Grant McNally

[Supply, March 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague for bringing up the very personal story that he did, with the permission of Ms. Drover. I would like to add a bit to that story.

I was a young person in that community who was very much the same age as Abby Drover. I remember reading in my local community papers about this incident and I remember how horrified I was and how horrified the entire community was that this young girl had disappeared. We suspected that she had been murdered, that something terrible had happened. We found out that something very terrible did happen. To learn that she had been abducted by her neighbour and kept in a closed dungeon and repeatedly assaulted for months was beyond the scope of our understanding. It has taken her very many years to talk about this, which is understandable. I think that very personal story illustrates why we need to move on this issue.

I wonder if my colleague could add a bit more to that particular story and tell us how this proposed change would make a difference.

[Supply, March 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, certainly this would be an issue where we would want to examine the very point the member makes: the protection of our children and the protection of our communities. That is the point we are attempting to make in the House today. Perhaps that is lost on my colleague. I do not expect it is, because he is a knowledgeable individual.

I am going to ask him a very direct question. Will he support this motion, and not only that, will he also, in his capacity and his influence with the government, move forward to ensure that legislation is put in place which will be put into effect to implement this registry? Rather than simply saying yes, the government agrees with the motion, will he take the steps necessary within his own group to move this forward and put it in place as legislation in order to protect our children?

[Supply, March 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, throughout the day we have been pointing out to my colleague the deficiencies in the current system and we will continue to do that.

I was encouraged by my colleague's comment that he wanted to work together on this important issue. Obviously it is a very important issue. He mentioned initiatives the government has taken. We appreciate that, but what we are saying is this: why not move forward now and take another step that we can work on as leaders in the country in order to protect the safety of our children and our communities?

I am going to ask the member a direct question. He said he will support the motion. Will he, in his capacity as a parliamentary secretary, encourage his government to bring forward legislation that would put in place this type of registry across the country and see it brought through the process to royal assent in this place so that it would be put into law? Will he do that?

[Immigration, March 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the process has already occurred and it is sitting on the cabinet table waiting for a decision. It has gone through the federal court and the federal court has says that he is cleared for deportation.

Now that it is clearly in the minister's lap, why is she refusing to deport this known Nazi war criminal?

[Immigration, March 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, a known Nazi war criminal, Helmut Oberlander, who lied to enter Canada in 1954, has been allowed to remain here for over a year due to the immigration minister's inaction.

How is the minister, who so freely smears the reputation of others with her name calling, able to defend her refusal to deport this known Nazi war criminal?

[Supply, March 1st, 2001]

The member says it would have saved $1.5 billion but he does not say that it is seven less helicopters. He wants to say one thing but not the other. He does not want the whole story to be told. I do not blame him. The decision is made is such an embarrassment for his government. It should hold full responsibility for what it has done. Canadians are disappointed with the government and the course of action it has taken by cancelling the helicopters and rewriting the letter to exclude some so that it is not embarrassed further in this whole fiasco and boondoggle.

[Supply, March 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague for Saint John and I congratulate her for bringing this motion forward today.

What the government is doing is not right. It is indefensible. It is a position put forward here today by the Liberal Government of Canada and it is one that is clearly wrong. It must bear the responsibility for cancelling the program in 1993 that would have seen helicopters in place to save lives across Canada.

[Supply, March 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the immediate barrier is the Liberal Government of Canada. It is obvious that that is the huge barrier. We have solid agreement from all members that the barrier is the Prime Minister. He said no in 1993. We could have had helicopters in service now, here, today. Instead, eight years later there are still no helicopters in sight. That is the barrier.

Another particular barrier is the statement of operational requirements and the whole process that has been put in place. The Liberals have changed the process thereby eliminating particular members of the industry from putting forward proposals to be included in the procurement strategy. That has been done deliberately to save political face because the government does not want to end up ordering the same helicopters or variants of them that it cancelled in 1993. That is the barrier to this going forward.

[Supply, March 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Calgary West.

This debate has been a very interesting one. It is a very worthwhile topic that has been brought forward by the Conservative Party today. It has just been unbelievable to listen to the arguments put forward by the Liberal government in defence of an indefensible position. That is what it has tried to do today. Liberal members have spent their time defending their action or lack thereof on the maritime helicopter replacement program in such a way that their arguments do not stand up.

The argument just submitted by our colleague, the Liberal member from Nepean was unbelievable. He made the unbelievable statement that had the government gone ahead with the plan developed by the Conservatives in the 1990s, which the Prime Minister tore up in 1993, we would have had a helicopter with cold war capabilities and that would have been a bad thing.

First of all that is wrong. Second, if we follow his logic, it was a better thing for the government to have spent $10 billion over the same period of time and not get the helicopters that are needed in a shorter period of time, rather than spend the approximately $5 billion that would have seen the helicopters delivered under the procurement plan of the Conservative Party back in the 1990s. They would have been delivered in 1993. That is completely illogical. It does not make sense when we look at the pieces of this indefensible position being offered by the Liberals today in the House.

The second assertion being made by most Liberal members is that they are in some way saving the taxpayers $1.5 billion by waiting for who knows how many years before we actually get the replacements for the Sea Kings, which are older than I am. They are saying unbelievable things.

The Liberals should be embarrassed and disappointed by this, because in fact what they are saying is that they are going to be procuring 28 helicopters rather than the original 35 under the plan offered by the Conservatives in the early nineties. There will be seven less helicopters delivered so one would think that there should be some cost savings. It is a little bit like the following argument: the government says that instead of buying 35 cars it will buy 28, but it will be saving $1.5 billion or whatever the cost of those cars would be. If we look at the logic of that argument, here is where it leads.

The Liberals are saying that they can spend more now over the same period of time, get less and we are going to be saving money by doing that. That just does not make sense. Canadians know that. Our military personnel know that. They know that politics has been played in this situation for many years.

We know about the procurement plan that has been in the works to replace the aging Sea Kings for decades now. It is now the year 2001. We would have had military capability and the equipment in place in the mid-1990s had the Prime Minister not simply played politics and torn up the contract that would have seen the EH-101s delivered into service when they were needed.

Instead, what has happened is we have what I am going to call a boondoggle. It is a word that applies here, as it has in many other areas of spending by the government. We had this boondoggle occur. Lives have been lost because of old equipment that has put our military personnel at risk. Sea Kings take approximately 40 hours of service for every hour in the air.

It was mentioned by colleagues in the House today that the situation has become rather embarrassing. We commend our personnel for maintaining the equipment and putting their lives on the line when they use this equipment that should have been replaced long ago.

For a government to stand in this place and defend the position in this situation is simply indefensible. I think Canadians are forgiving when people say they made a mistake, that they were wrong and that they will make good on it. That is exactly what the Liberals should be doing in this House today. If they did they would be able to come clean with Canadians on the failed delivery of equipment, on the time it has taken to replace the equipment and on their defence of it. Instead of coming clean, they have offered lame excuses which do not sit well with those who are in need of the service.

My colleagues from the Conservative Party have mentioned the situations on the Atlantic coast in terms of rescues. My colleague from South Shore talked about the government obviously not having been in the situation of needing the service or knowing anybody who needed the service. That was a very good point. The lack of care and the lack of commitment to put this in place now because there is a need for it is simply indefensible.

It is a shame that the motion is not votable today. I think we would find opposition parties united on it. The motion is a common sense one that has attempted to correct a serious error made by the Prime Minister back in 1993. What is very upsetting and disappointing to members of the House from all parties on this side, and I am sure members on the government side as well, is the lack of action as well as the lack of acknowledgement that politics was played with this file and that those politics have resulted in lost lives, our personnel being put at risk and many other problems.

I want to touch on one other comment made in the House today with regard to earthquake preparedness, which falls under the realm of the Department of National Defence. During question period and in some of the debate today we were asked about the earthquake in the Vancouver area yesterday. There appeared to be a lack of concern on the government's part about that issue. It moved the base at CFB Chilliwack with the emergency preparedness capabilities from the Vancouver region to Edmonton, which is 750 miles away.

We raised questions about this particular issue today with the Minister of Justice from Edmonton. We asked the minister what we would do when those services were no longer available to help people in Vancouver should a large earthquake occur, and it will sometime but we do not know when. The minister's response was that we were fearmongering. What a completely unacceptable and disappointing comment. How are our forces going to bring heavy equipment to Vancouver if there are no runways and if the major transportation corridors are gone? It is an indefensible position.

The government has failed in the delivery of the maritime helicopter program and in so many other ways. Members of the opposition will be united on this debate and many others to keep the government accountable. It is very clear to all Canadians that rather than do the right thing, admit it was wrong and fix the problem immediately, it is going to continue to stonewall and drag on something that needs to be fixed and could have been fixed in 1993. That is truly disappointing.

[Supply, March 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague about the process that has occurred with the Liberal government in terms of it cancelling the promise that it made in 1993 to deliver helicopters. We are still paying for that promise now. We do not have the equipment in place right now. The Prime Minister cancelled that unilaterally in 1993. Could he comment on that?