Peter Adams

[Employment Insurance, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member knows that successive auditors general have said that these funds belong in the general revenue fund. This is the government's position and it is the Auditor General's position.

By the way, I think, Mr. Speaker, with regard to your rulings on the royal recommendation, it is your position as well.

[Employment Insurance, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, great strides were made in the budget bill to make the EI account more independent and more transparent.

With regard to the report yesterday, we are very pleased that the Speaker ruled that a royal recommendation was necessary for various parts of that bill. We know the report will be tabled today. We hope you, Mr. Speaker, will rule on it when we come to discuss it.

[Lung Association, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Lung Association has been helping Ontarians for more than 100 years. The Peterborough branch has worked in our community for many years.

In the early days, the Lung Association successfully fought TB. In recent years it has been at the forefront of the fight against tobacco smoking in public and in private.

The association's “Lungs are for Life” school program directly addresses young people at a time when they are most vulnerable to tobacco addiction and at a time when lifestyles tend to be set.

Although great progress has been made against public smoking, there is still a great deal to do. One in five Canadians still smoke, 18% of young people still smoke and 12,000 people a year die from tobacco use in Ontario alone.

I commend Health Canada for its support of the Lung Association's fine work and I urge that it continue. I thank all those in the Peterborough Lung Association for their fine, dedicated work. I urge members to visit www.yourhealthyhome.ca.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I was just looking at the budget with respect to Nova Scotia and I see that under the gas tax, revenues amount to $145 million to communities in Nova Scotia. The economic development rising tide initiative is at $700 million.

Economic development throughout the four Atlantic provinces includes the renewed $300 million to the Atlantic Innovation Fund and $290 million for the new innovative community programs directorate. The NRC technology cost alone in the Atlantic is another $110 million. ACOA has an additional $41 million. That is $205 million over five years committed in this budget.

Community futures will receive $8.4 million, Atlantic salmon endowment will receive $30 million, and the Coast Guard will receive an additional $276 million. I could go on naming the oceans action plan, aquatic resources, Genome Canada, big research investment in the Atlantic provinces, and so on.

I wonder if my colleague would care to comment on the fact that he is opposing a budget which is bringing so many benefits to the province of Nova Scotia.

[Canada Elections Act, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on Bill C-312, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act, concerning the appointment of returning officers.

We have followed this debate since the first hour of second reading with great interest. Despite some differences, it is clear that there are fundamental points of agreement.

I would like to re-stress, though, the fact that in the context of hiring returning officers everyone must understand that an open competition within the meaning of this act is not interpreted in such a manner as to undermine the value of experience in election campaigns as well as local riding experience. As the royal commission noted, such experience is a legitimate indication of competence for the position.

Thus, it would be unfortunate if a returning officer were selected in a fashion that would give preference to hiring individuals without any political experience and with no prior participation in election campaigns. In my view, the consequences of this would be very serious.

However, we do know that initially the government had reservations regarding this bill and we now believe that it would be premature to make changes one at a time without a fuller understanding of the larger picture.

There would appear to be a firm consensus among the parties represented in this House that the appointment system can be improved by ensuring greater transparency and professionalism and by basing selection on competence.

Having heard the views expressed in the first hour of the second reading debate, we are now faced with the fact that disagreement primarily concerns the bill's specific provisions rather than its main principles.

For this reason, my fellow government members and I consider that the principle of the bill should be supported. This does not mean that there will be no objections to the bill's specific provisions. In the government's view, it would be preferable to amend the bill in committee in order to correct certain shortcomings.

In conclusion, in the short time that I have available I wish to repeat that the principles of transparency, professionalism and selection based on competence are crucial to ensuring an effective electoral administration process.

However, the adoption of a new system must undergo rigorous review to rule out any potential unwanted, unanticipated effects. For example, as I mentioned earlier, it should at least be necessary to ensure that an open competition under the Public Service Employment Act does not undermine the value, first and foremost, of prior participation in an election campaign, which is nevertheless relevant experience for a returning officer. This is but one example of the consideration that must be taken into account at the committee stage.

Moreover, the standing committee will work to amend the bill to give greater effect to its key underlying principles: transparency, professionalism and selection based on competence.

Ultimately, we want to ensure that the various aspects of our electoral process, whether it be political financing, registration of political parties or the appointment of returning officers, meet the needs of Canadians and reflect our vision of a modern democracy. That is consistent with the spirit of democratic renewal. That is why I support the bill at this second reading stage.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, June 15th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed the speech, which part of it I heard from here and part of it from my office, but I was especially surprised at the attack on the RRSP.

I know we all want money for vacations and stuff like that and, as the member said, we should have money for that, but I also think we should be encouraged to save for larger vacations rather than small ones.

The RRSP is a program that encourages people to save. I also know the member is concerned about overtaxation. Well the RRSP is also a way of saving and reducing taxation so I was surprised to hear him attack it.

One aspect of the RRSP is the RESP which is where people can save money, avoid taxes and put the money aside for the education of their children at a later stage. By the way, when they draw it out they do not pay the taxes, so this is great encouragement.

Another part of the RESP is the Canada educational saving grants program whereby, when people put money into an RESP for their children's future education, they receive a grant of 20% up to a certain maximum for each child.

Another facet of the RESP is the Canada learning bond for very low income children, which I know the Conservatives supported. In this case, an RESP account can be opened in the name of a low income child either by a parent, a guardian or the Children's Aid Society if the child is in care, and the Government of Canada will place $500 in the account and another $100 every year until the child is 15. The money will accumulate and at the age of 18, for a good number of years, it is available to that person for lifelong learning. In that case, there is a 40% top up. Therefore, if the family decides to add money to the $500 and the $100 allocations, they will get a 40% top up, subject to a maximum, by the Government of Canada.

What does the member have against the RRSP?

[Supply, June 14th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, my colleague and I share a common vision on the importance of quality early childhood education. I can relate to almost everything she said. I particularly appreciated her point about the 1.2 children per family. She would be pleased to know that 2.0 children just left the gallery.

It makes an important point about socialization. I come from a family of five and my wife from a family of seven. We have four children. One of those children has three. Another two have two and one has one. The size of the family is getting smaller. The socialization aspect, particularly if it is a family with 1.2 children, is really quite difficult. Socialization is very important for children at an early age, and in a family as small as that, it makes it more important than it would have been some generations ago.

The member and I obviously disagree on the role of the federal government. With respect to the federal government one of my views is that the great strength of a Confederation is the possibility for experimentation. The Confederation is made up of a group of jurisdictions, each of which is independent and powerful in various ways and it can experiment.

Sometimes a part will do something well and sometimes it will do it badly. If something does not work out well in one region, the federal government can take note of that and can make sure the rest of the country does not follow through with it. Sometimes, very often, a jurisdiction will do something wonderfully well, which is what has happened in Quebec at this time. I believe the duty of the federal government in a Confederation is to see the quality that has been done in one region and to introduce that quality as far as is possible to the rest of the Confederation, not with a formula but to introduce it to them and give them the resources so they too can develop their early childhood development system, as it is in this case.

I know hypothetically perhaps my colleague would not agree that a federal government has the duty to take good things in Confederation and introduce them to the rest of the country.

[Supply, June 14th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I listened very carefully to what my colleague had to say when he was talking about child care choices in New Brunswick. I think he said that 68% of parents have some form of child care. I think that later he increased that to 80%, but I may have missed it. He said that these are the choices of the people of New Brunswick. He gave some figures, saying that said 20% were doing one thing, 30% were doing another and 40% were doing something else.

I suggest to him that those are not actually the choices of the people of New Brunswick but simply what the people of New Brunswick are doing now. Some of them have the ability to choose to have sophisticated quality child care outside their home, and some choose to have sophisticated quality child care in the home. That is because they actually have the money, but other people cannot do that.

There are people who would choose those options if they had the money. Instead, they ask a relative or someone else to look after the children while they are working. By the way, I understand it. I have been through some of these things myself. They do not pick that. They need the choice. They need to be able to make the choice. They need to be able to say yes, they can have quality child care for their children, or they can decide not to.

The member talks about choice and this potential strike in Quebec. There are strikes and the risk of strikes in our elementary and high school systems all the time. Apart from a very small percentage of people, it does not mean that people opt to take their children out of the schools. It does not mean that at all.

There is a percentage who have the choice of home schooling, and I agree with it. They espouse and love home schooling. These are families who agree to educate their own children, still in the present day, but the vast majority of people support the public school systems across this country.

I suggest to the member that he ask the people he quoted who do not have quality child care about this. If he were to ask them if they would like quality child care associated with the elementary school down the road, for example, for their children every day when both parents go to work, they would all say yes.

[Supply, June 14th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I keep hearing the expression “one size fits all”. I am not sure what my colleague or her colleagues mean by this.

We are in a Confederation which, goodness knows, is a long way from Ottawa dictating to anybody. We are in a field of public policy where we are negotiating agreements with different provinces. Each of those provinces has its own individuality, its own economy, its own culture, and its own sociology. The same goes for the three territories. They are all very different. We are negotiating all these different agreements with them, so where is this one size fits all thing? What is it that we are actually talking about?

[Supply, June 14th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I, too, was amazed at the remarks about day care and babysitting. I have been in this House a long time and it is extraordinary that such views are still held here, given the changes in the nature of our society in the last 20 years. As the member said, over 70% of the families now have two parents working.

Had members of the opposition been here in the 19th century, soon after Confederation, when this place and similar places like it across the country were debating whether education should be compulsory and debating the cost of a few years of elementary school education, they would have probably argued against it. Then later when people were debating in this place and others whether high school education should become universal or whether it should be an option and that some parents should go one place and some kids should go nowhere, these same members would have been arguing against a Canada-wide system just as they are doing now.

Society has changed and we are trying to react to it, just as it did in those years long ago when elementary school education, high school education and later on post-secondary education were being introduced. Does my colleague not think that the Government of Canada should take the lead on these matters?