Dennis Mills

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, September 28th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the member just threw me a lob ball that I do not deserve.

For 10 years we have been talking about the notion of comprehensive tax reform and I will admit that this is a very tough, complex issue.

The member knows that I have worked on this issue in a very diligent, focused way. When the Reform Party came to this House and became Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, I was excited and said at last we have a group of men and women here who will help produce a critical mass of debate so that we can really shake the tax system in this country and get something going.

This is the first time this member has stood and talked on this issue about tax reform since we have come back. Where is the Reform Party on tax reform?

I have been advocating simplifying the tax system for the last few years. If I had my way, I would abolish federal income tax for small business in this country.

They do not understand how things get done in this Chamber. It is give and take. We have a bill today which Reformers should be supporting us on and they are running the other way. They say they are going to oppose. There is an issue where I think they are on the right track in terms of comprehensive business tax reform.

They hide it. Bring forward the debate and there will be many of us on this side of the House who will support the idea. Bring it forward in a consistent, steady as she goes way. Don't just throw it up every now and again because they find there is something worth saying and the only thing they can throw out is tax reform.

I pray that the Reform Party gets on to the game of comprehensive tax reform. Just like the Minister of Finance said about two weeks ago, we do need it but both sides of the House have to engage in the debate.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, September 28th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have to begin my remarks to my friend from Edmonton—Strathcona by going back to 10 years ago when I came to this House. One of the first things I noticed at that time when we were in opposition is that we only had one member of parliament in western Canada. A little team in our office organized a program called the best of the west. We had some bright, articulate, liberal minded university students come to Ottawa, get used to working on the Hill and develop ideas on public policy so that one day they could come back as elected officials and take some of those thoughts and ideas and represent the regions.

The member for Edmonton—Strathcona was one of those young university students who was on my staff for that best of the west program. I am happy to see him in the House, but I am shocked to see that he did not learn some of the Liberal values, vision and principles that we worked on during that period of time.

I want to be very specific about an experience we had 10 years ago. At that time we were in opposition. The member was around when the then Conservative government brought amendments to the Small Business Loans Act before the House. It was at a time when the banks were doing very little for small business men and women. The Conservative government amended the bill to try to urge and push the banks to provide more access to capital. At that time this was not a Conservative idea but it had the insight and the understanding that it was listening to small businesses when they were saying they were getting turned down on a regular basis. The Small Business Loans Act with the government guarantee was something that would make sure the small business realm would stay healthy.

I stood in this House in opposition and supported the government's amending that bill. We got it through three readings in one day. In opposition we are not there just for the sake of opposing. If the government comes up with a good piece of legislation, which the member knows from experience, then we support the government. To this day we still do not have the banks doing enough for small business.

I challenge the member to stand up in the House and say that he thinks the banks and financial institutions are doing a great job in providing all kinds of capital for small and medium size business men and women. I challenge him to stand up and say that in his own riding. What will happen if he says that? He will be blown out of here so fast that he will not know what hit him. His riding is no different from my riding. Even with the pressure this government has put on banks in the last few years, with the pressure from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and every member of this side of the House, it is still tough to get banks to shift from words to deeds and actions toward loaning capital to small business men and women.

This is what this government has done, what this Minister of Industry has done repeatedly since he has been in charge of this portfolio. This is my third time since we have been in government that we have amended this bill. Each time we fine tuned it. We have been responsible with the fiscal framework. To stand in the House and suggest that the Small Business Loans Act is really nothing more than government intervention and that it is counterproductive to small business defies logic. It defies experience. His words are so distant from reality. It boggles my mind. I am stunned that somebody who used to be on my staff would come up with such stuff.

I have to say to my dear friend that I do not want him to loose some of those great Liberal principles that he once had. He can loose them in certain sectors. I appeal to him not to walk away from small business men and women. It does not matter whether you are a member of the separatist party or a member of the Conservative Party, whatever party you are with, the economy of this country is run by the small business men and women. They are creating 80% of the jobs. If we have to guarantee a float of about $10 billion and if in a bad year $1 billion goes bad but it meant that there were tens of thousands of entrepreneurs out there creating jobs and creating vitality, so be it.

There is a notion of letting banks do it on their own. Is there anybody in the Chamber who believes we should stand back and trust the banks to look after the small business men and women in the country and that they would do a great job? I defy anybody to stand up and say this would happen. I will never desert my core values when it comes to small business men and women. I will never waiver or walk away.

That is part of the reason why I came to Ottawa early today, to support the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry. The bill should pass all three readings the same day with all party support, just the way we handled it when we were in opposition. No member of parliament in the House cannot ever be seen doing anything other than putting our shoulder to the wheel for small business.

[Petitions, September 28th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, with respect, that is exactly where I was going.

The petition asks parliament to recognize that grandparents, as a consequence of death, separation or divorce of their children, are often denied access to their grandchildren by their guardians. This petition asks parliament to consider Bill C-340 so that this can be corrected.

[Petitions, September 28th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have a petition here that is certified correct and signed by thousands of Canadians. It pledges “We, the undersigned residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons”—

[Competition Act, September 21st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I begin by complimenting the Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry and the minister for these amendments to the Competition Act. Especially in the area of telemarketing scams, one cannot believe the amount of damage and harm being caused in this nation to many of our seniors. This is the type of bill I am sure all parties would want to put through the House as fast as we can. I am sure there is not a member in the House of Commons who has not had a phone call from a son or a daughter of a senior citizen to try to get us as parliamentarians to amend the Competition Act to provide not just the Competition Bureau but the various police forces in Canada with the necessary tools that will enable them to do their jobs in shutting down these deceptive telemarketing scams.

My understanding is that the amendments the minister and the parliamentary secretary have brought forward provide for a new criminal offence for deceptive telemarketing, much stricter disclosure requirements, a more effective and quicker resolution for misleading advertising and deceptive practices, and an investigative tool that will allow the police forces to close in on the organizations that are using these price-fixing, bid-rigging and deceptive telemarketing systems.

We sit here and draft legislation on a continual basis, but sometimes we forget the human factor that generates the legislation we are drafting. In the case of these telemarketing scams that deal mostly with senior citizens, I am sure we all realize that very rarely will a senior citizen call his or her MP and say “I have been had” because most of the senior citizens who are victims of these telemarketing scams feel embarrassed that they have been had.

In fact there are incidents, and I have heard this from some of my own constituents, where sons and daughters go into their parents' homes and suddenly see different items, such as paintings, rubber boats and different sorts of trinkets. They will ask their mother or father where they got these things and the parents will slough it off. The parents do not want to tell because they feel embarrassed. It is almost an inadvertent experience that it will be discovered that the senior citizen is being had by these vicious, deceptive telemarketing scams. God only knows the thousands and thousands of senior citizens who are victims who may not have living children. We never hear about those cases.

I do not want to take up a lot of the House's time on this issue today, but I do want be on the record as being forcefully supportive of Bill C-20 which will amend the Competition Act. I urge all members of the House to push this through in a speedy way so that the various enforcement agencies can shut down these operations which are active in every province of our country.

[Supply, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the member and his remarks. Quite frankly, I felt it was a Liberal speech. He talked about the mandate to make sure that the administration of our prison system kept basic standards, kept confidence with our labour agreements. He talked about making sure the keepers and the kept are treated with a basic decency.

I support the member's remarks. I think our prison system should be an environment that can foster rehabilitation and renewal and not one where people are treated in a way that we see in movies where prisons are like dungeons.

The problem I have is that for the last 10 years I have been listening to members of the Reform Party and their chant constantly about cut, cut, cut, its obsession with the deficit, the debt and the fiscal framework.

Here we have a member from the Reform Party tonight pleading the prison system of Canada be properly funded. Is this a change of gears from the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby? Does this reflect the position of the party where all of a sudden it comes full circle and is now saying the cuts have gone too far, which I personally believe, and we are now going to begin, which I would celebrate, with the correctional service system of Canada and make sure that it is properly funded so that the management there, the keepers and the kept, are treated in a way that they have a decent shot at rehabilitation and renewal. Which pathway are we to choose?

[Supply, March 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I can stand in the House of Commons and say that on the day that display took place I was at the opposite end of this Chamber. I did not have a flag—

[Supply, March 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, this debate is unbelievable. The Reform Party motion talks in its last sentence of “purposes of decorum”.

We can look around this Chamber which was designed and built by some of the greatest craftsmen and women in the history of our country. We see stained glass windows and woodwork. This Chamber is very much like a cathedral in Rome or in some other great European city. This is a room of decorum.

Reformers are missing the whole point of what this Chamber is all about. They are trying to suggest that none of us really care about the flag, even though there are two flags on either side of the most respected chair in the House of Commons. They could not be in a more prominent place.

In that Reformers are so interested in the decorum of this place, the look or the design of this place, they should also present some other ideas that I have heard from that side. What about flags of different sizes across the banisters here from left to right or from north to south like we see at gas stations or at Canadian Tire stores? Is that the kind of decorum the Reform Party wants in the House of Commons? These guys—

[House Of Commons, March 9th, 1998]

That is fine, the member can say it is nonsense, but I have my privilege to stand in this House and say what I think just as that member does and I happen to disagree.

I am not in bed with the separatists. Anybody who has been in this Chamber for the last 10 years knows that I find dealing with the separatists to be a very tough situation. I also believe we should understand. If a member makes a remark that suddenly becomes coast to coast front cover headlines when it was a musing thing, not a statement of hurt nor a statement to diminish Canada but a comment, then it is important to take it in the whole context.

In emotional moments in this Chamber, whether we sing O Canada, show the flag five times or a hundred times when our athletes or astronauts come home, it is the privilege in my own view although I defer to your judgment, Mr. Speaker, of all of us to emotionally show excitement and gratitude. On that score, I separate again from the separatists.

At the same time, Mr. Speaker, I want to say to you, and I am totally loyal to your judgment in this, that it is very important that a person not be condemned, hung out to dry, when it was a simple musing comment. In no way, shape or form in my judgment was she stomping on the flag.

[House Of Commons, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to participate in this debate. I did not realize until I arrived here this afternoon that this tempest in a teapot had taken on a new proportion.

I want to begin by going back to my first year in this city, 1980. I and my good friend, the late Norman Wood who was a senior bureaucrat for many years, were given the job by the then prime minister of Canada to do an analysis of the Government of Canada presence right across the country. The purpose of doing this study about the presence of the Government of Canada at that time was to try to figure out why there was such a deep-seated feeling of western alienation when the Government of Canada had done all kinds of things especially in western Canada.

We travelled from coast to coast and placed special emphasis on western Canada. My very dear friend Norman Wood and myself took slides. We took thousands of pictures.

We discovered that there were literally thousands of Government of Canada services right across the country but especially in western Canada where the Government of Canada presence did not exist. There were agricultural buildings, there were youth services in colleges and universities. The Government of Canada was providing all of these services but with no Government of Canada presence.

Shortly thereafter we got the Canada word mark with the flag on top. We put these signs and flags not just in western Canada but right across the country. The whole purpose of that was to make sure the Government of Canada presence was recognized. It was not hidden in some back office. It was out there for the public to realize that this Chamber actually did useful things in every region of the country.

I say that because I do not want anybody in this Chamber to think for a second that my commitment to the flag, my commitment to the Government of Canada have diminished in any way, shape or form since 1980.

With reference to this incident, last week the member for Rimouski—Mitis came into our committee. I have had a very good relationship with her over the last two terms. I asked her quite openly what the big fuss was over the flags at the Olympic games celebration.

The member responded in what I thought was quite a constructive way. She put a bunch of pictures on the table which I wish we could display to Canadians. She was not objecting to the Canadian flag per se. When the initial comments were made she was referring specifically to that avenue where representatives of all countries were in the Olympic village and the Canadian presence, which we celebrate, outnumbered the presence of any other country by about 20:1. My colleague from Scarborough Centre was there and he concurs with this.

There is a sense that the member asked whether it was distasteful to have this many flags. Those remarks were blown right out of proportion. I know some people will stand up and say that I am in bed with the separatists. If members choose to take that line of thinking, then that is their privilege in this House. It is very important that we understand the origin of this member's remark. I believe quite frankly that the member was not spitting on the flag, she was not jumping on the flag. She was merely making a comment about whether this was artistically the right thing.