there are people who are using this underground economy to escape paying high taxes and particularly the GST.

These are things that definitely have to be addressed. One of the ways we are looking at addressing the tax system is using a flat tax type of system. Interestingly, one of the models I have looked at was originally devised by a member of the Liberal Party. Unfortunately it did not get a lot of response at the time.

We have system that we have devised in which we will ensure that each person pays a fair share. The only deductions that will be allowed are those that apply to the most general population across Canada. With regard to the money we are losing in things like GST and so on with the underground economy, one of the problems is if we put so much burden on people, they finally will get to a point at which they justify in their own mind that it is proper, that it is actually the right thing to do to avoid paying taxes wherever possible. We saw this in the case of the cigarette tax in the east where people openly flaunted the fact that they were buying cigarettes that did not have the tax paid on them. People will get to the point at which they say enough is enough.

These are things that have to be dealt with. We think the only way that will be dealt with, rather than extracting more money or enforcing under GST, is to get government's end under control, which is the spending. We have to reduce the government's need for those tax dollars. We have to deal with the tax burden that is placed on people so we are not taxing people to the extent that they find every loophole they can get, legal and otherwise, to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.