Jim Silye

[Budget Implementation Bill, 1996, April 24th, 1996]

Why not give Quebec a tax cut?

[Budget Implementation Bill, 1996, April 24th, 1996]

Do not use that word. He will get upset.

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, why in her amendment to the main motion does the hon. member recommend the deletion of the word genocide?

[Department Of Health Act, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and the intervention by the hon. member. I found that her from the heart, off the top of her head defence of the Canadian Red Cross and of the blood system and relating to us her past experience were very admirable. An even better compliment is that it was much better than the department's canned speech she read a couple of weeks ago. Maybe she should speak her mind more often and we would all be better off based on her wisdom and her knowledge. This House could benefit from it, with respect.

The member knows darn well that I am not criticizing the Red Cross. I am criticizing a system that has been set in place. The information has to be gathered and should be shared with the many people who suffered. The victims of the tainted blood want to know what happened. That is all they want to know. I do not think they want to go on a witch hunt. They just want to know. I do not know why this government is catering to the former ministers of health, the pharmaceutical agencies and the people who are now filing legal petitions to prevent this report from being made public. That is the part I do not understand.

My point today in debate was to point out that this government is hypocritical in its actions and is duplicitous in the self-serving rhetoric it uses. I tried to give specific examples. A lot of the time the rhetoric is good. In fact a lot of time it is the same as ours and I would swear that the government stole some of our speeches, but its actions are not the same and do not match the rhetoric that it uses.

That is a disservice to the Canadian public. It is a disservice to the government. Canadians are much smarter than a lot of politicians give them credit for. In our isolated little world here we tend to believe what we see on TV, what we read in the newspapers, the national media types. We think that is what is important but it is not. What is important is the grassroots. Our constituencies are what are important and we should always stay in touch with them.

[Department Of Health Act, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the hon. member on her position on the blood inquiry. I do not find that I disagree very much with what she said. It does bother me though and I do question whether she got my point about duplicity, saying one thing and doing another.

The member stands up and brags about how it was the Liberal Party that commissioned the inquiry. She then fails to go ahead. She is like the finance minister; he only does one side of the equation and never does the other side.

The other side of the equation is: Why will the government not allow the information the commission is gathering, the facts of the blood inquiry it is receiving, to be released? Why is the muzzle being put on by the government? The member may brag about striking the commission and putting it in place, but why will this new information not be released?

The member asks what I would do if I were the Minister of Health. I would need all the facts before I would make a decision. One thing I know I would do is I would make sure to have something in place before all these victims died. Perhaps there are as many as 12,000 victims, I do not know.

A personal friend was affected by this and he died at a very young age. He was just a boy and got tainted blood. It really comes close to my heart when I see this. These families are victims no different from and no less than victims of crimes by weapons or physical abuse. This is something serious. I would have at least addressed the victims. I would have told them how they would be compensated and when and what would be left for their families when they passed away so that there would be some security in the future. That is not being addressed. That is being avoided. The hue and cry out there is for that to be resolved.

I would not muzzle the final report of the commission. I would allow for its timely release and would let the cards fall where they may. For those who were supposed to be responsible, those who did a good job would be complimented. Those who did a poor job would be reprimanded. Those who were guilty of any criminal actions would then pay the price for it, nothing more, nothing less. A lot of people are dying.

Those are the things I would do. I am not a medical expert. I do know that the system and a whole department has come under question. The Canadian Red Cross, my gosh, I have always looked up to that organization. I have given blood and I still do.

If something happened, tell us what happened so we can avoid it in the future. There is nothing to run and hide from. Why cover up? That is why I am accusing this government of cover up. That is what it is doing.

[Department Of Health Act, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I know I have hit a nerve when they start yelling. I know I am hitting the truth when they start to rebut.

I was giving examples. I am not trying to inflame or exaggerate; I am trying to be factual. I have given examples on distorting the truth.

Who is slash and burn? Not us. It is this government unloading onto the provinces and bragging to the public about its achievements on deficit elimination, deficit reduction, that they broke the back of the deficit. If a $30 billion deficit is breaking the back of the deficit, if projecting a $24 billion deficit next year is breaking the back of the deficit, if adding $111 billion to the debt is putting Canada's financial house in order, we damn well do need a new finance minister. We need a new CEO and a vice-president of finance because these two people are doing this country a great disservice.

Worst of all this government has different priorities which really frustrates me. The government has the priority of cover-up from the department of defence where it covers up on Somalia. Here is a minister who gives instructions which are not even followed. Is that respect? He is out of control with his department just as the Minister of Health is with his.

The Krever commission was set up to find out the truth. I have a letter from a lady whose husband died as a result of tainted blood. She also has it now because they did not come clean with her and tell her what was going on. They did not provide adequate information to prevent her infection. This lady is going to die and what does the government do? What does the justice minister do? They comply with all these idiot groups that want to ban the release of what the Krever commission is finding out. Is that serving the Canadian public?

Something went wrong. Do Canadians not have the right to know what went wrong? We are not looking to jail anybody, we just want

the truth. We want to know what happened and when it happened. The government should be embarrassed about that. If that is the kind of government the Liberals like, if those are their priorities, they are welcome to them.

I would have nothing to do with this. It is frustrating. I heard the Liberals say one thing in opposition. I read about it and heard about it and now the Liberals are the same as the Tories. They are doing what they want in government. It is not right.

This country deserves justice. It deserves honesty from its politicians. It deserves more than simple rhetoric, saying one thing to get elected and then laughing and doing something else once there. The Canadian public deserves more and it can get more. There are more Liberal backbenchers with more integrity than any I see along the front line of this House of Commons.

[Department Of Health Act, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to address Bill C-18 which prior to prorogation was referred to as Bill C-95. It has been is brought back substantially in the same form, in the same place, in the same position as it was before. I do not know why we prorogued. The whole thing was a farce.

This is a housekeeping bill that we will support because it amalgamates basically two departments, the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and what was formerly called the Department of National Health and Welfare. Now the government wants to call it the Department of Health.

Since this bill touches on the new Department of Health I would like to submit for consideration some comments and recommendations respecting the health of this nation, the health of the government and what the government could do to improve health care for Canadians. I am concerned that the new minister for health, like the previous minister, is not in control, that he will not take responsibility for the department and that he is letting the bureaucrats set the agenda for him.

More people are concerned about long line-ups in hospitals and getting care and attention, yet this minister makes a big to-do about attending wine and cheese parties and the possibility of banning the importation of unpasteurized cheese.

This is foolish. The bureaucracy has come up with something that is scientific somewhere, unbeknown to us in opposition. We do not know where they are going and what they are trying to do. If this was the case there would be a lot of problems in Europe, would there not? For more than 500 years Europeans have been eating unpasteurized cheese and nobody is dying. Are Canadians dying? Where are the facts? What kind of game is the Minister of Health trying to play?

This is the issue of the day versus cigarettes and some of the petitions presented today about alcohol and breast cancer. These are the important things, not unpasteurized cheese. Tainted blood; I will return to the Krever inquiry shortly.

When it comes to the health and well-being of Canadians, I believe the government is being hypocritical and duplicitous in its approach. Government members talk about the five principles of health care and how they will protect them. They think they are the only ones who can protect them. Who will pay for it? Reformers have made recommendations for health care. All the Liberals do is scoff and laugh at them: "slash and burn".

I have accused the government of hypocrisy and duplicity. Let me try to prove that with facts and evidence. I will compare one aspect of the Liberal budget with what we had in our zero in three budget.

On government spending and non-social spending we, along with the government, would probably have cut, as the government has, about $10 billion. On social spending, the one area of established programs financing which refers to health care and education, and the Canada assistance plan, which is welfare, the total expenditure by the government in 1994-95 was $17 billion. If we compare that with the cuts which we would have made to health care, education and welfare, the combined total in our budget was $3.5 billion. The federal government cut $6.6 billion in these areas, $3.1 billion more.

Who is guilty of slash and burn? Who is giving less money to those programs which are most important to the Canadian public? Health care and education are the key foundations to any structure, especially the social structure in Canada.

When I went door to door I said we have to cut spending everywhere else to preserve the amount of funding we have for health care and education. Even in caucus many of us argued there should not be any cuts in those areas. The counter argument was to show the Canadian public the effects of the debt and the high interest costs to service the debt, how these are actually suffocating and restricting the amount of money for all programs and therefore the cuts also must touch on health care and education.

We asked those two institutions to look at some areas which could be rationalized to eliminate waste in spending. That is not something which is preferred, and yet the government has made large cuts. That is duplicity.

The government had the hypocrisy to say that it would protect health care for Canadians. It promised it would ensure portability. It argued the Reform Party had a two-tier system.

The funding for health care by the federal government, when it was first instituted, was to be maintained at the 50 per cent level. That has been reduced to 27 per cent. Now the government is saying it will guarantee stable funding two or three years from now. It is guaranteeing that $11 billion will go to the provinces. What security does the Canadian public have that the federal government will stick to that solution?

I have a suggestion for the federal government to consider in terms of health care. We have something more. We like to highlight an alternative. This is a health care bill, after all. The alternative we are suggesting is medicare plus. We are talking about other options and improvements for the system which the federal government is too afraid to approach. It needs input. It needs debate. It is not the final Reform Party platform. It is not the final

Reform Party position. However, it should not be rejected out of hand, like the Liberals are doing, by labelling it a two-tier system.

The objectives we have are to ensure the stability of funding and to focus our existing resources on the core and essential services. If the Canadian Medical Association, the public and the experts could help us to come up with a definition of core, we could get on to choices beyond medicare, choices which would reduce the existing line-ups.

The medicare we have is vital and important and is something I will always argue in favour of and I will gladly pay my tax dollars to support it. However, we must make it efficient and effective and return to the best health care safety net in the world.

We have to remove the existing funding freeze. If we can we should give more money and look at restoring the per capita transfers to the 1992-93 levels rather than what the Liberals are doing, cutting by stealth.

Maybe we should consider converting the remaining cash transfers to tax point transfers. Index growth in transfers with economic and population growth trends; keep in touch with what is happening in society.

Focusing resources was another suggestion. Canadians need to define what constitutes core, essential health care services. For a broken arm one type of cast could cost more than another. Let us guarantee the cost. If other services are needed then there may be other ways to pay for it. Perhaps other people have suggestions on how funds could be raised for that.

Choices beyond medicare, we should consider removing existing restrictions in law which prohibit choices in basic health care beyond the publicly funded health care, medicare.

This is what the federal government stubbornly refuses to do. Where medicare does not meet the needs of Canadians, they should have the option to exercise these choices by finding services elsewhere if outside the scope of the core services.

Where Canadians exercise choice beyond medicare they will be responsible for arranging appropriate, private funding of such choices either with employer-employee benefit plans, third party insurance or through private resources.

This gives the provinces the flexibility. The five principles of medicare can still be ensured and guaranteed, but it gives the provinces some room to manoeuvre. These are things the federal government refuses to accept or even consider.

I have seen a copy of some talking points the federal government has given to its 177 members in terms of what to say on certain issues; how to brag about revisions to the MP pension plan it so proudly boasted about in the red book; that it has eliminated double dipping and that it has done this and that. Yet notwithstanding all the bragging comments, the government still has a pension plan four to five times better than that in the private sector and it still tries to justify its pension plan, the millions of dollars members will receive after leaving the House on the basis of the low $64,000 salary in the House.

I will read one of the talking points which will show the hypocrisy and duplicity. It will give further evidence of these two words through some specific examples: "It is always intriguing to watch the right-wingers practice what they preach. The Ontario Tories have proposed a 5 per cent pay increase for themselves while slashing hospitals and social programs. At the same time, the Reform MP for Calgary Centre has proposed more than doubling MP salaries to $150,000 while his party has advocated two-tier medicare and the demolition of seniors' pensions. Our government has different priorities".

Liberals are being told what to say out there, what to tell the Canadian public. This is so hypocritical and so duplicitous, it forces me to address this. I take exception to the use of political partisanship and the political game to this extent.

It says the provincial Tories have proposed a 5 per cent increase for themselves where they just announced they have rolled the MPP pensions into compensation and above board, taxable, look after yourself, thank you very much type of job. In fact, they have done the exact opposite. It is a 5 per cent decrease, according to the MPP pension plan in the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

The nerve of the government saying right-wing provincial governments slash hospitals and social programs. Excuse me, does it not realize who gives them the money? Does it not realize who is supposed to help fund social programs, hospitals and education? Who receives $7 billion less for education, health care and welfare? It is the provinces.

The government brags about the cuts it has made to program spending. All it has done is give the provinces less, which then in turn have to find the ways and means of delivering the same level of service they did before with less money.

Who gets rocks thrown at their windows? Who gets the rallies and the special interest groups complaining about what is happen-

ing? It is the provincial governments of Alberta and Ontario. They are the ones that get all the rallies, not the federal government. The federal government has been very smooth and good at reducing transfers to provinces, making them come up with the solutions, making the provincial governments the guilty party and at the same time increasing transfers to individuals.

The federal government has slashed spending to hospitals and education to the tune of $6.6 billion versus what we would have done, only $3.5 billion.

The government talks of compensation. It refers to me, the member for Calgary Centre, that I recommended doubling MP salaries. That is another hypocritical, duplicitous and self-serving statement. Every member knows the compensation in the House. They know the compensation consists of $64,000 on a yearly basis. There are two tax free allowances which we all get of $29,000. If that were transparent and taxable like everybody else's in the country, such as teachers and professors, that alone would equate to around $120,000.

I have not recommended doubling the salary to $120,000. What I am saying is that what members in the House already receive as salary is probably close to between $120,000 and $130,000.

All I am asking is to quit justifying this gold plated MP pension plan on the basis of one part of their salary when there are more parts to that salary than they pretend. That is hypocritical, that is duplicitous, it is self-serving and it is not coming clean with the Canadian public. I for one will not stand for.

I think it is stupid that any member of Parliament uses arguments like that to convince people of the sacrifice they have made to justify the millions of dollars after they leave the House. I find that offensive and I will never defend something like that.

I have given up an MP pension plan here. I will never qualify for one no matter how long I work here. I have to look after myself. I appreciate the government's doing that but even there it played a stupid game. It restricted future members from not being able to opt out. It gave it only to this crop of honest MPs from the Reform Party who stood on principle and put their money where their mouth is; but not this government.

The government says it has different priorities. You bet it does. Its priorities consist of broken promises, distorting the truth or exaggerating the truth, bragging to the public about its achievements.

Broken promises; it promised to protect civil servants and fired 44,000. It promised to renegotiate NAFTA and endorsed it carte blanche. We all know about the GST promise. Members opposite, members within the government are being kicked out because they know what they said door to door. They did not go door to door reading page 22 of the red book. Everyone of these hypocritical members of that party knows that.

For the Prime Minister to stand in the House today and say "read page 22, that is what we said", is a bunch of crap, and he knows it is crap. That is not what they said door to door. That is broken promises. That is hypocritical. That is duplicitous. That is self-serving and that is not coming clean with the Canadian public.

Talk about distorting the truth, they say Reformers would cut $25 billion in one year. That is not true. We would not cut $25 billion in one year. The truth is we would have cut $25 billion over three years.

[Goods And Services Tax, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, quote: "I want the tax dead". That was the Liberal leader in opposition, the right hon. Prime Minister. That appeared in the Montreal Gazette of September 27, 1990.

Now that the Prime Minister has made an example out of the member for York South-Weston in order to keep the rest of his caucus in line, let me remind him of another promise which he and his party made in opposition.

Liberal MPs opposed taxing reading material when the GST was imposed by the Tories. They promised to remove the tax on books. Now they are proposing double digit taxation on reading with their piecemeal, half-hearted effort with three Atlantic provinces on harmonization.

When will the Liberal government meet this promise? Where is the Prime Minister on this promise?

[Goods And Services Tax, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in opposition the Liberals promised to kill, scrap and abolish the GST because it was a bad tax. The Prime Minister knows there are a lot of quotes to prove that.

In government the Liberals are proposing to spend $1 billion to hide this bad tax, to reward with federal kickbacks those Liberal governments that help to hide it, to charge off the billion dollar cost to the seven provinces that do not want it, and finally to punish those MPs that stand in the way of hiding it by dismissal from caucus because they remind the government of its election promise.

Is the Prime Minister now satisfied that by his disciplinary actions he has muzzled other Liberal backbenchers to keep silent on his government's GST promise?

[Goods And Services Tax, April 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, if that is the case, then why are all the provinces saying there are lost revenues?

The finance minister is wreaking havoc in the Atlantic provinces with his bad harmonization tax. It is putting Prince Edward Island at a competitive disadvantage. Conservative provincial governments have said no. NDP provincial governments have said no. Only three Liberal provincial governments have said yes, thanks to a billion dollar bribe just to keep the deputy minister around a little longer.

Why does the finance minister not do the right thing and for the sake of all Canadians get rid of, abolish, kill, eliminate, scrap and agree to quit if he does not, this monster he is creating called harmonization with compensation?