Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to rise in this throne speech debate. You and I have been here some time and we have seen a few throne speeches in our day. I was a little surprised to hear this one. In fact, if we just look at the title of it, it is called “The Canada we Want”.
I have been a member of the government for nine years. It seems a bit late to me for anyone to say “The Canada We Want”. If the government really wanted that Canada, surely to heaven it could have started a few years ago in the very first throne speech that we listened to as the class of 1988, and I came in right behind you in 1989, Mr. Speaker.
It is now nearly a decade later and the government is saying that this is the Canada it wants. It seems to me that the Canada we wanted back when the government came to power in 1993 should now be the Canada we have, maybe putting a few finishing touches on for the Prime Minister's flourish, for his legacy. However it seems to be a little late to admit that this will be the Canada we want.
When I think about the throne speech and the timing of it and of course we were supposed to start on September 18 but the Prime Minister bumped that forward to the 30th, everybody in the country sensed a real feeling of enthusiasm that the Queen would open Parliament. There was all kinds of bantering back and forth about whether she would or would not.
When we think about a Speech from the Throne, there really is only one throne. You are sitting on one, Mr. Speaker, but it is pretty small potatoes. Her Majesty celebrated her 50th this year, as I did on July 1st. She was to be in our country when Parliament opened but it did not happen that way.
There was talk again that it would set a precedent if she opened Parliament. She was here in 1977, and she has done it in other countries in the Commonwealth. I wonder the Prime Minister did not say “Your Majesty, we would be honoured to have you come and open our Parliament”, or whether she did not feel comfortable or think it was appropriate, even though she did it before. Maybe she heard some rumblings from this place from some pretty high profile, high powered people that maybe they were not keen on her. I say shame on them.
It is one thing to harbour ill feelings toward the Queen, and I supposed everyone is entitled to that, but it is quite another thing to be so classless as to go on a rant about it when she is in our country. We as Canadians are so horribly polite all the time. Would someone's mother not say “Zip it, she's here, honour her, celebrate her”?
When I think about people with far too high a power going on these silly rants about it, maybe we should not blame her for not being interested, or not tempted, or embarrassed to come and open Parliament. What a pity and an absolute shame that is. Maybe she did not read it. I do not know.
I am rather keen on the Queen. Her coronation was in 1952, and we both just celebrated 50 years. I have a soft spot in my heart for her. I still cannot imagine anyone being so crass as to carry on the way our Deputy Prime Minister did. He is number two in charge. It is just unbelievable. Yet we have seen her on TV and she is so classy. I am actually sad that it was not her sitting on the throne giving that speech.
The government said it is the Canada we want. It has had almost a decade. It seems to me that the desperation to have a legacy, to say “I did this”, is coming a little too close to the surface for our Prime Minister. When he was announcing his parks the other day, he said that he was not looking for a legacy. It is one thing to say it but it is another thing to try prove it by his actions. Sad to say, the Prime Minister, after nine years of inaction, seems to have taken pride in saying that he really has done nothing and that he just manages the place.
Someone asked what he liked about being Prime Minister, saying that he had tremendous influence across the country to accomplish whatever he wanted and that he could put his stamp on it.
He said he liked the job. That is cool but it is not reason enough to have that passion to say that he is Prime of Minister of the country, for what will be a decade by his term is over, while wondering what his legacy will be. It strikes me as kind of pathetic. In fact a lot of the things the government has done strike me as pathetic.
Just imagine the opportunities the Liberals have had to deal with taxes. They say they have cut them, but it has not been great. They say they care about families, but it is still an unbelievably oppressive regime, in terms of families where one of the spouses might want to stay home to raise their kids.
What about crime? I do not think Canadians feel any safer now than they did when the government took office. I do not think they feel more comfortable knowing that everything is well with them.
What about defence ? Billions of dollars have been cut out of defence and our defence has become defenceless. I will make reference later to a few little phrases in the throne speech. That is a sad thing.
I represent many people near the super base of Edmonton. My colleague from my old riding of Beaver River, who is in the Lakeland riding, represents Cold Lake, another enormous military base in Alberta. These people are feeling like the wind has been knocked right out of them. They are feeling defenceless. They will come to the charge. They will do what they can because they are committed, they believe in it, they have a passion for it and they will do everything they can do. However they have not been given the tools. They have not been given the opportunity. They have not given the manpower. They are over-extended and underpaid.
Yesterday in the House I raised the issue of the $1.5 billion which had been taken out of the funds allocated for equipment to pay the salaries of these people. Yet, time after time, we say they are standing on guard for us, and they are, to the best of their abilities, but it is falling far short.
The throne speech stated:
And the sacrifices that some of our citizens make are deeply appreciated by their country
That is true.
When men and women go to war, they understand the costs and potential costs and what might happen when they go to war. It is sad to say that many were injured. It is sadder yet to say that four did not come home. I paid tribute to those men today. I was at the ceremony just after the four young men were killed. I must say that I cannot remember being at such a moving ceremony in all my years of elected life, plus my life before that. It was very moving. We are willing to make sacrifices.
The Governor General went on to say, on behalf of the one who should have been sitting in the throne:
This kind of contribution...makes us what we are as a nation. It is a very precious life that we share as Canadians. And we must be prepared not only to praise it, but also to make sacrifices for it.
The ultimate sacrifice that those four young men paid is the highest sacrifice one could make for one's country and for one's family. Yet when it comes to valuing our military, the government waxes on about how committed it is. It will put it on paper. However we would really like to see it, and I am sure the military would like to see it, reflected in pride they would like to feel as they do their very level best.
My colleague said that three out of four F-18 fighter jets were not fit to fly at any moment. That is pretty frightening. The military wants to be able to say that it has the manpower and that it will go at it. However it needs the principal and the pay.
Think what our military is doing and what it is prepared to do. Think about the shame the government should feel. The report of the Auditor General, the think tanks of the House of Commons and Senate defence committees and, more specifically, the Conference of Defence Associations, have come out with a stinging, damning indictment of the government, a government that says that everything is under control and going really well.
We must think about what actually is going on, about the people studying behind the scenes and meeting with real military people. It is important for them to know they have a government that stands behind them, not one that says it wants another paper, another review or that it needs to consult some more. The studies that have come out one after the other are embarrassments of what the government's pathetic legacy is for Canada's military.
