House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was money.

Last in Parliament November 2005, as Conservative MP for Southern Interior (B.C.)

Won his last election, in 2004, with 37% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Supply November 15th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I would point out to the hon. member that we are not talking about the government's right to do its homework. In my opinion the CN task force is not homework. It is a study to determine whether the CP offer is good, whether there are alternatives, and what should be the policies as a result of it.

That is the kind of thing done by the Standing Committee on Transport and is why we have committees, so we can study various proposals. CP has made an offer to buy a section of a government business. It is something that government should not be doing of course, being in business.

We have had a legitimate outside offer to buy a portion of a government service. If that is not justification for it to be studied in the committee concept, which is all-party, then I do not know when there ever will be a case.

Supply November 15th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, the motion dealing with rail in Canada has three parts, one being inaction on the part of the government, one being a lack of transparency and one being no vision on high speed rail.

I am not going to offer a lot of solutions as the minister has suggested we do because we are going to deal with the specific points raised by the Bloc in its motion. I am however going to put out several challenges to the minister which I hope he will respond to under questions or comments. If he does not I have to accept that he probably reluctantly agrees with the points I make.

Dealing first with the question of inaction, in some way I support the concept the Bloc is suggesting, that there is inaction on the part of the government. I have to ask why it is surprised at this. The reality is inaction is prevalent throughout all of the departments in the government.

With regard to transport, first we have to look at such things as the Pearson contract and the legislation cancelling it. We asked the minister for a public hearing. We did not say that it was a good deal or a bad deal but simply how can you condemn something that has never been given its proper hearing.

First he refuses to do it and then we get word through the media the minister said that he is strongly considering having a public hearing. Then we have yet another minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, saying there will be no hearing. Lo, there was no hearing.

That was a case where there was a series of actions which produced an inaction and questions of who is really running the transport department.

Then we get into things like the Churchill port and the minutes from Ports Canada that said it is closing down Churchill. That magically disappeared out of the minutes of the meeting that decided that.

It was raised in the House. Was the minister responsible or was it the head of Ports Canada, who was of course a Liberal patronage appointment? The reality is that it was not the minister. It was yet another minister who sits nearby who has more of a concern about this because of his home province and he caused a magic marker to appear over top of those minutes. Again I have to wonder who is running the transport department

and is that some of the reason why we have no real action in that department.

Then we have human resources. Again this is a new concept that the Liberals are raising to a mastery where they produce a series of actions which results in no action at all. In the case of human resources, right at the beginning of the year they raised the unemployment insurance rates. Then through another mastery they reduced their own raise, thus cancelling their own action to say look at the wonderful saving they have made for people. I suggested if they raised the amount 10 times as high and then reduced it, they could have had even greater saving. Obviously the bottom line is no action at all.

Then we have the justice department. The justice department talks of reforms to the criminal justice system but there is nothing forthcoming. There are no concrete proposals. The problems still continue on.

We have the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health has not only taken no action but has penalized provinces for trying to implement these actions. It has penalized my own province of British Columbia for one for trying to implement some cost cutting changes that would make the health system healthier and more effective in that province. Instead it gets the transfer payments reduced because it did not march to the beat of the Liberal government.

Then we have the immigration department and the so-called consultations that are going on. I say so-called because people are demanding action and they are making very clear what kind of action they are looking for. They are going out and selling a preconceived government agenda.

Then we have the minister of fisheries, the fisheries department. Again, here is where we are having another study whose only purpose is to provide a scapegoat for the inaction on the part of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, soon to be the minister of oceans because the fisheries will be destroyed.

We have the finance department with no workable plan, no indication that the goals it has set are obtainable, goals that are too low even if it should somehow magically manage to attain them with its current plan of so-called action.

This is the general level of action of a government that loves to preface many of its statements by calling them action plans. It takes more than hollow words to create real action.

What action has the government taken on rail line abandonment? What changes have taken place? There has been no action whatsoever to resolve the overtrackage problem in the east.

Interestingly enough when CN and CP were talking about rationalization and merging the two rail lines to form the company referred to as Newco, the minister seemed to think that was a wonderful idea. However now that one company wishes to buy out the other that is not a good idea even though it would produce the same general result. In fact it would produce better results because there would still be a vestige of competition under this new proposal.

There is no action to deal with rail line inequitable taxation problems. That is certainly a very large problem and a very large component of the rail industry's problems.

There is no action to deal with the provincial problems concerning such things as labour legislation and property taxation. Not only are they harming the rail lines as they exist right now but they are also among the large impediments in the way of attracting private short line operators to take over these abandoned lines when the big rail companies can no longer make money running them.

There is also no action to deal with harmonizing capital depreciation rules so that they can compete effectively with their American competitors.

The next thing I would like to look at is the lack of transparency on the part of the government with regard to the rail industry. Once again this is something that is prevalent throughout all of the departments.

Of course we have in transport such things as the Pearson contract. When Bill C-22 was brought in we tried to introduce an aspect of transparency. Had the government agreed to do that we would have supported that bill. All we wanted was the claims and the resultant payments going out to flow through the all-party transport committee. In that way the claims and the resulting payments would be known and transparent and there could be no under the table deals. It was refused as an amendment at the committee stage and was refused as an amendment at third reading.

Then there was the wonderful deal that was cut behind closed doors by the Minister of Transport with Air Canada dealing with the route to Osaka. The minister rose in this House and denied directly to me that there was any private backroom deal. He continued to deny that for two days after which he admitted that in fact he had cut a deal with Air Canada. Transparency? Not a chance.

In the human resources department again patronage appointments are absolutely rampant, even in my little rural riding in southeastern British Columbia. There was a one year delay in getting anyone to sit as chairman of the board of referees because the government attempted to put in someone totally unqualified by way of a patronage appointment. When that was exposed the government sat on the real appointment for over a

year. It was a tremendous hardship for people in my riding having problems with UIC. It is another example of lack of transparency on the part of the government.

The health department is currently undergoing a $12 million study. This is not to learn but rather to sell preconceived government notions and agenda. This is not transparent and it is not acceptable.

The immigration department has its own hidden agenda in its review board. On the Vancouver immigration and refugee review board a member who was appointed by the previous government has had a 38 per cent acceptance rate of those who appealed through him. In the last four years there have been only three appeals to his decisions, two of which were heard. Only one was overturned and that was because of a mistake made in the translation of the information supplied to him from the appellant. It changed the meaning of what he was told. That one single case was reversed, no others.

Now the minister has implemented a priority goal of a 75 per cent acceptance rate. Why is there a goal? There should only be acceptance of those who are proper and true immigrants to this country. If that is 10 per cent, it is 10 per cent. If it is 90 per cent, it is 90 per cent. How can there possibly be a goal if there is not some hidden agenda? The other side of it again brings into question the transparency of what the government is doing.

It is the very fact in this case that if one of the two people viewing these appeals accepts the application, it is accepted. If it is accepted no report has to be written, but if it is rejected a lengthy report has to be written. It places a tremendous emphasis on accepting, whether or not it is for the good of Canada.

The fisheries department transparency. It is studying a serious, perhaps catastrophic problem of the salmon fisheries on the west coast in house instead of holding a public inquiry. The problem was created in house by the minister. How can he study himself and come up with an objective answer?

In the finance department again we are looking for transparency. There is an absolute refusal to make a commitment on the question of a carbon tax or taxation of RRSPs.

Justice department is an interesting case where there is the opposite of transparency. There is excruciating transparency when dealing with such things as the proposed firearms legislation. The minister has publicly stated he will not make legislation based on head count, but he will in fact do what is good for the people, which can be translated into: "I do not care what the people want, I know better than they do".

Now we deal with transport and the transparency there. Well, the CN task force has already been mentioned. Do we have a problem with that? Is that a transparent, viable thing? Of course it is not. There is absolutely no reason that the questions being raised by the CN task force could not have flown through the transport committee, have had a vestige of all-party input and then it would have had some credibility. It certainly would have had some transparency.

We know that on a recent task force struck under transport dealing with the seaway there was a dissenting report. It could not do to have somebody offering a different opinion. Even though my party did not happen to agree with that dissenting opinion it was nonetheless the right of the people in this House to make it. This is what an all Liberal CN task force manages to block.

When looking at what is happening with CN and the offer from CP there are three scenarios that could come up, but I believe the report they are to make is already written.

First, they could come back and say the CP offer is good. That releases the minister from responsibility. He can now claim that his people went out across the country and they got this endorsed and so away they go. It comes back to what we talked about previously on other bills where the government consults and that is supposed to mean the solution it comes up with is okay. The very fact that there is consultation does not mean there was anything whatsoever in the final report that had anything to do with what people said during the consultation. It does no good to have consultations if you do not listen to what people say.

The second scenario is that they could come back to CP and say: "We like the idea of you offering to buy out a portion of CN except we want you to increase the offer and buy out the whole thing". That is unacceptable because it will remove the vestige of competition that still remains under the current CP offer.

The final thing they could do is come back and say: "No, we do not want to sell part of it. We want to privatize the entire thing and sell it as a total unit". That also is unacceptable because it does absolutely nothing to deal with the problem of overtrackage in eastern Canada.

I suppose in one respect there is a fourth option which is to do absolutely nothing at all. This seems to be a very popular option on the part of the Liberals, but I would hope that at least they realize it is not a workable solution in this case.

We could go on just on the vestige of the CP rail offer alone, but I would say one thing to this House. I believe the concept of the CP rail offer to CN is a good one. I remind the minister it is not considerably different from the concept that he has already endorsed which is that of the two companies merging together, only in that case there would be an absolute loss of competition. In the case of this offer there is not.

I would like to touch on VIA Rail because that was mentioned in the hon. member's motion. VIA Rail in a word should be privatized. An example of an operation that was run by VIA Rail in British Columbia and into Alberta is the Rocky Mountain Rail Tours. VIA ran this with huge subsidies for a number of years and still managed to lose money.

Rocky Mountaineer Railtours was sold to the Great Canadian Railtour Company which ran it in virtually the same context as it was being run by VIA, but of course with the aspect of private enterprise introduced to it. It must get a return on the investment made to VIA. Great Canadian Railtour has fought considerable roadblocks put up by the very company that sold it this line and has had to fight in court. In spite of all that it has made an unsubsidized profit.

Can the private sector do better than crown corporations? You bet it can. We believe the only subsidies that should take place for rail transportation in terms of passenger transportation are for remote operations only and only then when there is a demonstrated need.

It is all well and good to be nostalgic and remember back to the days when the rail linked and tied this country together. We have to recognize that for all the improvements in technology the locomotives may pull more weight than they pulled in the old days, they may pull it a bit faster and certainly they may be safer, but the general concept of moving people by rail has not changed dramatically in terms of the years that have gone by.

If we think back to when rail transportation was originally introduced alternative methods were not available. Rail started before there was any widespread concept of any alternative transportation except by horse. There were no aeroplanes, there were no buses, there were no passenger cars. As technology has moved in other areas the genuine need for rail transportation has to be modified.

Many of the areas can be handled by private enterprise, making a profit without government subsidies where there are sufficient passengers to move. That will also resolve traffic problems. In remote areas where there are alternatives they are probably going to have to look at those alternatives. If there are no alternatives that is the only situation in which we should be looking at government subsidies.

Finally I would like to touch on high speed rail. This has been brought up before. The answer now is exactly the same as it was then. A $7 billion or $8 billion high speed rail system is not in our foreseeable future, not if half of the money is going to come from empty federal tax coffers. We have no money for the things that are here now.

The other side of the House is talking about the need for cuts and we endorse that. We know there have to be cuts. Why at a time when we are talking about the need for cuts are we talking about spending $7 billion or $8 billion on a high speed rail system? It is not a national high speed rail system, it is only for one single corridor.

It has been suggested that half of that money must come out of the government tax coffers. If it is a profitable venture as the people proposing this would have us believe, why would they want the government, which has a history of losing money at everything it turns its hand to, as a partner? On the other hand if it is in fact a loser, why would the government associate itself with another tax drain?

There are solutions. The government will not find them if it does not start taking some action on the known solutions. It will not find them if it hides everything behind hidden agendas, if there is no transparency, if it does not openly and honestly involve others and then use solutions provided by these people instead of trying to use them to create a justification for its own agenda.

There will be many opportunities for the minister to hear our proposals. Unfortunately in the past whenever the government takes a Reform policy proposal, which we are happy to see it do, it only takes it piecemeal. It manages to mess it up so bad that we are almost reluctant to help the government, unless it lets us guide it all the way. I might add we are totally prepared to do that.

I leave it to the government. If it wishes to refute anything I have said, I would be happy to hear it. Failing that I would ask the government to become more transparent and start taking action to consult with those of us on this side of the House who do have solutions. There is no point in our throwing them out if the government intends not to use them.

Lighthouses November 4th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, if the government is going to follow the example of other countries, I hope the justice minister will take note that Australia cancelled its firearms registration because it did not work.

The minister's departmental publication "West Coast Lighthouses" states that despite technological changes over the past 200 years in the automation of equipment, the human element has proven essential in warning of unpredictable changes in weather, aiding in search and rescue activities and providing essential services to mariners.

Will the minister tell us why he is ignoring his own department and jeopardizing safety to save money by cutting operational people instead of bureaucrats?

Lighthouses November 4th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, in a news release sent out yesterday the government announced it will hold 60 public consultation meetings on light station destaffing. This consultation process was not to determine whether or not people accept destaffing. Previous consultation showed that west coast communities, boaters, fishermen and coastal pilots do not want this. This consultation is on implementation of the very policy the government previously agreed not to implement.

My question for the Minister of Transport is why is this government cutting back on operational jobs which affect public safety instead of cutting back on senior bureaucrat jobs that only affect the spending of the Canadian taxpayers' dollars?

Marine Transportation Security Act November 4th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-38 is a technical bill that tightens up measures pertaining to marine safety on passenger ships, ferries and others. It is the marine equivalent to similar bills that have existed for some time with respect to aviation. It brings Canada's marine industry more in line with similar legislation already passed in Britain, the United States and several of the more sensitive Mediterranean countries.

Communications with user groups and other affected people produce some concerns with the bill's original wording but virtually all of these concerns have been addressed by amendments made at the committee level.

The Reform Party supports this bill but does not intend to offer any further amendments or any additional speakers. It appears there is all-party support for the bill as amended.

It is very ironic that we have so much time to debate bills on which there is no dispute when the government saw fit to invoke closure last spring on a number of very contentious bills. The dictionary defines contempt as the feeling that a person, act or thing is mean, low or worthless. The invoking of closure was something the Liberals found contemptible when they sat in opposition. Somehow during the walk across the floor to the government side of the House their perspective changed. My position echoes their old position. In fact, I find the invoking of closure to be actually beyond contempt.

Since Bill C-38 is under the transport ministry let us look for a minute at other actions of this department as it is the body that is responsible for Bill C-38.

During the last federal election the Liberals were looking for some campaign issues to raise their profile. They found one in Toronto with the Pearson airport contract. They stated that the contract was a rotten one, full of crooked dealings between the Tories and their friends. They stated that if they were elected they would investigate this contract, expose the wrongdoing and then cancel it.

They left something out on the follow-up to that promise. They never exposed any wrongdoing. Was there any? We do not know, do they? There are two possibilities on this issue. One is that when the so-called independent review took place they could not find any wrongdoing. If so, they had a problem. After all, with all screaming about what a rotten deal the Pearson contract was, it would be embarrassing to admit they were wrong.

The solution to this scenario was to continue the claim that the deal was rotten, cancel it and make sure the legislation banning the contract holders from going to court where they might expose the fact that there were no rotten deals was passed. The other possibility is that they did find a lot wrong with the way the contract was obtained, but the guilty party was the Liberal connected portion of the contract holders. It would not do to expose that in court, so we have the same solution.

During the committee stage of Bill C-22 I offered an amendment that would require any settlements to flow through the transport standing committee. This would have kept the amounts of payment and the payees public. The public certainly had the right to know how this was being handled. Government members refused. I reintroduced the same amendment at third reading, but again the government voted it down.

The issue at stake was not so much the Pearson contract but rather the basic rights of Canadians, whether they were companies or individuals. If the government can arbitrarily revoke someone's rights, as it did in the case of the Pearson contract, it can do it anywhere, to anyone, in any situation, maybe even in the enforcement of the provisions of a marine security act. That is beyond contempt.

If questionable activities were limited to the transport problem that would be one thing. In that situation we could probably accept Bill C-38 at face value. However, revoking or ignoring the needs and rights of Canadians seems to be a general theme of this new Liberal Party with its new found perspective. This means we must look much closer at the emerging pattern provided by the Liberal cabinet in order to determine what is its real agenda.

For example, consider the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the recent developments showing that he interfered with the

activities of the CRTC. Further examination revealed that this was not the first time he had done so. That is beyond contempt. Further it underlines the concerns I have in dealing with Liberals in all areas, including Bill C-38.

The Minister of Human Resources Development recently tore a page from the Reform policy on funding for post-secondary education. We have advocated the use of student vouchers to channel federal moneys for universities through students to the universities of their choice. This would have neither increased nor decreased tuition for students. It was simply meant to be a more effective way to make the universities more responsive to the needs of students.

However the minister in tearing out that page must have left most of it behind. The proposal he made was to propose issuing a voucher that was in fact a loan repayable to the government, and then cut off federal transfer payments in support of post-secondary education. This would have effectively doubled tuition costs for students who are already having trouble affording an education. That is beyond contempt.

Bill C-38 deals with the security of those who use the oceans. In that context let us look at recent actions or the lack of action by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Millions of west coast salmon have recently gone missing. Even though the salmon may never surface again, evidence that the recommendations of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans which may have prevented this catastrophe were ignored by the minister. This evidence is surfacing regularly. That is beyond contempt.

Safety and security are the main points of Bill C-38. The health and safety of the Canadian public were the subjects of a recent private member's bill dealing with HIV testing for immigration applicants, submitted by the member for Calgary Northeast. Although a few Liberals were prepared to go against the grain and vote in favour of the bill, unbelievably the majority under the direction of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration defeated this basic measure to ensure the health and safety of Canadians. That is beyond contempt.

Enforcement measures under the marine safety and security bill will fall in some part into the realm of justice. Let us take a look at the integrity of the justice minister. This is the minister who was planning to introduce new restrictive firearms legislation without one shred of evidence it will do a single thing to prevent the criminal misuse of firearms.

This is the minister who stated: "I will not legislate according to head count. I will do what I believe is in the best interests of Canadians". That statement interprets to: "I do not care what Canadians want, I know what is best for them". That is a rather scary concept. We might have this same minister involved in decisions that challenge matters arising out of Bill C-38. I find the minister's attitude to be beyond contempt.

One thing we have not heard is when the government intends to invoke concerns about aboriginal people into this bill. It may well be that with potential land settlement claims eventually some port may end up being owned by an aboriginal group. If that happens the Minister of Transport would have to work in consultation with the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development whose record on legislative fairness is the worst of all the ministers we have discussed thus far.

He is the minister who introduced Bills C-33 and C-34. These two bills were rushed through the House to the extent that the Liberals invoked closure to finalize the bills on which even aboriginal people were writing to us with their concerns. If the land settlements contained in these bills were to be used as a precedent for all aboriginal people in Canada, we would need a land area four times the size of my home province of British Columbia to settle. These bills establish self-government at an unprecedented level and apparently revoke the Charter of Rights and Freedoms from the aboriginal people affected by this bill. This type of action and attitude is beyond contempt.

The Prime Minister is the person who is ultimately responsible for all ministers and all legislation. Bill C-38 is no exception. He is the person who recently claimed to have consulted with the ethics counsellor but had not talked with him at all. He later stated that he had not met nor talked to the ethics counsellor personally, but rather had directed his staff to do so. All this time the Prime Minister was referring to advice that he received from the ethics counsellor. Now we find that no one consulted with the ethics counsellor. This is a measure of integrity from the person on whom the responsibility for Bill C-38 rests? Not only is this very unsettling, it is beyond contempt.

Let us look at the Standing Committee on Transport, the committee that dealt with Bill C-38. At a recent meeting this committee went through the process of electing chairs and vice-chairs for the committee. At that meeting I asked for the voting on positions to be done by secret ballot. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport objected to this request suggesting that the Reform Party was trying to introduce unacceptable secret dealings into the committee.

I was forced to point out to the parliamentary secretary that this procedure was recommended in the Liberal's little red book. What is more it is the very method by which the Speaker of this House is elected.

My motion was defeated and the Liberals once again elected a member of the party who is dedicated to breaking up this country to be the vice-chair of the transport committee. This procedure was repeated in every committee in this House. I find that beyond contempt.

I said at the beginning I would support Bill C-38 and I will. The reason I am supporting it is due in part to my consultation with users whose concerns have been addressed.

There is some potential for integrity on the other side. It is hopeful. Some members chose to vote in favour of the bill on HIV testing for immigrants. Notwithstanding the actions of the transport committee on the election of vice-chairs it appeared to be at most times a reasonable group working to resolve problems facing Canadians, I guess because there are no cabinet ministers who sit on committees. Because of this I will continue my support of the bill but it does not end my basic concern that the attitudes and actions of many government ministers in this House are beyond contempt.

Yukon Surface Rights Board Act November 3rd, 1994

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that whenever the Liberals take a page out of the Reform policy book to introduce legislation, they always seem to take only half a page and get it wrong.

It seems that when the hon. member listened to my presentation he only listened to half of it. I would first point out that he should check back in his records on the Split Lake agreement and see which way the Reform Party voted on that.

Second, I would point out that I said here that there is a bias, not by the Reform Party but on the part of the government on the racial makeup of the very board we are discussing here. It is limiting the number of people from any one race, and that includes the aboriginal people. If they are the best qualified, why are they limited to 50 per cent of the board? If they are the best people, let them be the the major part of the board. It is only because the minister wants to have absolute and complete control.

We need something that is fair and totally honest. We are not going to have honesty when those numbers on the committee are both manipulated and appointed as personal patronage plums of the minister of Indian and northern affairs.

Yukon Surface Rights Board Act November 3rd, 1994

We have property rights in Canada, at least we think we do. The reality is we do not have any property rights at all. All land belongs to the government. All we have is the right of continued possession. If the government starts limiting our access to the court, the government can bring out more and more arcane laws all the time and have its own people in place and ram them through, no access to the courts, no appeal.

There are many flaws in this bill. I trust sincerely that if this bill makes it to the committee that the Liberals will do what is right. They will correct these injustices in the bill. They will start dealing with the accusations they made when they were on this side of the House. They will get rid of patronage. They will

get rid of all the other ill-tasting things that are in this bill and bring out something that is legitimate, meaningful and justifiable to the people of the Yukon.

Yukon Surface Rights Board Act November 3rd, 1994

Oh, yes, very wise indeed. Of course the more control you have, the more you can put in your own patronage people and have things the way you want totally unchallenged.

Yukon Surface Rights Board Act November 3rd, 1994

Mr. Speaker, my speech will be short if not particularly sweet for those across.

As has been mentioned many times already, Bill C-55 is a continuation of Bills C-33 and C-34. This places the Reform Party and myself in somewhat of an awkward position. Any support we may give at some point on Bill C-55 should most certainly not be interpreted as support for the previous ill-conceived legislation.

During his initial presentation of Bill C-55, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development stated that just before the summer recess we dealt with the legislation of Bills C-33 and C-34. That is false. We did not do that. What happened just before the summer recess was that the Liberals invoked closure, the very thing that when they sat on this side of the House they said was such a contemptible thing. It is interesting how their perspective changes as they walk across the floor. I sincerely hope it will not change our perspective when we walk across the floor three years from now.

The legislation contained in Bills C-33 and C-34 is absolutely incredible. They place us in the position we are now when dealing with land in the Yukon. If land settlements were made with all aboriginal people in Canada on the basis of the settlement made in Bill C-33, we would be looking at a land settlement area four times the size of my province of British Columbia. I believe that is absolutely unacceptable to virtually everyone.

On the matter of the intent of Bill C-55, I would first have to state that I support the slogan of the mining industry which is: keep mining in Canada. Certainly we would want to have some settlement of land disputes in the Yukon and we would like to see this move through the House quickly. However there are many flaws in Bill C-55 which must be corrected before it can proceed.

The government talks of consultation. It even lists in its presentation the consultation that supposedly took place in the preparation of Bill C-55. This is another of the Liberals' sleight of hands or flimflams. When one says they have consulted or have provided a list of people they have consulted someone looking at that document says: "This is good. Here are all the people they have consulted with. I guess if they have used what these people have told them and come up with this, it must be okay".

There is absolutely nothing in the process of consultation especially with the Liberals that says they have listened to anything they have received as a result of these consultations. The very fact they have gone out and spoken with some people means absolutely nothing.

Recently, after coming in from a rally on these very grounds of people concerned about the impending firearms legislation the justice minister said that this government will not base its legislation on head count. In other words: "We do not care what the people say. We know what is good for them". That certainly is a problem.

Another of the problems in this bill that must be addressed are patronage appointments by the minister. Once again their perspective changes when they walk across the floor. These are the same members who sat in opposition and lambasted the former Prime Minister and the Tory party for patronage appointments. It seems however that they learned at the feet of the master. Now that they have formed the government they are anxious to show that they are bigger and better at everything, including patronage, than the former Prime Minister.

The appointments being made to this board are going to be made by the minister. Is that not nice? He gets to put together a little patronage haven of his own so that now people can pay homage and maybe support him so they can get one of these plum positions. The board gets to say who they want and then the chairman appoints them, but remember who put the people on the board in the first place.

I would like to remind the House, those who do not know can learn from this, of comments of a senior Liberal campaign official from a western riding who was anticipating his patronage appointment to the board of referees. When questioned on the fact that he had announced prematurely that he was getting this appointment and that it was clearly a patronage appointment, he was quoted in the Vancouver Sun as stating: ``What's wrong with patronage? How else can we attract people to our party?'' What a disgusting turn of events that we now find ourselves in, a patronage appointed board to do the bidding of the minister so that the minister can claim that the government is no longer directly involved.

What about the composition of the board? This is really interesting as well. The composition of the board is racially motivated. It is interesting. Why are the Liberals doing that? If we assume that there are going to be 10 on the board-if the minister has the opportunity to appoint why not appoint the maximum number and that way he gets the maximum benefits back-five are going to be aboriginal people and five are going to be non-aboriginal.

This brings into question first that they are dealing with all lands in the Yukon. That means that it should be Yukon people. There should not be a particular makeup that says there has to be a certain number of a certain type of people when they are dealing on land other than aboriginal land. If it were aboriginal land only, I agree that it should be aboriginal people who decide on their own land. When we are dealing with all of the Yukon it should be people in the Yukon, period.

One side asks: "Why should there be an arbitrary number of aboriginal people deciding on non-aboriginal land?" On the other hand it is argued that aboriginal people are competent. I am not arguing that. In fact they are the ones who live on the land and may in fact at times be the best qualified to make the decision for land use in the Yukon. Why then should the board be limited to five aboriginal people if in fact they may be the best qualified people? If seven of the best qualified people are aboriginal, why should two of them be denied so that it can go the other way, just the same as it works in reverse.

The final point that I have some concerns about is access to court. In the document it narrows and extremely limits access to court on appeal from the outcome of this board belonging to the minister of Indian and northern affairs. Why would one want to limit a person's access to court? Obviously the Liberal government is sort of predisposed to that. We have already seen the Minister of Transport do that in the Pearson deal.

It comes to a matter of property rights-

Tobacco Taxes October 20th, 1994

Madam Speaker, my question to the Minister of Transport was a result of a proposal I sent to the minister on October 7.

In that proposal I pointed out that Bill C-22 does not protect Canadians as the minister would have everyone believe. What it does do is strip all Canadians of the right of due process by pronouncing a group of Canadians guilty until proven innocent and then proceeds to remove their right to prove their own innocence.

In his response to my question the minister suggests I want this to go to court to protect my friends. I point out to the minister as I did in my proposal to him that of the group of companies that make up the Pearson Development Corporation only 18.5 per cent have close known ties to the former Tory government.

In actual fact there are far more Liberals than Tories involved in the deal and I have never heard him accuse me of being in this to help the Liberals.

My interest in this matter goes far beyond the subject of the Pearson contract. It goes to a matter of basic justice. If the government can cancel any contract without regard for due process, no one is safe.

The Pearson Development Corporation had a contract with the government. The minister quotes me as stating that I see nothing wrong with the deal. Frankly, I have not found anything wrong. If there is something wrong with the deal, I do not know what it is.

Interestingly enough, according to a secret government document supplied to Robert Nixon, the government also thinks that it is a good deal. Quoting from that secret document, airline rents are in line with other airports undertaking major capital investments. Crown return is considerably better than the crown construction option. The Pearson Development Corporation return on investment is endorsed as a reasonable rate of return by both the Department of Finance and an independent financial consultant.

The parliamentary secretary to the minister stated on October 17 that the government was waiting to get the national airport's program all set up so that it could go ahead and start spending the $740 million that the Pearson investors were going to spend.

Maybe he should consult with the Minister of Finance to find out where their cash strapped government is going to get another three-quarters of a billion dollars. He should also read his own government's secret document that says that this is not a good idea.

If the government chooses to cancel it, that is its prerogative. However, when a contract is cancelled there are rules to govern this. The government chose to ignore those rules.

To put this in an analogy of a ball game, imagine a game, top of the ninth. Canadian taxpayers are ahead four-nothing against the government. The government says it is pulling the ump and putting in a person of its own. It extends the game until it

announces it is over, changes the rules so it can get ahead and then announces that the game is finished.

The Minister of Transport has tried this group of Canadian investors on the basis of accusation alone. He has been the judge, jury and financial executioner. If there is any evidence of illegal activity then and only then are the contractors the ones who have broken the rules.

So far the government has not brought forth any such evidence. A judicial inquiry would help clear the air and assure that justice is done. That was my proposal to the minister.

My question was will the minister agree that the Pearson problem is not going to go away and that the proposal I sent him is the only fair and logical way to bring this matter to a just conclusion. The minister did not answer that question. Therefore I ask it again and I await a response.