Dennis Mills

[The Budget, February 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's remarks and noticed that he wanted to make some serious cuts to the social security program spending.

I have always believed that our responsibility in this Chamber is not to spend all of our time focused on those who are advantaged but to primarily make sure that governance always has a focus on those in our community who are disadvantaged.

I want to read directly from the taxpayers' budget in brief. Under unemployment insurance cuts which is currently $15.6 billion the member is proposing a cut of $3.4 billion by the end of the third year.

Does the member honestly feel that it is good public policy when people are in such a very difficult circumstance of not having a job to take almost a 22 per cent decrease-those are the member's own calculations-from those people who are going through a very difficult period, specifically being unemployed? Is that good public policy?

[The Budget, February 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, when the member for Calgary Southwest rose to his feet today he said that he would not be approaching the debate in a partisan way. Therefore I was rather surprised the leader of the Reform Party did not acknowledge the fact that there were no personal tax increases in the budget.

I read the Reform Party's budget. I realize that I cannot show it here because it is inappropriate. It would propose a flat tax idea. As members will know, this is something I personally believed in although I call it the single tax and it has a much more progressive design than the member is proposing.

In the proposal of the leader of the Reform Party for a flat tax it is absolutely inevitable under that system that many Canadians would pay more personal income tax. How does the leader of the Reform Party square that flat tax idea with his statement that there should be no more money taken out of the personal income tax envelope?

[Young Offenders Act, February 27th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on third reading of this bill. I begin by reviewing the highlights of the bill and after that I would like to put special emphasis and focus on that part of the bill which has to do with rehabilitation.

For those who have come to the debate recently, the minister announced, when tabling the bill on June 2, the highlights would include sentences for teenagers convicted of first and second degree murder in youth court to 10 and 7 years respectively. Sixteen and 17-year olds charged with serious personal injury offences would be dealt with in adult court unless they can show a judge that public protection and rehabilitation can both be achieved through the youth court. It includes extending the time that 16 and 17-year old young offenders who have been convicted of murder in an adult court must serve before they can be considered for parole.

It also includes improved measures for information sharing between professionals like school officials and police, and with selected members of the public when public safety is at risk, as well as retaining the records of serious young offenders longer. Finally, it includes provisions to encourage rehabilitation and treatment of young offenders in the community when this is appropriate.

I want to focus on the last point. I am happy to see that the very first clause of the bill deals with the whole point of underlying causes and rehabilitation. I would like to read directly into the record clause 1(1):

(a) Crime prevention is essential to the long-term protection of society and requires addressing the underlying causes of crime by young persons and developing multi-disciplinary approaches to identifying and effectively responding to children and young persons at risk of committing offending behaviour in the future;

(a.1) while young persons should not in all instances be held accountable in the same manner or suffer the same consequences for their behaviour as adults, young persons who commit offences should nonetheless bear responsibility for their contraventions;

Clause 1(2) says:

The protection of society, which is a primary objective of the criminal law applicable to youth, is best served by rehabilitation, wherever possible, of young persons who commit offences, and rehabilitation is best achieved by addressing the needs and circumstances of a young person that are relevant to the young person's offending behaviour;

I would like to talk about this part of the bill because I believe it is an area where we in the community are not putting enough emphasis today.

I go back to a book that I had a chance to review this morning before I came to the House. It is Father Flanagan at Boys Town . Boys Town is situated about 10 miles outside of Omaha, Nebraska.

I can remember one night flying in from Toronto with a colleague from Saskatchewan. We were talking about Notre Dame in Saskatchewan, but the subject of Boys Town came up. What has been going on for many years now at Father Flanagan's Boys Town in the United States of America is something that we as legislators should take time to revisit.

For those who do not know, Father Flanagan started this environment many years ago when he took in homeless boys, young boys without parents. However he also took about 20 per cent of the number, young offenders.

The rehabilitation record of Boys Town has been described by some of the best psychiatrists and doctors as to being almost a totally mysterious phenomena. Father Flanagan worked with these young men in developing their character. He exposed them to apprenticeship and athletics. It did not matter what their religious background was. The boys could be Jewish, Protestant or Catholic, but he made sure that a portion of their life each week had some sort of religious training.

I tell this story because the track record of the Boys Town situation applies just as much today. It is just as relevant as it was many years ago when this institution started. There are just as many young people today who are involved in situations where their family life is under great stress and strain. I believe that many of these homes that we have in our communities do not have the same sophistication as that institution has.

As we go through the process of putting more emphasis on rehabilitation, we should also be reviewing the types of institutions we have to make sure they are relevant and that we are getting the maximum impact.

So often today a young offender is put into an institution where some of the values that a Boys Town has are just not present; the values of caring and sharing with one another and being a little bit more sensitive to character building. The institutions are just not sensitive. I am not saying that our institutions should be totally ignored but that they should be re-examined.

The Minister of Justice made the following statement in his press release, which I want to emphasize: "That legislation is only one part of the answer to violence among young people. Poverty, alcoholism, family violence, racism, illiteracy and many other factors may lead to criminal acts by young people and adults alike and must be tackled as a whole". The minister said this when he issued his press release. Those words are very important.

When we go through this bill I am hoping that the whole area of rehabilitation can be given very special review and emphasis. We should look at some of the rehabilitation systems and centres that exist all over North America. I would like to refer very specifically, as I said, to the Boys Town example in the United States where the track record of rehabilitation is apparently second to none anywhere in the world. If a Boys Town environment can happen in the United States why can we not have similar institutions in Canada?

[Tourism, February 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for this very important question.

As members will know, this is one area within this government where we have not only held our budget but have increased

our budget because we believe that tourism marketing is one area through which we can put a lot of Canadians back to work in very short order.

To facilitate that the Prime Minister announced in early January the Canadian tourism commission. The Minister of Industry announced all the appointed members February 1 and that commission is now receiving proposals from the private sector from tourism operators.

It will consider those private sector marketing plans along with those funds. They in turn will be matched with the tourism commission's funds. Hopefully through that kind of joint venture and leveraged attempt we can-

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, government does not create jobs. Government creates an environment that accelerates job creation potential.

The point I want to make is that we agree with everything the member said. No one has accelerated privatization and offloaded government instruments after using up public policy usefulness faster than the Minister of Transport.

We are not trying to build empires. We are working rigorously and quickly in many respects to try to do some of the things the member cited.

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that is such a complicated question. The absolute hope and desire of every member of the House would be to go beyond the 3 per cent and eventually eliminate the deficit. If the member gave us some magical way in which we could eliminate the deficit instantly, Mr. Speaker, do you think we would not want to do it?

I want to make another point. We are debating priorities in the House right now. I would like to focus on one that I believe in passionately. Right now the Government of Canada invests $50 million in tourism marketing for all of Canada; we spend $50 million to promote Canada all over the world. Nike shoes spends $200 million in the United States of America.

As a government priority I believe it would be good not just to spend $50 million of Canadian taxpayers' money promoting Canada and filling our hotel rooms, our theatres and our restaurants. I believe it would be a worthwhile tax expenditure to spend five times that amount because it would be money we would get back in 90 or 120 days. The job creation that could result would be incalculable in the short term.

There is an ideological difference between us and the Reform Party. I do not believe the private sector alone can do all these things well. There are times when government has to intervene.

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Three times and you are out. I am too close to the Reform Party, Mr. Speaker.

One of the reasons I was profoundly disappointed in this document was that members of the Reform Party campaigned on comprehensive tax reform during the last election. They campaigned on restructuring the tax acts. It is no secret to members that I was delighted when there were 40-odd members returned to the House who shared-at least I thought they shared-my view, as do many other members on this side of the House that it is time to overhaul the entire personal and corporate income tax structure.

Canadians should know that in this document the only reference to proposals for a taxpayer protection act are one page, on pages 53 and 54. Canadians believed the Reform Party was truly committed to tax reform. In a document of 55 pages, to only have one page devoted to tax reform is not a serious effort.

It is a serious flaw in the document because I happen to believe, and I know a lot of Reform members believe, that Canadians are frustrated with the current tax acts. The complex tax system we have is one of the reasons why people are putting money offshore. It is one of the reasons we have such a large underground economy. It is one of the reasons we have a lot of entrepreneurs who are not investing in creating jobs. On that issue I say that the paper prepared today, the taxpayers' budget, is misleading and it falls short.

There is another thing that concerns me about this debate in total today. It is this total preoccupation with the federal deficit. I believe, as all members believe, that the deficit must be dealt with. I cannot imagine a member standing up anywhere saying that the deficit is not important.

We have had enough debates on the federal deficit and the fiscal discipline side of this equation. We are not talking about the growth side. How are we going to put 2.2 million Canadians back to work? I wish we would spend more time speaking back and forth and I think Canadians would like to see more debate in the House back and forth on how we can put people back to work.

I want to be very specific about what I mean. My colleague from Waterloo handed me a document he received today, a debating document called "The Working Nation". This is a policy paper on policies and programs from the Australian government.

The Australians have an idea that I would like to share with members and all Canadians today. It is called the job compact. This is an idea they are debating in their House right now. The job compact will apply to all those who have been in receipt of a job search or a new start allowance for 18 months or more. A job compact will include more intensive case management, training and support to ensure the unemployed person is job-ready, a job for six to twelve months primarily in the private sector, a training wage which combines employment with training, leading to recognized and transferable skills. New work opportunities will encourage local proposals for employment generation, especially in regions where other employment opportunities are limited. Intensive job search assistance and referral to suitable vacancies at the end of the job compact maximizes employment outcomes for those assisted. There will be stronger penalties for job seekers who do not meet their obligations under the job compact. The paper goes on to describe how jobs will be

obtained and how employers will be further encouraged to consider the abilities of long term unemployed, et cetera.

That is a specific idea the government is currently putting forward to give every unemployed Australian a chance to get back to work. That is the kind of thing I personally wish we could debate in the House. We have talked enough about the deficit and the debt.

When all is said and done and the budget comes out next week, I am sure all the things in the red book will be there. However we still have to face the challenge right away of getting those people back to work. That is what I think is missing in the debate.

The whole notion of human deficit is very important. As our human deficit grows eventually it will hit us like a ton of bricks. There are 700,000 university trained and educated young people who cannot find work. That is crazy. That is what I believe our focus should be on.

I want to expand my point about human deficit. It is the reason we have a fiscal framework right now that is not very healthy. Not only are there unemployment costs and health care costs but there are all kinds of potential loss.

My appeal to the opposition parties is that they have now made their point about the federal deficit and the debt. I believe all members of the House understand it well. I am confident, as I said earlier, the Minister of Finance will bring testimony to that realization next week.

I would like to suggest to members of the House that our preoccupation in the next 60 or 90 days should be on identifying the priorities and government instruments we can use to stimulate entrepreneurship and to market the country to get the human deficit under control. Let us change our language from federal deficit to human deficit and let us attack it next.

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I will make sure that I do that for the remainder of my 10 minutes.

I read most of this document today. My initial reaction was the following. I thought that the Reform Party had a lot of courage to put forward such a comprehensive document just before the budget. It is a great debating tool. The Reform Party will no doubt, as it will discover, face a lot of criticism for the flaws which are in it.

However, the essence of this Chamber is to exchange and to debate ideas. We come here with different backgrounds and ideologies. Obviously there are a lot of things in this document that I would not support. However it will be useful for me when constituents come with your proposal. I may be able to point out some of the good things, while showing some of your flaws.

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

You may not say that by the time I-

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin-