Dave Chatters

[The Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to withdraw the accusation if those on that side withdraw exactly the same accusation that was made against this party.

[The Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is important for me to speak on this issue again because of the way the Liberal members are using the facts of this issue so loosely. We have talked about a number of them. Over and over they have talked about the ethanol issue.

I have been involved in this issue from the very beginning. I listened to the evidence before the committees. We were told time and time again by the refinery people that ethanol is not a substitute for MMT in gasoline. So that is a straw man they are putting up. It is an entirely irrelevant issue; it has no relevance here.

We are talking about who is in the pockets of whom. The member Essex-Windsor talked about the importance of the Canadian automobile industry and that it produces 465,000 jobs and 7 per cent of Canada's GDP and all the rest of it. I do not see how that is relevant in this debate unless that member is lobbying on behalf of the automotive industry.

[The Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have been scheduled to speak on this issue for some time now. I was kind enough to give my space in the order to a Bloc member who had to

catch a plane. I would appreciate some time to speak on this issue before the time expires.

[Petitions, October 4th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, this is a bit like asking someone to close the barn door after the horses have escaped, but in spite of that I rise today to present a petition signed by 97 of my constituents who wish to draw the attention of the House to their belief that the privileges which society accords to heterosexual couples should not be extended to same sex relationships, and their fear that the inclusion of the term sexual orientation in the Canadian Human Rights Act will be seen as societal approval for same sex marriages.

[Radioactive Waste Importation Act, October 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on this subject, probably more from my perspective as the natural resources critic for our party.

This has has been an ongoing debate in this country for many years, going back to the creation of the first nuclear power plant in Canada when the question of what to do with the waste was asked. I found the reaction from the government side interesting. I really have to wonder about the wisdom of approving and licensing an energy source in Canada before dealing with the whole question of the disposal of radioactive wastes in Canada.

Certainly energy from nuclear materials does not create the problems some of the other energy sources do but some of the other energy sources do not have the potential for the human disaster this energy source does. I think the disaster at Chernobyl brought home very quickly to people all around the world the potential disaster that the creation of powerful nuclear energy does have. The destruction in Ukraine and the rendering unproductive of a huge area of some of the most productive agricultural land in the world and the human suffering and disaster that it created and even the effects that it had around the globe should scare Canadians and everyone in the world when they start talking about this source of energy.

This bill my colleague introduced does go a long way to meeting the fears of Canadians about the disposal of the world's nuclear waste in our own backyard and I think that is important. However, the question which also needs to be debated and needs to be continually debated is the continuing production of nuclear waste in Canada before we tackle this question of what we are doing with it. I believe that is a very important question we have to deal with.

When we look at Canada and at the debate going on in every metropolitan area about what to do with landfill sites, what to do with the mountains of garbage produced every year and the great difficulty in even locating landfill sites, it certainly makes the possibility of finding an acceptable site for high level nuclear waste disposal pretty remote.

In my province very close to my residence, we have had a similar debate going on for some years about a hazardous waste disposal site in the Swan Hills area of Alberta. It began with all the same promises that we heard from across the way about safety and the promise to not become a site for the disposal of anyone else's hazardous waste. Because of the monetary considerations, the money to be made or lost in the destruction of hazardous waste, quite quickly that plant has become a site for the importation of hazardous waste from all over Canada and proposals have been made for importing hazardous waste from the United States for disposal at this site.

Residents who live around that site, including me, have great concerns about the impact that would have on our air and water

quality. We were never in favour of the importation of hazardous waste to that site and we remain opposed to it today, in spite of the fact that it is happening.

The assurances that the Government of Canada will always dispose of nuclear waste in a safe and responsible manner do not give me a lot of comfort. I would like to know where the disposal site will be and what it will cost.

There has been research done about the safety of burying the waste deep in the Canadian Shield. When the minister appeared before the committee she assured me that the cost of disposal has been built into the rate which the utilities charge for the energy. I wonder how that is possible when nobody has established what the cost will be.

If we are going to talk anybody, be it First Nations people or anybody else, into burying the waste in their backyard, it will not be done cheaply. There will have to be a major incentive involved. I do not believe that anybody has determined what the cost will be.

The natural resources committee is dealing with Bill C-23. It is very unfortunate that it does not deal with some of these issues.

As my colleague pointed out, the body which regulates nuclear waste and nuclear production in the country allows companies to import and export and do virtually whatever they want with nuclear waste in Canada. Most Canadians would not accept that group's having that responsibility without some controls being placed on it by Parliament.

It is unfortunate that the government did not incorporate this bill into the provisions of that bill and take a stand for the protection of Canadians and the environment. There is a huge stockpile of this waste which is growing every day all over the world which will need to be disposed of.

I support the bill. I would encourage other members of the standing committee to consider amendments which would incorporate this bill into Bill C-23. It would be a giant step in protecting Canadians and their environment.

[Divorce Act, October 3rd, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to join in this debate, although most everything has probably been said. When I listened to the comments coming from across the floor, certainly everything there is being said again because it simply does not seem to get through.

I just listened to the member for Kenora-Rainy River for some reason try to trap my colleague from St. Albert into some kind of remark about families including single parent families. Of course no one on this side of the House would deny that single parents with children are families. Certainly I will not apologize and I do not think anyone should apologize for supporting the traditional two parent family with children. That is the ideal.

If we were to talk to single parents anywhere in this country, be they men or women, they would choose to be in a relationship with two parents and with children. That is what everyone in this country strives for. We in this party make no apologies for supporting the traditional family and opposing the government in its recognition of all manner of alternative arrangements it would propose to refer to as families.

There have been huge problems around the whole issue of divorce, family break-up, child support and child custody. There is a need in this country for the government to address those issues.

The minister of state said earlier that they had travelled across the country listening to Canadians on the issue before the bill was drafted. Unfortunately what I see in this bill, if they truly went out and listened to Canadians, is not what Canadians were telling them. It certainly addresses one issue that probably one segment of Canadians would have them address, but it does not address the whole issue in a comprehensive way.

In some instances the failure of non-custodial parents to pay child support is a major problem and needed to be addressed in a pretty substantive way. This bill establishes four different areas of federal guidelines for support. There is the grid we have heard so much about. I will talk more about each area a little later.

There is also the opening of the Revenue Canada databases for search in cases of payment default; the denying of passports and licences to individuals who are persistently in arrears; and a provision for the garnishment of wages from public servants and seamen. On the last one, I find it interesting that the government would single out individuals working at sea. I do not know where that one comes from. Why do individuals at sea warrant specific attention any more than individuals working anywhere else? Maybe it has something to do with the longstanding reputation of sailors around the world. However, it seems strange that it is in there.

This issue is a major problem and I applaud the government for at least attempting to address part of it.

I listened to the minister talk at some length about child poverty, the favourite Liberal buzzword. It always disturbs me when I hear parliamentarians refer to the absolute necessity of solving child poverty in this country. It is unrealistic. We do not solve child poverty without solving family poverty.

If addressing the default in support payments is an attempt to address the problem of family poverty, it should strike fear into the hearts of non-custodial parents everywhere. If they are expected to solve the problem of single mothers with children living in poverty, then a huge responsibility is being put on them. I do not believe that is fair.

One of the problems all of us in Canada are quite familiar with is that 50 per cent of marriages end in divorce. Most of us have either been touched by the reality of divorce or have personally experienced it. As a member of parliament, I have certainly heard many divorced mothers and fathers discuss the problems surrounding this issue. There are a lot of real issues that need to be addressed. I wish the government had used a broader brush when it dealt with this matter and had dealt with some of the other issues besides support payments.

While at first glance the bill certainly looks broad and all encompassing, when one examines it, the bill is lacking. One of the issues we heard discussed earlier which has not been addressed in the bill but should have been is the whole issue of tax deductibility of child support payments as announced in the last budget. The fact that the government took half a billion dollars out of the hands of single mothers and custodial parents and put it into the government coffers saying that it was much more able to provide benefits to children by taking that away from parents and providing the benefits through government programs is assuming an awful lot on the part of government. One of the other issues that I hear about when I talk to divorced fathers who do not have custody of their children is the problem of access. Because of the adversarial court system, it is not the children going to court against the parents, it is one parent going to court against the other parent. One parent loses and one parent wins. That is the nature of court settlements. Often what is good for the child is not taken into account. In many instances custody is not dealt with fairly and access has not been addressed. It is unfortunate that the issue of access was not addressed by this bill.

This is a piecemeal bill, not unlike many other initiatives which the government has brought forward over the last three years. The Liberal government addresses the issues that the Canadian public wants it to address, but it only deals with the issues that are easy to deal with and avoids the more controversial ones. That is unfortunate.

The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River asked what we would do in this situation. It has been stated before, but I will repeat it. We would approach the whole problem in a more comprehensive manner and would deal with the issue as a whole. We would focus on the issue of family support payments and enforcement of those support payments. That part of the bill is good. However, we would begin with a compulsory mediation process.

Those of us, like myself, who have been married for 30 years and have raised a family, know what it takes to make a marriage work. A willingness to mediate disputes is one of the things which keeps marriages together. When a marriage is falling apart, a system of compulsory mediation would go a long way in getting the marriage back on track. If it failed, at least it would make the split less painful for the children.

We would also include access provisions for both parents, unless that was not in the best interests of the children. Of course there are cases when a parent should not have access, but those truly are the

exception. We would also include access provisions for the extended family, which would include grandparents.

We would also deal with the way the tax system treats families and give all the benefits and encouragement that we possibly could to traditional family units under the tax system. It is quite clear that we would take a much broader approach to this whole issue.

I would like to address briefly the grid issue. It would be nice if everyone's life was as structured as the grid would have it. We could lay out the grid and someone making this much would pay this much money. That would be great, but unfortunately that is not the way life is. Different families with the same family income certainly do not have the same standard of living, nor do they enjoy the same benefits. Everyone has different circumstances and everyone manages their lives differently. It is unfortunate the government is trying to make everyone fit into these square holes. There needs to be more flexibility by the courts in addressing different circumstances. It is very unfortunate that the bill is so rigid-

[Disaster Relief Program, September 24th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents I would like to raise a concern today about the federal disaster relief program.

Although the flooding in northern Alberta did not receive the attention that the flood in the Saguenay did, the damage to homes, crops and businesses was no less devastating to those affected.

In spite of this, many of my constituents have been denied disaster relief funding to compensate them for the loss of a lifetime's worth of work simply because they were forced to pursue off-farm income to keep their farming operations viable.

I and my constituents believe that if the federal government is going to have a program to compensate Canadians for losses due to natural disasters, then all Canadians should be equally compensated for losses incurred.

The people affected by this biased criteria are only victims of circumstance and would have been full time farm operators if they had had a choice. The damage sustained is no less devastating to them and their families.

I have written to Emergency Preparedness Canada and to the Minister of National Defence and received no response. I ask the minister to re-examine the eligibility criteria as described under the disaster relief program.

[Human Rights, May 2nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the first principle of the Reform Party of Canada as stated in our blue book is: "We confirm our commitment to Canada as one nation and to our vision of Canada as a balanced federation of equal provinces and equal citizens". I affirm that belief. This is why I was so deeply offended at the attempt by CBC Radio to portray my comments to a radio station in my riding as being discriminatory against gays and lesbians.

I wish to assure the House I believe that gays and lesbians have exactly the same rights as every other Canadian.

For whatever reason, CBC Radio decided not to include in its report the following statement: "I don't say that you have to sit at the back of the bus or that you can refuse to hire them on the basis of their homosexuality. I don't think that is acceptable. But they

have the same protection under the charter and the human rights act as all other Canadians".

I also said in the same interview: "We don't accept or encourage discrimination against anybody because they are homosexual or they are gay".

[Petitions, March 20th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I rise in accordance with Standing Order 36 to present a further 2,400 names to the much larger petition asking Parliament not to increase the excise tax on gasoline.

I realize it is irrelevant to the recent budget, but certainly relevant to next year's budget. I am pleased to present them.

[Athabasca River, March 15th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians will be shocked to learn that northern aboriginal communities in my constituency are being treated unfairly by the government.

The government has declared it will stop dredging the Athabasca River this fall. This historic trade route links the city of Fort McMurray to these northern communities. When the coast guard stops dredging this river summer transportation and commerce on the river will stop. The proposed seasonal road linking Points North and Lake Athabasca will not be completed until the turn of the century. What are these communities to do until then?

The dredging of the Athabasca River must continue until this road is completed. I and my constituents do not understand why this road is proposed to the east end of the lake when a seasonal road already exists to the west end of the lake.

Ending the dredging will have a major environmental effect on the Athabasca delta. When the dredging stops the river silt will build up and block the river. The consequences could be as devastating as the Bennet Dam was.

The government, which professes to be so green, must address these issues before major changes-