Deborah Grey

[Robert Norman Thompson, November 18th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of Canadians to pay tribute to Robert Norman Thompson.

Bob was a man who spent an impressive part of his life serving Canadians. He became national leader of the Socred Party in 1961. He was elected in 1962 for Red Deer and then re-elected in 1963, 1965 and 1968. He left politics in 1972 and taught political science at Trinity Western in Langley, B.C.

I was a student at Trinity during the mid-1970s and one of the first people I met was Bob Thompson. He had a way about him that one just could not ignore. Bob was fast, feisty and a fierce competitor when it came to political debate.

When I was elected in 1989 he became and has been one of my closest political advisers for all these years. My husband Lew and I had a wonderful visit this summer with Bob and Evelyn at their home in Langley. He was in rare form and we had a great talk. He told me he was being promoted. Promoted he has been.

We love you, Bob, and we thank you, Evelyn. God bless you.

[Foreign Affairs, November 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this is unbelievable. In defiance of UN sanctions, Saddam continues to develop chemical and biological weapons, nuclear weapons and missile technology. Yet the government says that it is okay, that it does not have a problem with that.

Our Prime Minister said that these acceptable trade items are okay because they are okay with the UN. Let us talk about trucks and medical supplies. They can be used for military purposes and military personnel as well. Our government knows it; Saddam Hussein knows it.

Is there no dictator too dirty for the government to do business with?

[Foreign Affairs, November 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party objects to that because it completely sends the wrong signal to our allies. That is what we are talking about right now. Any business deal with Iraq, even under the name of so-called non-military business, undermines any allied action.

The UN weapons inspectors must have full access in Iraq and Saddam's bullying must end, but our government is actually helping Saddam's image and harming our allied cause. Again, why on earth is the Prime Minister supporting trade with the likes of Saddam Hussein?

[Foreign Affairs, November 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, while our two great allies, Britain and the U.S., are mobilizing warships this Prime Minister is mobilizing cocktail receptions with Iraqi officials. Last week our Prime Minister was actually defending Canadian business invitations to Saddam. He said “If you want to sell you have to have contact first”.

Contact? Who wants contact with a man who gassed thousands of Kurdish dissidents with chemical weapons? What kind of contact with the butcher of Bagdhad would the government find acceptable?

[Environment, November 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are nervous about the double standard. It looks like watermelon. The Liberal government looks so green and caring on the outside, but when it is cut open it is still Liberal red. That is all there is to it.

It waives its own laws to outbid the U.S., Japan and the French-German consortium, and the minister knows it. It has one law for Canada and another law for other countries in the world. Frankly we are sick and tired of this double law.

I want to ask the minister one more time. When we say the government is throwing out its ethics just so it can make a shameless sale of Candu reactors in Turkey, why?

[Environment, November 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian corporations the minister talks about do not know which set of laws to follow. There are two of them, the government operates with such a double standard.

The government waives its own laws for the China Candu reactors. Its own justice department told it that it may well lose a court case over it. Then what do government members do? They turn around and make the same kind of bargains with Turkey. They just do not get it.

How can we be sure that the double standard the government operates by will not cause a global disaster? Where is the proof?

[The Environment, November 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am dead serious about quoting from the second Liberal red book: “Domestic action alone is not enough to protect Canada's environment. Ensuring a healthy environment for Canadians is a major foreign policy goal”. There is no such thing with nuclear reactor plants in China and Turkey.

I want to ask the prime minister once again, can he stand in his place here today and say that he is proud of being known as Mr. Recycle in Canada when he is actually known as Mr. Radioactive in China and Turkey?

[The Environment, November 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this government bypassed the entire process. The only environmental assessment that the Liberals are doing for these nuclear plants is some meaningless shadow assessment. The deal has already been approved for these reactor plants. It does not matter what the government does.

No nuclear reactor would ever be allowed in Canada with this meaningless, shallow shadow assessment. What a double standard.

Why does the prime minister pretend to be Mr. Green Thumb at home here in Canada and yet around the world he is known as Mr. Uranium?

[The Environment, November 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, for weeks now the Liberals have refused to reveal what their position is on greenhouse gas emissions. The countdown to Kyoto is just 26 days now and yet the Liberals have resorted to empty rhetoric, saying and pretending they are the only Canadians who really care about mother earth. Yeah, right.

I would like to ask the prime minister this question. Why did the government ignore its own environmental laws and sell reactors to China and Turkey without the proper environmental assessments?

[Rcmp Investigation, November 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, that may be comforting for the Prime Minister, but I do not think Canadians are going to be happy with that answer. There are still some questions unresolved.

Canadians want to know how those confidential lists got into Pierre Corbeil's hands. The Prime Minister says that the ethics counsellor said everything is okay. Surely there should be a report available. The ethics counsellor must report to Parliament, not just to the Prime Minister over coffee.

Will the Prime Minister release a copy of the ethics counsellor's remarks or are we going to have to find out about the government's ethics at a criminal trial?