Bev Desjarlais

[Supply, February 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for bringing forth a number of issues. I know he could have used a lot more time to discuss the issue of ethical investments with Canada pension funds.

He touched on the landmine issue. I think every person in the House should take a good look at themselves and really think about what has been mentioned. Canada had a foreign affairs minister who thought it was important enough to partake in a worldwide effort to have a treaty in place to ban the use of landmines. Why ban the use of landmines? Without question, most of people who have suffered from the use of landmines are innocent civilians who have not taken part in the war effort. Children and people who walk the streets after a war is done suffer the most from landmines. Because of the way landmines are made, their limbs are torn off. It is a huge issue throughout the world.

We are a great, wonderful nation and we make the statement that Canada will not partake in this. As a nation, how do we justify that we are not part of this when we have taken our pension funds and invested in companies that make the landmines?

I will put this into a context that maybe people will understand. As far as I am concerned, this is like taking our pension funds and investing in al-Qaeda or any other group that is out there to destroy humankind. It is not acceptable. Either we are principled and have some values or we do not. Let us not try to pretend anymore. As Canadians we take a stand and say that we believe in ethical funds and that we should not support those issues, or we let the world know that it is really all just for show.

The same issue would apply to investing in tobacco companies. We realize the serious risk of tobacco smoking, the effects it has on our health care system and the costs. Therefore, why would we use our pension funds to invest in tobacco companies, even though we put rules in place, such as if someone is under a certain age, they should not be smoking and vendors cannot sell to people under a certain age? We have huge taxes on it. What are we doing? We are investing in tobacco companies so they can sell to other countries. That is not acceptable.

I would like to think that everyone of us has more principles than that, that we will not use the rest of the world as our ground to make a few bucks off someone else's poverty and misfortune.

[Health, February 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, that pitiful response as an answer to the serious issue of health care in the country is exactly the Liberal rhetoric to which Canadians are tired of listening. In fact Liberals changed the Canada Health Act and made it easier for corporate friends to profit from home care.

It does not stop there: private surgeries in B.C., open; private hospitals in Alberta, open; home care privatized in Ontario; operating tables for rent in Quebec; for profit MRIs in Nova Scotia.

Why is the government allowing profiteering from the ill health of Canadians?

[Health, February 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Talk about Liberal hypocrisy on for profit medicare. Bruce Young, a senior officer working in the Prime Minister's office, was a corporate lobbyist for a group of private surgical facilities in B.C. Earnscliffe hack, Mike Robinson, chaired the Prime Minister's transition team and lobbied for private diagnostic services. No wonder B.C. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell expanded for profit health care, saying that he expected greater flexibility from the Prime Minister.

Will the Prime Minister clean house by firing his medicare corporate lobbyist today?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, February 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize it is a new portfolio for my colleague from Manitoba, but I am curious. In light of the revelations in regard to the sponsorship program with Public Works Canada, is there any kind of a booking fee that happens to work within western diversification in, say, its community futures projects? If dollars flow from western diversification to anyone of the numerous community futures offices, does money go directly through or is there a funneling agent for the cheques or the money to flow?

[Auditor General's Report, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, once again the Auditor General has highlighted the Liberal government's gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars. It is mismanagement that started with the finance minister turned Prime Minister and it has continued year after year: $100 million for Challengers without a tender and without parliamentary approval; programs within the same department funding the same project and somehow not knowing it.

The Auditor General has noted eight different funding programs costing millions within INAC to fund economic development unsuccessfully.

Liberal government imposed third party management contracts costing first nations up to $320,000 a year are handed out without a tendering process and without the involvement of the first nations.

INAC squandered first nations resources without any regard for band members. The government has let first nations take the fall for being short of funds when in reality in many cases it is the Liberal government's handling of the funds that is the problem.

Numerous first nations communities are like Barriere, a community of 400 first nation residents crammed into 60 tiny homes, two-thirds of which are totally unfit for human habitation. Living conditions and poverty will never improve as long as the government fails to recognize it is the problem.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, February 4th, 2004]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker, and if all Canadians were informed that the government has ripped off seniors for so many dollars and is saying that they cannot have it because they did not let the government know within so many years when it really owes it to them, they would be extremely disappointed.

We will continue to get the message out there that the government has total disregard for seniors. The government has shown this by not mentioning them in the throne speech and it continues to show this by refusing to pay retroactively on the GIS.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, February 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any question that the Prime Minister's words of democratic reform and making Parliament more transparent were just words. He had an opportunity to make some real change and that did not happen.

The member mentioned being out a couple of billion dollars. When I was a summer student I worked at the parks for the Saskatchewan government, a very good government at that time if I recall correctly. We would cash out at the end of the day. I was working in a park store. If we were under a certain amount of money, there was real concern. A few cents were acceptable. If we were over that amount of money, there was real concern as well because we had ripped off the people coming to the store. We had taken more money than we should have. That was a matter of a few dollars. What we see with the government is a plus or minus of $4 billion. At what point is it acceptable? It is not okay. If the Liberals cannot budget better than plus or minus $4 billion, they should get out.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, February 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in case my colleague from Prince Albert does not get a chance to mention more about Grant Devine, I will. I am originally from Saskatchewan as well and as I travelled from Manitoba into Saskatchewan during the Grant Devine years, I literally watched a province die. In small rural community towns like Melfort, Kinistino, Tisdale, businesses were closing left, right and centre. There was a sell-off of the highways department. Saskatchewan had the worst roads in the country under the Devine era. There was debt after debt. It was a corrupt government absolutely.

I often said I did not know what the NDP would do when it got back into power because it had a mess to clean up and by God, it has cleaned it up. The NDP does its darndest to balance the budget and does its darndest to provide services to its citizens, a good many of whom are my relatives. I will vouch for the fact that it is not easy, but I understand where the NDP is coming from because it had to clean up a huge mess in Saskatchewan.

Obviously Grant Devine stirs up passion in us because it was such a corrupt government in Saskatchewan. It was one of those shameful moments. We all have our shameful moments at different points that we have to relate to, and the one I have is knowing that Saskatchewan actually had such a corrupt government after having had such great governments in the past under Romanow, Douglas and Blakeney. They were wonderful governments and then Saskatchewan was stuck with someone like Grant Devine. I only hope if he is deciding to run in an upcoming election, that citizens in that area consider the type of member of Parliament they have had before as compared to Grant Devine.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the Speech from the Throne today. A number of comments have been made already about the omissions from the throne speech and the concerns we have as a result of those omissions. We cannot help but wonder what the agenda is when there is no mention of certain facets within the throne speech.

This may be the first time there has been absolutely no mention of seniors in the throne speech, the people who built our country, the people who suffer the greatest with the cuts to medicare. Seniors have suffered some of the greatest trials with cuts to the medicare system. There was no mention of what we are going to do to improve the lives of seniors, to improve their incomes by increasing their pensions and the OAS. There was nothing like that. My colleague from the Bloc will be happy because there was no comment about retroactivity on the GIS payments. There was nothing there.

The forgotten people of Canada were the seniors, the people who built our country. There was no mention of them.

There was also no mention of home care or pharmacare services for seniors. If we have to start somewhere, why not start with seniors by making sure we provide them with those services? The people who have built our country are now in their vulnerable years and what are we doing? There was not a mention, but there was certainly mention of corporations and tax cuts and making sure we stick to those tax cuts. That was in there for sure.

It was interesting to note that there was no mention of Romanow. Of course if it had mentioned the Romanow report, it would have had to mention home care and pharmacare and additional supports within the health care field, such as the 25% federal government responsibility within health care so it can be brought up to some semblance of what it was at some point. Even Monique Bégin, the former Liberal health minister, strongly supported an increase in funding. I recall her saying at one time that it should be at least 50%. Romanow was not even saying that; he was saying we should start at 25% and work up.

If we are not going to continue paying for a universal health care system in Canada, what are we saying? Are we saying to heck with the people around us, that they pay for their own health care?

Are we going back to the way it used to be when the doctor checked the health of the cow before he saw the patient because he would be paid with the cow? That was the reality of health care in Canada. If someone could not afford to pay, the doctor might get the cow or something else. That was the reality.

Is that what Canada is? Is that the progressive step the Liberal government wants to take? I sincerely hope not.

I listened to the right hon. Prime Minister yesterday. In his comments about the throne speech, he talked about travelling the country for a year listening to Canadians. Quite frankly, he did not have to travel the country for a year to listen to Canadians to find out what to do on health care. The Romanow commission did that very thoroughly and came up with an excellent report that got no support from the Liberal government.

The Prime Minister should have been honest. He travelled the country and was listening to Liberal leadership backers. That was it. Let us at least be honest with Canadians. If he did not listen to seniors who were totally left out of the throne speech, then he did not listen to Canadians. Seniors have been very clear on what they need in order to have fruitful lives in their senior years. They were extremely disappointed that there was absolutely no mention of the seniors in Canada in the throne speech.

Again, to comment on what is mentioned in relation to aboriginal Canadians, I would suggest quite readily that everyone, including the aboriginal people of Canada, get a copy of the other throne speeches from the Internet. I want people to compare what has been said about aboriginal Canadians in this throne speech to the ones that go back 10, 15 or 20 years. People would be hard pressed to find much difference.

We are going to promise to make things better economically. We are going to promise to improve the education of kids on reserves. We are going to promise to improve the infrastructure, the water and sewers. We are going to promise to improve the housing. We are going to get everyone out of poverty. All of that was there 10 years ago and the government has done nothing to address those issues. Nothing.

It is not okay just to put the words in the throne speech. It is not okay just to say we are going to have this wonderful program and put this much money in when what we do on the other side is say, “If you cannot give us this much money as well, we are not going to give you any”. We all know that the communities have a hard time funding a lot of their programs because they only have so much money to work with.

Another area which is greatly disappointing in the throne speech is education, lifelong learning. One of the staff in my office was extremely disappointed because she is recently out of university. She was talking to me about the student loans and what it is like. Her comment was, “Yes, lifelong learning and a life sentence of paying the debt from that learning”. This is nothing, suggesting that we can put more money into loans, suggesting that we are going to make it easier for lower income families to access the loans and to put money into RRSPs. When I heard the Prime Minister say that the low income people can put more money into RRSPs, what it reminded me of, and he is not going to like this I am sure because I am going to compare him to Marie Antoinette who said that if they don't have food, let them eat cake.

It is just not acceptable to say “You low income people living on $25,000 or $30,000 a year who are paying for your rent, your hydro, your food and everything else, you are just falling short by not being able to put money into an RESP for your child”. When they cannot afford to live day by day, it is not acceptable.

What would be acceptable? I am not suggesting that we give students something for nothing, even though I think that would be ideal. We would benefit as a country if they could get an education and everyone who had aspirations to be a doctor or a teacher would not have to worry about being able to pay the money back for 10, 15 or 20 years. It would be great if we could do that. We would not have some of the shortages that we have because there would be more opportunities.

We should at least have low to no interest loans for students. Do not hold them to bankruptcy rules for the rest of their lives, and it seems to be that way sometimes. Give them a real opportunity. Give them the supports because it is not acceptable the way we are doing it now.

Quite frankly, here in Ottawa the Canadian Federation of Students spoke loud and clear. The students are doing that throughout the country. This is not good enough. I hope they come out loud and clear in the upcoming election and tell the government that this is not good enough, that it has to come through for Canadians. It cannot just give big corporations tax cuts, and I am saying big corporations because those tax breaks are not acceptable when others have to pay their way. If the government can do that, then surely it can invest in the future of Canada, because the future is there.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, February 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in case my colleague from Nunavut is not aware, the government announced today that it will no longer require the consent forms. The efforts of a lot of people have ensured that the injustice that was taking place with first nations people has been put to an end.

First nations people in my riding were absolutely worried that they would not be able to get health care. It is a tough enough situation in northern communities to get it at the best of times. They were put through two years of anguish while the government said that they did not have a right to privacy, not the same right that other Canadians have.

I wanted to make a point of mentioning that. Thanks to a lot of hard work from members of Parliament, the government backtracked on that great injustice.

[Business of the House, February 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague made a good number of excellent comments.

Toward the end he was mentioning the unemployment in Newfoundland and other areas. I am just wondering what he would see as the answer to addressing unemployment in first nation communities where it is up as high as 90% or 95%. What should be done to ensure that first nation communities have the same opportunity in Canada?