They did not send it to an ad agency.
Lost his last election, in 2004, with 41% of the vote.
Supply June 6th, 2002
They did not send it to an ad agency.
Privilege March 19th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I have served in the House for 14 years and you are aware of my high regard for both you and the chair. I do not believe it is right that it be left to stand on the record that a member can refer to me as lying in the House. I do not find that acceptable.
Privilege March 19th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I had no intention of participating here this afternoon, but I was listening to the member's remarks in my office. The member suggested that I had instructed or wished that witnesses would lie, when in fact that was not the case.
What I did say was that anybody who worked for me who tried to publicly embarrass me on national television, I would dismiss them. In no way, shape or form did I ever suggest that the deputy chief of defence staff should lie.
I would ask the member to please withdraw her remarks that I suggested that those people lie. I have served in the House--
Budget Implementation Act, 2001 March 11th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I have listened to members of the opposition this morning. There is a far greater challenge that we have in the House in dealing with the budget implementation bill.
I will speak a little about how the public perceived the work of the House over the last few months and I will specifically limit my remarks to the greater Toronto area.
The budget asked us to approve spending in the neighbourhood of some $150 billion. The greater Toronto area would receive about $28 billion from the budget approval process that we are talking about in the House today. It would include transfers to the provinces, municipalities, grants from various government departments, from agriculture right through to veterans affairs, environment, and heritage.
This amount of government expenditure has been going on in the greater Toronto area for the last four years. To put it all in perspective, the taxpayers of the greater Toronto area send close to $35 billion to the treasury. That means there is close to $7 billion that is used for interest payments, debt reduction, and equalization to those regions of the country that do not have the economic opportunity of the greater Toronto area.
My point today that I think is extremely relevant for all members of parliament has to do with the communications that flow from the budget exercise. Over the last three months we have heard repeatedly in the Toronto media that the Government of Canada presence in the Toronto area was marginal. Headlines in our largest newspaper, the Toronto Star were saying that members of parliament in the greater Toronto area were missing in action and that there was no federal support for activities in the GTA. The mayor of our city, on radio, television and print, publicly called for the defeat of all Toronto members because he believed that there was very little Government of Canada activity happening in the greater Toronto area.
Toronto would receive $28 billion of appropriations from the budget. I believe this is a problem not just in the greater Toronto area. Most government grants and allocations of funds that flow from the budget are essentially handled in a way where there is little communication with the people in the community.
It has come to a point where we now have a crisis in the country. More and more people are asking, and I have heard this in other regions of the country as well, “What do you do when you go to Ottawa?”
The reality is there is not a member of parliament, whether a government member or an opposition member, that is outside the loop of receiving from some department or another government support to help stimulate the economic activity in his or her community.
My own view is that 99% and maybe even more of this money is essentially managed and allocated through the bureaucratic process in government. Many times MPs do not know how that money is being disbursed. The only people who really know are the few people receiving it because the federal presence around this money is not there.
By contrast, in the province of Ontario which I come from, people can go to any radio station or read any newspaper and they will see SuperBuild ads everywhere. These ads indicate what the province of Ontario would do through SuperBuild in the province and in communities in Ontario. People cannot drive down a new piece of paved road without seeing half a dozen SuperBuild signs educating the public on where their provincial tax dollars are going.
I seek unanimous consent of the House to propose an amendment to Bill C-49, the budget implementation bill, before us today by adding a new clause after line 22 on page 112 that the governor in council shall allocate one-half of 1% of all moneys appropriated by this act for the purpose of disseminating information concerning the provision of programs and services by the Government of Canada under this act to ensure that the people of Canada are properly informed as to those programs and services.
Prebudget Consultations November 1st, 2001
Madam Speaker, it is no secret to the House or to the country that I totally support that idea. If there is a weakness in the country, it has been our inability to really mobilize banks and their attitude toward small and medium sized businesses and those businessmen and women. We will need to do it in this next budget.
Prebudget Consultations November 1st, 2001
Madam Speaker, I respect the member's point of view. I respect the point of view of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.
If the hon. member has a better idea for stimulating consumer confidence I will be there, but so far I have not heard anything on how we can stimulate consumer confidence. I have listened to the debate all day. If the hon. member can come up with a better idea I will be there to support him.
Prebudget Consultations November 1st, 2001
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Cooperation, for allowing me five minutes to deal with this issue. I wanted to be on the record because after the budget is tabled, if we have not put our thoughts to the minister and to the finance department, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
I personally believe that this budget will be the most important budget that the Minister of Finance has ever tabled. I believe it will be a career-making or a career-breaking budget. In the last eight years we have had huge bonuses in the economy as a government and as a House of Commons. The GST take alone, in the last eight years, has been almost $200 billion which has gone into the system.
I want to be on the record on three specific points to the Minister of Finance and to the finance department.
First, I am afraid to death of the way we are treating small businesses at this precise moment. I have heard in the last two weeks from small businesses that the banks are starting to lose the sensitivity they built up over the last number of years. I appeal to the Minister of Finance to make sure the banks become very sensitive to small businesses over the next few months as we go through this bad patch. Mr. Greenspan in the United States made that point a few days ago to the banks of America.
The second point I want to raise has to do with the issue of consumer confidence. As a government we have very little influence. Our leverage in making an impact on this economy and on confidence is marginal now because we have retreated so much from the economic activity of this country. Our leverage is very small in this grand economy. We will have to do something bold to really have an impact, to really have some leverage and to recapture some of the consumer confidence that was there just eight months ago. It was fragile before September 11 and it is obviously much more fragile now.
My recommendation is that we look seriously at giving Canada a six month GST holiday. I would prefer it for a year but I would settle for half the loaf. That would really give a blast of confidence and put some juice into our economic system. It is something we need to do because playing around the edges will not rebuild the confidence that is sorely needed.
I am absolutely frustrated that we do not have more time to deal with budget preparation. This should be a debate with unlimited hours. We should throw the clock away. The notion that this debate has to end in such a short time is tragic, especially when it is the most important economic moment probably in 50 years of our country's history.
I humbly and firmly appeal to the Minister of Finance and to the officials in finance to be bold and make sure we think of those people who are part of that human deficit right now because that is really why we are Liberals. The human deficit is much more important than the fiscal deficit.
Prebudget Consultation November 1st, 2001
Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the member for Kings--Hants. He gave us a history lesson on what has been going on for the last few years. Some of it I agreed with, but I thought he would come forward today with some specific ideas. This is a day when we put all our ideas on the table. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance is taking notes on all the ideas and I noticed from the member's remarks that there were no new ideas here today. I am surprised and I want to say that the single biggest challenge we face as a nation is consumer confidence.
Consumer confidence right now is being challenged. It is very low. I would like to know if the member has any ideas on what we in the House can do in terms of giving recommendations to the Minister of Finance and the parliamentary secretary for the budget coming forward in three weeks or so. What can we do in this budget to stimulate consumer confidence so that we do not miss the Christmas cycle, which represents about 60% of a year's purchasing power, a year's consumer buying?
Supply October 29th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, I do not know today what the exact number is, but I have absolute confidence in the Prime Minister who is following in the line of Pearson, Trudeau and all those other great prime ministers who acted on international challenges like this. The Prime Minister said on September 11 that we would do what we had to do.
I am absolutely confident that when the budget comes in December, which is too long for me as I feel we should move on this file immediately, there will be resources there for international co-operation.
Canada cannot become a nation that measures its strength by the mouths it feeds, or the environment it protects or the children with whom it wants to work unless it spends some serious money. That has to happen and I believe it will.
Supply October 29th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, I believe Canada put close to $500,000 into Olympic Aid two years ago. I am not standing here today saying that $500,000 is enough. I am standing here today saying that it may have to be 10 times that. It may have to be $5 million.
I am not sure where the member is coming from, but in my remarks I said that we had to move immediately, not just on the fronts of food, water and infrastructure but that we should make sure the Canadian International Development Agency or the Agency for International Cooperation has the resources so that Olympic Aid and all those young Canadian men and women coaches who want to give freely of their lives and go into war zones, can work with young kids who have a right to play. I am saying that we as a parliament and as a government should support that action and not just talk about it but do it, and yesterday.