Deborah Grey

[Hepatitis C, March 31st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we guys across the aisle at least recognize a moral responsibility when we see one.

Canadians are watching the heartless approach the health minister is taking toward these innocent victims of the blood scandal. The lawyer says “this is difficult”. It is difficult, but it is also deadly.

Will the Prime Minister tell his health minister to back off and compensate all victims of this blood tragedy today?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1998, March 31st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I want to give a few thoughts on Bill C-36, the implementation act of the budget. This is a large piece of legislation and of course it results from some of the things that were tabled in the budget in late February. I want to look specifically at some of the issues that are talked about, the millennium scholarship fund for instance.

There are a few other things I should preface my remarks with, and that is the situation we are in fiscally in the country so that all these budget implementation things could happen at all. Of course when the budget was tabled last month the government talked about finally being in the position to have a balanced budget.

That is super in terms of Canadians saying we do not have to deficit finance anymore and hopefully it will never happen again, but the question of course is how did we balance the budget and how is it that we are operating at a zero deficit.

I would hate to be critical of government members patting themselves on the back so hugely that they would dislocate their shoulder. That would be a most unfortunate thing.

But looking at how the budget was actually balanced there are a few questions to be asked. I know Mr. Speaker would be just as concerned as I to know some of the answers to this.

In 1998 the government will collect $35 billion more in taxes than it did in 1993. I do not know whether this could be called cutting spending. I hardly think it would qualify under that category. I think of my home city of Edmonton where taxpayers have been asked to kick in $35 billion as part of the larger economy of the country, $35 billion more in taxes.

For my part of the country and my city, that equals about $1 billion just for the city of Edmonton. That is a lot of people working and a lot of people sending in their taxes to Revenue Canada to kick in our portion of this increased tax and revenue for the government of Canada. It is about $1 billion coming out of Edmonton alone.

When I think about it I would be amused if I were not so sad. When the relocation of the superbase happened in Edmonton it was treated as though this was a gift of largess from the government. It said you lucky folks, guess what is happening to you in Edmonton. You will be getting the western Canadian superbase and we will spend hundreds of millions of dollars making sure that happens.

That is wonderful and there is increased economic activity in Edmonton. We sure appreciate that but when it is treated as though it is some sort of gift from someone on high, it could be understood that the gratefulness is not quite that exciting.

After all, if we are sending $1 billion more into the Government of Canada, then a $100 million return on a superbase is not exactly a great investment on our dollar. When the government talks about partnerships and investments, I am no mathematician but I know that if I get $100 million spent in my community and then the government turns around and takes $1 billion in extra taxation and revenue from me then I am not exactly what one would call a winner in that area.

We need to realize that the government is going to be collecting $35 billion more in taxes than it did in 1993 when it came in. Who is paying that? It is the taxpayers who are sending out their cheques to Revenue Canada. People all across the country want the budget balanced and this budget has done that.

However, there is also the debt which is the accumulation of all these deficits that have added up over the years. The total debt now is $583 billion, which is an amazing amount of money. Frankly, I do not even know how many zeros that is. However, if we break it down to the average family we are looking at every family of four in this country from Newfoundland to British Columbia being saddled with an extra mortgage of $77,000. This is just scandalous. I am not sure that any government should be standing up patting itself on the back and saying it is terrific.

We need to make sure that debt reduction is the number one target but frankly I do not see it here in the budget. When the budget was delivered, the Liberals said that if there was any money left over people could rest assured that they would put some of that money toward the debt. There was a wink, wink and a hand on my wallet in my back pocket. They were going to make sure to look after the debt.

I look at pages in the House of Commons who are coming along the generation behind those of us who are getting a little older. Who is going to pay that debt? I am sure every member in the House, regardless of political party, understands that we have close to $600 billion of debt. Who is going to pay it? We can stand and brag that we do not have to worry about this anymore because we are paying off our Visa with our MasterCard, but I think that certainly defeats the purpose.

The government has slashed payments to the provinces by $7.4 billion. That is an incredible amount of money. That is 16.5% of the reduction of the deficit.

Mr. Speaker, when you travel the country, as I am sure you do, and talk to people they say what their priorities are. They want to have a good health care system in the country. They want good, sound education programs. They want to make sure they have secure pensions when they reach retirement age. I think everybody universally feels the same way about that.

However, here we are debating a bill which includes the millennium fund right now which concerns post-secondary education. How much help is it going to be? It will touch 6% of the students in the country. I think the far wiser thing the government could be doing is moving forward and realizing that what is important is not just to reduce the debt but to offer tax relief to all the provinces. With a higher amount of money in transfer payments, the provinces unilaterally could then offer universal tuition reductions. I think that would be a a lot better than picking students who are going to be able to benefit from this millennium fund.

If we talk about students, and I think of our pages who are in university right now, they are going to have their first degree under their belt by the time this millennium fund even kicks in.

When we look at how serious it is to offer real help to students and then look at this implementation of the Canada millennium fund, it looks to me like the Prime Minister, before he heads out at the turn of the century, wants this to be his shrine. He wants this to be his personal legacy. He will go out on a roll as the architect of this and they will build a statue saying he was the one who brought in the Canada millennium scholarship foundation.

If the government were seriously concerned about students it would do something in this budget to increase the transfer payments it slashed so harshly. It should put back the transfer funds to the provinces to ensure that under their jurisdictional powers they would have the money available to offer universal tuition cuts. I think that would be a very refreshing thing.

Regarding tax relief there is not a lot in the budget that offers real cash back to the people who are paying billions and billions of tax dollars to the government. The government will put a dollar in the pocket of taxpayers and say that is wonderful. Then the old hand comes around to the wallet again and it takes $2. That is not good arithmetic. It is not good politics. It is not good optics. I know you would certainly agree, Mr. Speaker, that government has to watch where it has its hands.

If we look at the ultimate amount of money the government brings in, it is absolutely staggering. I am looking at the budgetary numbers in the budget in brief. Budgetary revenue is the amount of cash the government is bringing in. In fiscal year 1998-99 it will be $151 billion. All those zeros would hardly fit on a ledger sheet. They would have to be written very small.

The government is spending $104 billion on program spending. There is a balance of $46.5 billion. The government says that is a lot of cash and it is terrific that it has $46 billion.

Do we know where that exact amount of money is going? It is going to interest payments on the debt. It is frightening when we see that kind of thing happening because interest payments will just gobble up all the cash that should be going to other programs.

There are many tremendous programs, worthwhile programs. We see some of them in the bill. Should we be thinking about education? Absolutely. This is what we talk about, that future generations need to have an education. Is the government really concerned about education, helping students and making sure that tuition fees are low? No. Instead it builds a shrine to the Canada millennium scholarship foundation. What good does that do other than provide a trophy, a plaque or a statue? It does not do a lot of good.

Let us look at the amount of money going to various projects. Talking about education again, the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act on paper looks absolutely super. We sit down and ask questions about whether this is the best way to address student finance. I do not think so.

Tuition should be lowered and transfer payments should be put back to the provinces. We should make sure that the provinces are able to deliver excellent quality post-secondary education so that kids are able to learn, get their degrees, get good jobs and pay taxes back to the government. That is what it is all about.

[Hepatitis C, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, that is not much comfort for those who were infected before 1986. Frankly, they do not really care what it is called.

The minister is so fond of saying “We care. We have families too and we really understand how you feel”. The hepatitis C victims have family members also, except they are dying. Instead of spending their last months with their families, they are now going to be going through the courts fighting against this minister for compensation.

Is this the new Liberal definition of compassion?

[Hepatitis C, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, that is no comfort for those who were tainted and infected outside of that time. This health minister made a legal decision, an accounting decision, a budgetary decision. It had nothing to do with compassionate, fair, human decisions at all.

There are now two tiers of hepatitis C victims in this country. There are those whose life is valued and those who do not even seem to exist at all in the eyes of this minister.

How much money has the minister set aside to fight these victims in courts and lawsuits and how much has he spent on PR damage control?

[Hepatitis C, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the health minister has tried to craft a public image of being a really caring and compassionate individual. That is his leadership strategy: he has more heart than his rival, the finance minister.

However, last week we saw the real McCoy come forward. He callously sentenced thousands of hepatitis C victims to suffer alone without any hope.

I would like to ask Mr. Compassion today, why is it that he found $2 million for Brian Mulroney and not one thin dime for the victims of hepatitis C?

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the royal commission is not solving the problems there, right now today, which they are facing. There are terrible inequities on that reserve. As we saw on TV last night, there are haves and have-nots on that reserve. That is exactly the issue that Bruce Starlight, from that very same reserve, brought forward to the minister's attention and the very chief who got that information back and is now suing him.

This is not being solved and I am going to ask the minister one more time: Will she appoint a judge to look into the economic, social and democratic disasters that are happening on the Tsuu T'ina Reserve today?

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, our whole nation is grieving over the deaths of Connie and Ty Jacobs on the Tsuu T'ina reserve in Alberta.

Alberta has called for a public inquiry into that tragic shooting which might shed some light on how to improve the RCMP conditions there. That inquiry only looks into the shooting itself. Grassroots aboriginals know that this was just a symptom of much larger, more serious problems.

Will the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development appoint a judge to look into the economic, social and democratic problems on the Tsuu T'ina reserve?

[Petitions, March 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36 I wish to present a petition signed by several Albertans.

They say that they want to draw the attention of the House to the following:

That as deeply concerned citizens they believe that the provocation defence, as it is currently used in femicide and wife slaughter cases, inappropriately and unjustly changes the focus of the criminal trial from the behaviour of the accused and his intention to murder to the behaviour of the victim who from then on is identified as the one responsible for the accused violence.

Therefore the undersigned request that Parliament review and change relevant provisions of the Criminal Code to ensure that men take responsibility for their violent behaviour toward women.

[The Senate, March 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, maybe white wigs would help in the Senate, who knows.

Senator Andrew Thompson's attendance record has been dismal for years. The Prime Minister only admitted this and it became an issue several months back when it became a disaster for public relations for the Liberal Party. Now Senator Andrew Thompson has retired so that he can get his huge enormous pension.

The Prime Minister still has not told Canadians what he considers to be the acceptable attendance record for senators. Will he answer for us today just how much is acceptable, 30%, 50%, which is it?

[Fisheries, March 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in 1991 the Prime Minister told the House: “Every minister in the cabinet I preside over will have to take full responsibility for what is going on in his department. If there is any bungling the minister will have to take full responsibility”. The Liberal dominated fisheries committee has uncovered an ocean of bungling.

When will the Prime Minister demand that the fisheries minister do his job or put in the member for Grand Falls, Newfoundland who will?