House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2004, with 67% of the vote.
Petitions December 6th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition today by residents from all over Alberta.
The petitioners ask the government to remove the taxation on reading material. The petitioners believe that the application of the 7 per cent GST to reading material is unfair and wrong. Education and literacy are critical to the development of our country and a regressive tax on reading material hampers that development.
Gun Control November 29th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, this government continually talks about promoting Canadian unity but its actions do not follow its words.
The justice minister's gun control regulations are just one more example of this double talk. Instead of uniting Canadians in the
common cause, they seriously divide Canadians against each other. These regulations divide province against province by arrogantly discounting the concerns of some duly elected governments. They divide rural citizens against urban citizens because of traditional lifestyles.
Worst of all, they divide Canadians by race: aboriginal against non-aboriginal. While these regulations will be enforced vigorously in most of Canada, the exemptions for aboriginal people ensure that no aboriginal will ever be charged under the act, for the same reasons that little effort is being made to stop the flow of illegal weapons on Indian reserves straddling the Canada-U.S. border. This law is unfair for aboriginal people. It is unfair for all Canadians. We must be treated equally under the law.
Speech From The Throne November 7th, 1996
Madam Speaker, I can only assume that what I am hearing from across the floor is political rhetoric. I assume the member opposite is an intelligent individual and can certainly read our fresh start platform and our platform of the last four or five years. Job creation has been an integral part of that platform from day one.
I do not expect him to believe or to support our platform, which is perfectly reasonable. Since he is a Liberal and I am a Reformer we take quite a different strategy in dealing with job creation. We believe that jobs can be created by the private sector, by getting government out of Canadians' pockets and off their backs, by giving Canadians back some of the 60 per cent of their wages that governments take away from them with the view that it is smarter than the individual and that it can spend it more wisely.
I heard the comment awhile back that they believed the primary purpose of government was the redistribution of wealth. I am only assuming that is rhetoric and positioning. I think the member knows better.
Speech From The Throne November 7th, 1996
Madam Speaker, I did not realize that the time had expired. I apologize for that.
The government has maintained the degree of popularity that it has over the last number of years through illusion and political rhetoric that really is very shallow. I am sure that Canadians, come the next election, will see through the rhetoric and the illusion and take a dim view of the record of the government.
Speech From The Throne November 7th, 1996
Yes, Madam Speaker, I am sharing my time with my colleague from Surrey North.
Speech From The Throne November 7th, 1996
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate today. I am a little surprised that we are continuing only on the fifth day of debate on the speech from the throne, considering it is nine months since the speech was given. Perhaps it speaks volumes about the worth of the words in the speech from the throne and the integrity of the government in implementing some of those ideas.
I listened with considerable amusement to the former speaker because it was such a typical Liberal speech. The Liberals, in the last three years since I have been here, truly have been masters of governing by illusion and creating an illusion of doing great things when the facts do not bear those things out.
Truly, what could we expect from a party whose leader has an imaginary friend he talks to on the street corner and has imaginary ethical guidelines that his ministers go by? It would only stand to reason that we would have an imaginary report card on the performance of this government giving it an honours score when, in reality, the facts do not bear it out in any way.
I would like to go through some of the facts and statistics that would paint a somewhat different picture than what I have heard coming from the members of the Liberal Party.
The speech from the throne, as a previous speaker indicated, kind of took a three pronged approach in its direction. Its objective was "to provide security for Canadians, to provide unity for Canadians and to provide jobs for Canadians". I believe that was the expression we heard.
When we look at the facts, in spite of the rose coloured glasses that some members wear, they do not bear that out. When we look at the security for Canadians, this government over the last three years has cut social spending transfers to the provinces by some $7 billion. It has cut funding for health care, for education and has enforced the closure of hospitals. There are many things people do not hear it talk about.
It has cut substantially the benefits to seniors since coming to office in spite of the rhetoric we hear about protecting seniors' benefits and all the rest of it. There has been one segment, however, that it has provided substantial security for to show where its priorities are. Of course, that is in the security of the MP pension plan, looking after its members' own security on retirement. I do not hear a lot of them bragging about that when they are proposing to cut security for other seniors in this country.
When we look at the promise to create unity for Canadians, the statistics do not bear out that there has been much progress on this front as well. Only a year ago we came within half a percentage point of losing the referendum and having this country split apart.
I did not see much progress being made up to that point and certainly not much since. The only reaction before going back to sleep on the whole issue was the proposal to drag up the distinct society clause for Quebec which even the party representing Quebec in this House and most Canadians rejected soundly in the Charlottetown accord many years ago. I do not see that there has been substantial progress on that.
The third prong of the speech from the throne was dealing with jobs for Canadians. Perhaps this is one of the most dismal areas in spite of the illusion that the previous speaker tried to create of this wealth of jobs being created for Canadians.
The fact remains that personal and business bankruptcies are at an all time record high in this country. In spite of presumably coming out of the recession that the North American economy was in and having some of the lowest interest rates since the 1960s, our unemployment rate still hovers on one side or the other of 10 per cent, in spite of the fact that across the border to the south unemployment rates are only half the rate they are in Canada. I do not see a lot to brag about when we talk about job creation.
Looking a little further at what has been going on in Canada over the last 30 years it is hardly any wonder that conditions in Canada led to the creation of the Reform Party and some of the ideas the Reform brought to this House and promotes in Canada. In spite of all the bragging and illusion created Canadians today, after three years of Liberal government, are unquestionably worse off than they were three years ago. There is no arguing that.
The income of an average family of four has dropped by $3,000 since 1993. People are working harder and harder just to try to maintain a standard of living. Two out of three two-parent families have two or more jobs; 1.4 million Canadians are unemployed and continue to be unemployed; 2 million to 3 million Canadians are underemployed and one in four Canadians are worried sick about losing their jobs and not being able to provide for their families.
Canadians truly have taken a national pay cut. For a family of four the pay cut has been some $3,000 over the last three years. The Liberals at the end of their mandate will be collecting some $26 billion more in taxes than they were when they came to office in 1993. This government, which says everything is so wonderful and rosy, the economy is booming, jobs are being created, has added $111 billion more to the national debt, forcing it up to the $600 billion mark; truly not a very good track record.
Looking at the last 25 or 30 years in this country, in 1972 when Pierre Trudeau came to power only 553,000 Canadians were unemployed. When his government was defeated in 1984, 1.45 million Canadians were unemployed.
Then the Tories took over and were going to turn things around. They talked about a job for every Canadian who wants to work. By the time they left in 1993, 1.65 million Canadians were out of work. Certainly in 1993, in spite of the red book promise of jobs, jobs, jobs, there remains in Canada today 1.5 million Canadians out of work.
The Prime Minister is trying to tell Canadians that somewhere around that level of unemployment is acceptable, that it cannot be brought down lower. We know what happened to former Prime Minister Kim Campbell when she made that remark.
Certainly we have heard a lot of bragging today about balanced budgets. A number of previous speakers talked about achieving a balanced budget somewhere in the year 1998-99, getting the deficit down to $9 billion and then assuming at that point that the budget was balanced. I submit that only in a place like this would anyone presume that a $9 billion or $10 billion deficit is in fact a balanced
budget. Certainly in the real world I do not think that could be considered a reality.
Between 1972 and 1984 the Liberals increased the national debt from $17.2 billion to $199 billion, a staggering 1,057 per cent increase. In 1984 the Tories promised to put a stop to the increase in the debt. Instead they increased it from $199 billion to $508.2 billion in only nine years.
Then of course the current government has added another $111.5 billion, bringing the debt to the $600 billion mark. It is not a record about which most governments would have the audacity to brag, I am sure.
The illusion is not one that most Canadians will long believe. I firmly believe that Canadians are demanding an end to this political rhetoric, this campaign platform that makes all kinds of promises that the government has no intention of living up to. Canadians are demanding some integrity in government, some honesty in election platforms and they are demanding a fresh approach to government, a basic restructuring of government, a basic downsizing of government.
I spent last week travelling in western and central Canada with the natural resources standing committee which is holding hearings on rural economic renewal. In spite of real prompting from the members of the Liberal Party on the committee to try to initiate some response in favour of another infrastructure program or subsidies to provide incentives to small business, witness after witness said: "We don't need more hockey rinks and canoe museums and the like. What we need is government to get off our backs, get out of our pockets, give us a chance to make a dollar, succeed in our businesses and be successful".
That is a story we heard over and over again. I very much look forward to the day when we write the report on the committee and put into print what supposedly we heard on the tour.
Small Business Awareness Week October 24th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, this being Small Business Awareness Week I rise today to express my deepest congratulations to the winner of the small business award in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
The winner this year is 2000 Plus, a maintenance service company that performs work for Syncrude Canada and other oil and gas operators. It has only been in operation for five years and in that short time it has grown from a tiny enterprise to a $4.5 million annual operation. It has grown from six employees to 70 full time workers, 90 per cent of which are aboriginal.
Not only has 2000 Plus won this award but they have been nominated for the Candu award for economic development. The secret of its success is flexibility in planning and a high degree of attention to safety, reliability and quality with a great record of customer satisfaction.
My caucus colleagues and I would like to congratulate the employees of 2000 Plus and, in particular, Ed Courtoreille, president of 2000 Plus and Mikisew Cree Chief Archie Waquan for winning this award.
The Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act October 10th, 1996
That is right here.
The fact is the automotive industry is trying to get rid of MMT to cover a deficiency in the technology it is required to bring forward. In spite of the fact that MMT has been banned for 20 years in the United States, the OBD-II technology has the same failure rate in the U.S. as it does in Canada where MMT is in the gasoline. The problem is that the automotive industry had to get exemptions from those standards in order to licence the OBD-II technology in its cars because they are not reliable. The technology is not developed to the degree it needs to be and it cannot meet the standards. It needed a bogeyman to blame that on so it chose MMT. And that is the plain and simple reason why this issue is before us now.
The evidence is there. This issue has been studied more than any other gasoline additive issue in history. It went before the courts in the United States twice and Ethyl Corporation won the cases both times. There is no scientifically verifiable evidence to show that MMT does foul the OBD-II equipment. It simply is not there.
We have heard time and time again the horror stories about manganese destroying human brain cells and all the rest of it. The Liberals' own health minister studied this product very thoroughly and in spite of all we have heard, Health Canada says there is no detrimental effect to the health of Canadians by the addition of MMT to gasoline in Canada.
Again, these strawmen keep popping up everywhere to cover this weakness of the evidence involved. I got across everything I needed to.
The Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act October 10th, 1996
You are darn right, and it is not the fermenting corn that smells either.
The facts surrounding the ethanol business relating to MMT simply are not a rational argument because ethanol does not and will not replace MMT. I think anyone who looks at the argument would agree.
I am running short of time so I am jumping around here a little bit. I would also like to quote from the Halifax Sunday Daily News when Premier Savage of Nova Scotia said that he could not support this bill because the supporting of this bill would necessitate the closing of the Imperial Oil refinery in his province.
The Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act October 10th, 1996
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly I have no problem with the member for Essex-Windsor defending the interests of the automotive industry because they are, after all, her constituents. Coming from a constituency that has considerable oil and gas development, I would also speak on behalf of those people.
However, one condition I would put, speaking on their behalf, is that they would produce credible evidence for me to back up their case. I sat in committee and listened to the evidence and only a moron would have believed the evidence to be credible. They told us that this substance in fact fouled the spark-plugs of cars. They did not even have the decency to produce the evidence on two spark-plugs that were the same make and model. The Liberals sat there and swallowed that rubbish like it was the truth.
I listened, met and talked to both sides on this issue, the car manufacturers, the refiners and Ethyl Corporation, which is more than the Liberals were willing to do, I might add. After all this debate and in committee Ethyl Corporation told the members that it wanted to be reasonable and fair on this issue and that if the Liberals would just allow a non-partisan study where all the interest groups had a chance to partake in the protocol on this study and that the evidence was impartial and undeniable, it would voluntarily withdraw the product from the market. How can anyone be more reasonable than that? I suggest they cannot.
I think the hypocrisy that floats around this issue is unbelievable. The member for York-Simcoe, who spoke yesterday, stood in the House during statements and said: "Nations around the world agree that human interventions create conditions that cause global warming and climate change. We all share in the negative economic and social consequences".
That same day in the afternoon the member for Elgin-Norfolk said: "I would like to congratulate the city of Chatham and the company, Commercial Alcohols, for the recent announcement of the construction of a new $153 million ethanol production facility". We kind of get an idea of what is going on here. We cannot have it both ways.