Bev Desjarlais

[Committees of the House, November 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question for my colleague is in response to a comment he made earlier as well with regard to being surprised that the NDP members would say that they are not in favour of tariffs. I know that comments were made earlier by another Conservative colleague with regard to how we have to let the marketplace indicate how processes should evolve.

I wonder what my colleague's thoughts are on this issue we are dealing with today on the importance of having it resolved before the end of the year so that the industry is not jeopardized. As well, there were his comments on whether or not as a country we continually allow our resources and our jobs to go out of the country for the sake of globalization and letting the market set the standard, without ensuring that labour laws, human rights laws and all those types of processes are in place. I would like to hear his comments on that.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I believe that has taken place. In the larger airports it is more prevalent. We need to take that control back. The government has admitted that it does not have control, and that is a serious issue.

New legislation was to be introduced in the House in the last Parliament, which I expect to be reintroduced. Through that legislation, the government was going to give them more opportunity to develop in ways that were not necessarily related to an airport. That is wrong. In this case it is further emphasized because the expropriated land was never used for the airport. It is wrong. We need to get control back over the airport authorities or do away with them altogether.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, there is no question that farmers and farm families are not being supported as they should be. They were the initial builders of our country. We are always going to need food. One has to wonder why the government would not put supports that are needed in place for farmers not only at Mirabel but throughout the country.

The government thinks absolutely nothing about giving billions of dollars to Bombardier and other corporations over the years. It thinks nothing about giving billions of dollars to companies to invest in other countries. Yet the government gives no support to our farmers and their families, who are here to build our country and who have steadfastly stayed and promoted good living in our country. It has given them nothing. The government is chopping away at all the foundations that keep those farms in place.

There is an issue here. The government has to put greater supports in place. We need to recognize that we will always need those farms. If we allow that land to be continually used for industrial settings, then we will be trying to find food resources for our own people. When we have the best in the world here in Canada, why would we do that?

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is asking where is the relevance. I will tell him where it is. The relevance is falsely expropriating 100,000 acres of farmland and then not putting in place the airport that it said it would. The relevance is having 17,000 acres of farmland, when the government probably only needs 6,000 acres of it. The relevance is not giving that land back to the farmers. It is good, arable farmland which they have been leasing and farming all these years. It has not been used for what the government expropriated it. That is relevance. It is a matter of the government not doing what it should be doing for the priorities of Canada. It is just not acceptable to do that.

When we look at this, what we have is the feudal landlord. It was the farmers' land, the government took it away and then leased it back to them. There is no reason why that land should not be returned. It has never been used for what it was intended. It should not have to be used in the future because there is ample space available. It is unconscionable that the government would not give that land back.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, first, I want to present the financial costs that have been incurred at Mirabel Airport and then I will give a bit of a history, so that those of us in the House will understand some of the dynamics as well as all Canadians.

It is hard, on an issue such as this, for all Canadians to see the benefit of spending a day discussing it or to see the big issue, but I think once they hear the financial costs and the history of Mirabel, it will hit home to each and every Canadian.

Originally, Mirabel was estimated to cost $425 million when planning began in the late 1960s. That money was spent in the first of several planned phases of the installation and by the time it opened for business, the projected price tag was $1.5 billion. Five years later the airport was losing money at the rate of more than $20 million a year and has been a loser ever since.

Montreal Mirabel International Airport is now used exclusively for cargo flights, not for passenger flights. The passenger flights ended October 31, 2004. We can give some credit to the government, which made a decision to close it to passenger flights, and we will not see the losses of $20 million a year. However, it does open up another situation, which I will get into after I give a bit more history on Mirabel.

It was constructed as part of a major project by the Canadian federal government under Pierre Trudeau for Montreal, originally to replace Dorval. It was not to be a part of Dorval or to work alongside Dorval, but to replace Dorval. From the start Mirabel was controversial. In order to build the airport, the government expropriated 100,000 acres of land. That, in itself, was absolutely scandalous. That was from about 3,000 property owners. Can hon. members imagine, 3,000 property owners just having their land taken away from them to put in place another airport? It gets better.

It was a huge expense and during the process, and this will shock all hon. members in the House and all Canadians, there were allegations of corruption and patronage. There is a shock. The airport was opened in 1975 with great fanfare. Montreal's Olympic Games were coming, and the international airport was deemed crucial to the games' success and the city's future as an international destination.

Supporters predicted that Mirabel would become a gateway to the world, luring 60 million passengers annually by 2010. It never fulfilled that promise. At its peak it drew no more than three million passengers. Three million passengers for 100,000 acres of expropriated land. Foreign media passengers at the airport have been calling it a white elephant ever since. There is no question that Mirabel, as a major passenger airport, never, ever followed-through.

The airport's location near the community of Mirabel was also a big mistake. It was the result of a fundamentally flawed compromise between the federal government and the Quebec government that satisfied no one in the end. The federal government had originally intended the new facility to be the international airport for the capital region, plus Transport Canada envisioned it being built to the west of Montreal. The province, on the other hand, was looking to lure Quebec City travellers to the airport and wanted it built to the east, near Drummondville, almost halfway between the two cities. It was a compromise that did not work for anybody. It had a couple of strikes against it right from the beginning, namely, to split flights between Mirabel and Trudeau, formerly Dorval, and the failure to build the necessary road and rail links from Mirabel to Montreal.

This has not been an experiment that jeopardized the future of 3,000 families that worked. It did not happen. It looks like it was someone's idea to do this and to heck with how it affected anybody. Right from the get go it was not done in a proper manner.

Toronto's Pearson International quickly picked up steam in the seventies, taking flights away from Mirabel. We had a situation where poor government planning, wastage of dollars time and time again, affected the lives of numerous people whose land was taken.

It was anticipated that a new airport away from the city but with reliable passenger rail links, again where the government has failed and continues to fail, would be successful. However, debates between levels of government moved the site further from the city than reasonably reachable and the only passenger links are by a long road. From day one, it was not a good move.

Dorval was flooded at the time due to too many jets using Dorval as a stopover to refuel. However, the advent of long range aircraft caused airplanes to stop landing to refuel there and as a result Dorval was no longer overcrowded. To this date there is not a major issue with Dorval.

What we are talking about today is not 100,000 acres. In 1985-86 the government returned 80,000 acres of that land, leaving about 17,000 acres. Someone's estimates were way off right from the get go. Of that 17,000 acres, farmers want 11,000 acres, leaving 6,000 acres for use by Mirabel, which is only used now for cargo services and charter services at some point. When the government returned the land in 1985-86, it made $81 million dollars. The land was expropriated, sold back and that is where it stands.

Today we have an opportunity for the government to right a wrong that took place. I think there are only 40 some farmers in this case now and that should seem like no big deal. The reality is we are dealing with a situation that affected a number of farmers initially. Those same family members are involved in this process. As someone from outside of Quebec and outside of the area, it looks to me as though the land was falsely expropriated. The government never needed that amount of land. At this point in time, when that land is definitely not being used, there is no feasible reason why it should not be returned.

The suggestion that some day down the road it might be needed, the 6,000 acres would still be ample. My colleague from Halifax mentioned what was presently being used for the Toronto airport, 4,200 acres; Ottawa, 4,500 acres; Heathrow, 2,700 acres; and Los Angeles, 3,500 acres. How can the government suggest that somehow more than 6,000 acres will be needed at Mirabel when we still have Trudeau airport? It is not acceptable.

It leads me to question the government's trusteeship in this case. It leads me to question what its intentions are, whether there is an intention there. We have seen many instances where it parcelled off that land to some private company, some friends of the Liberals, just as there were allegations of patronage initially. There is that risk, in spite of everything we dealt with in the last two years in the House related to the government's feeding taxpayer dollars to Liberal friendly people. It is not right.

All Canadians should stand up in support of those 40 some farmers in Mirabel and say to the Liberals that they will not keep their land and use it for their own selfish purposes. The right thing to do is to return the land to those farmers if it is not needed for a passenger airport.

The transport minister has mentioned that the government has an agreement with the airport authorities. He says that the government cannot break that agreement with the airport authorities. The government is the master and the initiator of those airport authorities. The government appoints those individuals to airport authorities.

There have been questions in a number of instances throughout Canada as to who may be on those airport authorities. I say may because I think some who are on those authorities throughout Canada are very good individuals who work for the benefit of the community. However, there have been questions with regard to the airport authority in Montreal, that there was some Liberal patronage.

The government is the instigator of the airport authorities. The government can change what took place with the contract. The contract was for an airport authority to operate the airport, the intent being for passenger service. Things have changed and passenger service is no longer there. To suggest that the government cannot change the deal with the airport authority or the airport authority cannot renegotiate and give that money back to the farmers is just not an acceptable reason.

The Transport minister might think he will be tied up in court with the airport authorities. As a Parliament, we are the master of the legislation that put those airport authorities into existence. Now we are in a minority Parliament and perhaps we need to take the government to task about changing that right here and now, for all the airport authorities, so we do not have that kind of a situation.

Perhaps the minister does not think the government can have control of the airport authorities to ensure that they provide the best service to Canadians as far as passenger service and act responsibly in that. If the Parliament of Canada says that the responsible thing to do is return that 11,000 acres, then something is amok within the Liberal cabinet and it needs to change. It is absolutely not acceptable.

I say to my colleagues from the Bloc, we intend to support this motion. I say it to the Bloc because its members have been very active in supporting the farmers in Mirabel. I say to the Conservatives, who brought the motion forward today, we will be supporting it for all the right reasons.

Land was expropriated unjustly in my view. It is presently being kept falsely. I do not believe for one second that the Liberal government's intentions are noble in this instance. I think there is an underlying plan here. I am not willing to see even 43 families, or 43 farmers or 43 individuals suffer unjustly because of false actions of the Liberal government.

[Ukraine, November 24th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak during this debate tonight. First, I wish to thank my colleague from Winnipeg North as well as the member for Etobicoke Centre who has been very much a part of keeping parliamentarians informed as to what was taking place in Ukraine. I am sure it has been mentioned already that he has been personally involved having a good part of his family still in Ukraine.

For many of us that is not the case. A number of us have grandparents or great-grandparents who came over from Austria but who were of Ukrainian descent, and a good number came over from Ukraine. In the last number of years as Ukraine went to a democracy, or we hoped it was going to a democracy, thousands of Canadian-Ukrainians have taken the opportunity to return to Ukraine to join up with family members from generations back and reconnect with their history.

I have not gone back. My grandparents on my father's side were Ukrainian. I did not have close ties to Ukraine, but as we were growing up we were always embedded with a pride of all the cultures that made us what we are, and made us Canadians. It has been very interesting for me to be part of the conversations with a number of people from my community and throughout my riding who have had the opportunity to go back to Ukraine, to bring back the stories of how the country wanted to rebuild and wanted to be part of democracy, and have the same opportunities as we do in democratic Canada.

We thought, with this election, that we were going to see real change and a real strive forward. It is like a roller coaster. There has been this up and down, but there was this big up over the last few months and then about a week ago, or maybe even two weeks, people started to get a little nervous because it seemed like things were getting a bit shady, and the reality was that it got extremely bad.

I think what we have seen among Ukrainian-Canadians is an outpouring of feeling for their homeland, but also from other Canadians who have seen what has happened. They know that there are family members here and what they are going through. They have just been devastated to see this happen.

It becomes even more of a heart-rending moment when we see the possibility of violence and injury to those people in Ukraine who want to continue fighting for democracy, and are not willing to just throw in the towel right now. Rightfully so, they should not.

Canadians and western democracies throughout the world must ensure that we are there to give all the support that we can. It is important that we let the government that has put itself in place, and certainly those backers of that government, know that we are not going to leave Ukraine on its own, that we are going to stand firm with the people of Ukraine. We are going to be there for them to ensure that they get through this challenging time and we are going to take it one step at a time.

I was extremely hopeful this afternoon in the House when the government came out with a very strong statement. For the first time in a long time it was a strong statement against an election that was obviously flawed and against a government that was obviously not democratic.

I am pleased that the government took that position. I am a little bit concerned that often there is a tendency with the governing party to say the words and not follow through, and that just cannot happen in this instance. It absolutely cannot happen. We must immediately get those supports to the Ukrainian people. We must let them know that we are here standing beside them. We are going to be there when they start to feel like it is becoming an overwhelming challenge and the loss of lives might happen. I hope it does not. I hope we do not reach that point. I hope there is enough pressure put on from outside governments that it does not happen.

It is extremely important that the government follows through. This is one of those times where it cannot be allowed to happen. We have the opportunity to be proactive, to ensure that we do not let it digress and get much worse. It is crucially important that we offer that support to Ukraine.

As my colleague from Etobicoke Centre mentioned, and I had the opportunity to speak to him this morning, he returned from Ukraine yesterday evening and was very much a part of what was taking place. He, as well as numerous others, saw ballot boxes being stuffed with numerous votes and saw situations where people who legitimately should have been able to vote were not. They were witness, a good number of them, to people being forced and threatened not to vote.

It is not as if this really did not happen and these are not just a few stories here and there. This was blatant, outright skullduggery. I am trying not to be more forceful in my words with regard to the fellow who has placed himself as leader, but it was just blatant. For the world to accept that blatant, outright attack on democracy is not okay. Certainly, it is not okay for Canada to accept that without being strong behind our words.

To all the people in Canada who have relatives in Ukraine, and friends with whom they have reunited with over the last number of years upon returning, our prayers are with them all. It must be a very emotional time for them. Our prayers are with the people of Ukraine. We want to offer whatever support we can. I certainly hope that the government makes the point of being there for the people of Ukraine.

[Supply, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, that used to happen in nursing stations.

[Supply, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, the minister was pretty adamant earlier on when he was being questioned that it was not something that was feasible. I have to admit, having known that medical services had bulk purchased in earlier years, I was quite surprised that his comment would be there.

It has been acknowledged that there may be instances when they cannot bulk purchase, but we all know that our reserve communities are pretty centralized. Although there are first nations persons who have the right to drugs through the plan, there are a lot on reserve communities where bulk purchasing could be done. It is my understanding that certainly the nursing stations would be able to bulk purchase.

[Supply, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, is the minister aware as to whether or not the medical services branch or the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch has ever bulk purchased in their history?

[Supply, November 23rd, 2004]

How fair the Chair is tonight, Mr. Chair. It is just excellent.

I will make the specifics available, but it is a situation that does not happen in just one first nation community. It is a situation that happens overall. Private agencies are paid at top dollar for nurses to go into communities. I know specifically that those first nation communities have asked for additional dollars to hire full time people to work in those communities and are not able to do so.