Rex Barnes

[Criminal Code, January 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we talk about all these acts as though they do not exist. We have no tolerance for drunk driving. We have no tolerance for bullying in our school system and everywhere else. We do not tolerate these acts against our children, but for some reason or another we send the message to the courts to let people off free and easy.

I ask the member, should we not basically tell the courts as well that we do not tolerate these exploitive acts against our children?

[Petitions, January 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition concerns stem cell research.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary to treat the illnesses and diseases of suffering Canadians.

[Petitions, January 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions. The first one is on child pornography.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify any such activities involving children are totally outlawed.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have proven time and time again that they are poor managers. Their irresponsibility in implementing government programs is disgraceful. From helicopters to health care, from the gun registry to Groupaction, the Liberal government has mismanaged Canadian social programs and taxpayers' money.

Will the Minister of the Environment or the Minister of Natural Resources rise in the House and guarantee to Canadians that the Kyoto accord will not cost our country more than the $12 billion Liberal price tag?

[Health, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have been swamped with names from thousands of people from my riding who have written to protest the government's money pit of a gun registry. Meanwhile my constituents in Gander--Grand Falls, like most Canadians, do not have access to adequate health care services. This is a direct result of the lack of funding and planning by these Liberals.

Will the Minister of Health rise and outline to the members of the House and to the thousands of people who signed these petitions who are very concerned, and to all Canadians who do not have proper health care services, what she would have done with a billion dollars if it had not been wasted on the Liberal government's firearms bureaucracy?

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, December 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member who spoke before me said a lot things that I wanted to say. I have read the hon. member's brief about the creation of this new constituency. Politicians always look at this as votes and more votes. It is important that we look at the people and their needs and if we did so, I think we would agree 100% with the hon. member from across the floor.

If we take a serious look, we would see that we have groups of people in society today that are not represented because of the geographics and the limitations of people to represent them in the way they would like to be represented. As a result, creating a new constituency would do justice for these groups of people.

I have heard it said that electoral boundaries are impartial and that the government does has no say. I would suggest that the government always has a say in the constituencies it creates. I firmly believe that by not making changes that are beneficial for the people of the north, we are doing an injustice to the hon. member from across the House. People in the north would like to have a person in the House to tell their stories of how they live.

I could not tell the story of an hon. member from somewhere in Quebec because I do not live there. Only that person can tell that story. It is the same for those persons living in the north. Only a representative from that area could tell us of their struggles, of their problems of going back and forth and of trying to live as the rest of Canadians live.

We have to recognize that these individuals need our support. They need a representative in the House to express their views, and we are not giving this to them. The governing Liberals have the power to make the change now. We must do it correctly and bring these groups to the House of Commons. By doing that, we will have a better Canada. They can make a difference for all of us. They can help us understand.

We talk about spending all kinds of money on different groups of people to take care of them. The care they require is to have their voices heard in the House of Commons. That is the way it must be done.

I support the efforts of the hon. member and more members should support him as well. We have to forget about party politics and votes. These are people. We are here to represent the people. We must give them the best representation we can. Let us not make it difficult. At times, the boundary commission makes it difficult to represent people. It is all right when we live in big cities, but we have to look at the remote areas such as my area.

Let us support this private member's bill. Let us do it right and do it for the people in the north. Let us do what is right for the people of Canada.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, again it shows how much people really listen and how much they understand. I did not say that Kyoto is a house. I said it is like a house when it comes to point of knowing how much it is going to cost to build a house. We must know how much it is going to cost us as Canadians and what the implications of Kyoto are going to be. If we do not do that, we are failing our people.

I agree with the member that yes, we are probably dealing with a two or three-pronged plug. It will take time to to do it, but let us put the plan front and centre now. Let us stipulate in the plan that in year one we will meet a certain objective and indicate what it will cost; in year two this is what we will do; and in year three and year four this is what we will do. Let us have the plan outlined. Let us not change it from year to year because of a whim. What we have to realize with Kyoto is that if we are to do it right, we have to have a plan. We have to know where it will go and how much it will cost people.

He talked about consultation. Premiers across the country have said that they have not been consulted in the manner which everyone says they have. Yes, there was consultation, but what type of consultation was there? The consultation should have been to instruct the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador to start formulating a plan for the province and then inform the government what the province wanted. Ottawa should not dictate to the rest of Canada what it will be. Let the provinces have input. Canada is only as strong as its provinces. If the provinces are not strong, Canada is not strong.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from South Shore.

We sit around the table and talk about Kyoto, but a lot of Canadians out there, believe it or not, still do not understand what Kyoto is all about. I will try to simplify it as much as I can so that not only people in the media understand it, but also people out there reading the papers.

It is irresponsible of the House to blindly ratify the Kyoto accord without knowing exactly what is in it and exactly how it would affect ordinary Canadians. We could talk about how it would affect the provinces and that is important, but how would it affect Canadians who are paying the bills, and paying our salaries to work on their behalf?

It is important to realize that Canadians are doing their part to ensure that they take care of the environment in one form or another. An example is the price of gas which has risen across this country. It is very high in Newfoundland and Labrador. We have some of the highest gas prices. People are doing their part because they cannot afford to do otherwise. They are carpooling to cut down on people driving from one point to another because they cannot afford the cost but at the same time they are thinking about the environment.

I would like to make the following analogy. If anyone in the House were to go to a construction company and ask it to build a house, the first thing the contractor would say is how much it would cost. If a person only has $100,000 to put into a house and the contractor builds the house for $150,000, that person would be in trouble. To look at it simply, one would not build a house if one could not afford it. Therefore why would the government expect parliamentarians to vote for Kyoto without actually knowing how would affect us and what is in it?

We are all concerned that climate change is happening and that we all must do our parts. All we ask is to be told how it would affect our pocketbooks and how it would affect us long term, and we would all work toward it.

I do not know how my colleagues in the Progressive Conservative Party will vote on it, but I have made it clear that it would be irresponsible of me to blindly ratify the accord without knowing what is there. If my colleagues in the Progressive Conservative Party feel differently, I encourage them to vote for it, but then they are not doing justice to themselves or the people they represent. It is no good to just sit here and say that the party in power has brought it in, so we will support it. That is not good enough. It is important to be given the details, to slow down on the ratification, speak to the provinces and business people, and do it right.

Premier Roger Grimes of Newfoundland and Labrador is not against Kyoto as far as making it work, but he is opposed to Kyoto when there is no consultation, no plan in place, and no impact study to show how it would impact the province and the people. It is important to realize that this information must be given to us first, and if we do not do that, it is irresponsible.

The thing about Kyoto is that a Canadian plan is one made up with the provinces. Canada should have changed the format in the way it handled this. I have heard in the House that the government did not have to bring this to the House for debate, that it did not have to be ratified in the House, that it could have just pushed it through. That again shows the arrogance and the irresponsibility of any government that would do that.

We have to realize that if province by province had the input like they did when Kyoto was first was discussed, the Prime Minister could have told the provinces at that time that they had two to four years to come up with a plan and then they would sit together and format it into a major plan for the country. Therefore, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador and all provinces would have been on side.

Now all we have is a major battle from province to province, and that is not good for the country. If that had been done, we would have been way ahead of the eight ball and we would have probably unanimously supported the report. The provinces would have had their own made in Canada, made in Newfoundland and Labrador, made in Alberta, program for the environment and to fight climate change to ensure that we left the heritage for our young people so that they would not have to worry about major problems with regard to the environment.

We are all here for the environment. We will not do anything that will hurt the environment. However we are here to ensure that it is done right. If that had happened, I guarantee we would probably have been the unanimous of the House for the accord.

However we cannot support it if we do not know on what we are voting. It is okay for some people to say that we have not read it, but tell us how much it will cost us. We cannot blindly ratify something. It is like the house; we cannot build a house unless we know how much it will cost. That is the same with Kyoto. That is very important.

We have read all the documents and have heard people speak on this, and they put all these big words into it. However a lot of people do not understand really what is happening. They honestly do not know what all the fighting is about with regard to Kyoto. As a result, we have to try to make it very simple so that they can understand it. That is very important.

One thing stands out the most when I speak to people. They want to know what it will do for them. They want to know how it will help them. They want to know if companies are trying to develop technologies to make it easier. If Kyoto will make it easier for them, they want us to tell them how so they can buy into to protect the environment. They do not want us to blindly ratify it and then make changes after. They say that will not work. If they do not support it now, they definitely will not support it after if all these changes are brought in. It is no good to put something in at beginning which is no good and then change it after.

My grandmother always told me, “If you are going to do it right the first time, do it right so you do not have to change it for the second time because as soon as you change it the second time, you have actually said you made mistakes in the beginning.” It is okay to make mistakes. if we admit our mistakes. If we do not admit those mistakes and make changes for the sake of making changes, then that is poor leadership, it is irresponsible and we are not doing what we are being paid for, and that is to represent the best concerns of our constituents and for all of Canada.

We have to realize that we have to move forward. If we are to move forward as a group, we have to show that we are building relationships and consensus with all parties in the House to ensure that concerns like Kyoto go forward with the best interests of the country and of all political parties in mind. There is no one in the House who is opposed to it but it is the manner in which it has come here.

We cannot vote on this blindly. We must have a clear vision of where we are going, what we are voting for and how it is going to impact us. If we cannot do that, I suggest the members are irresponsible and they will fail their constituents and Canada. This has nothing to do with leadership. It is all about working for our constituents to make their concerns heard and to ensure that Canada is the greatest country. We are the greatest country but let us make it better by ensuring that technologies are there which will ensure that we do not pollute our environment.

[Airline Industry, November 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, while the Liberals collect millions in taxes on airline tickets, user fees, security taxes and fuel taxes, none of this is being reinvested into rural areas. Rural Canada needs access to affordable air travel in order to encourage investment and tourism access.

Gander airport became known around the world last year, but because of the monopoly in the airline industry, ticket prices are making it unaffordable for tourists to fly to my riding.

Yesterday the Minister of Transport had no time to meet with tourism industry officials who wished to discuss this very issue. When will he make the time to reveal the Liberals' plan to save rural airports?

[Privacy Commissioner, November 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the privacy commissioner is once again sounding the alarm, stating this government has lost its moral compass with regard to the fundamental human right of privacy”.

Personal information regarding the travelling public will be made available to departments whenever the government deems it appropriate. There are no limitations, no safeguards and no protection for a fundamental charter right.

Could the Minister of Transport advise us as to exactly what measures will be taken to ensure that the information gathered is used only for security and anti-terrorism purposes, or is he telling Canadians to trust him on this matter?