Grant McNally

[Auditor General's Report, October 20th, 2000]

The question, Mr. Speaker, is, how can Canadians possibly trust the government to govern the country?

[Auditor General's Report, October 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, given the track record of arrogance, incompetence and mismanagement on behalf of this government—

[Auditor General's Report, October 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the government House leader can huff and puff, but everybody knows that the reason a second meeting with the auditor general is being scheduled today is that the Liberals got caught trying to sneak away from their scandalous record.

They snub the auditor general—

[Economic Policy, October 19th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's speech. I know he is a member who sincerely expresses what is on his mind and is well intentioned.

I do want to take issue with a few things he mentioned. I do believe this upcoming election is going to be all about trust, about who to believe and actions speaking louder than words.

People need to take a look at what my colleague said about debt. First of all, understand that it is the government and the legacy of the Liberals that have brought us to the point of an item mentioned in the economic statement. I would like to direct the member to that on page 31.

It clearly states that our debt level right now is $564.5 billion. That is the level of our national debt, our national mortgage. That was brought to us by the government over years and years of governance.

Now the Liberals are asking Canadians to trust them to be the ones to eliminate that. Their plan for doing that is mentioned on page 13. They have put a contingency reserve fund in place of $3 billion. It is a good idea and we congratulate them for that. It is not enough. That contingency fund is to pay down the debt only if money is left after Liberal spending has taken place at the end of the year.

I cannot believe that the new item about debt reduction introduced yesterday in the economic statement made it into the document. However each fall from now on we will announce whether a greater amount should be dedicated to that year's debt paydown. They will make an announcement on whether or not to pay some more debt down, rather than any kind of legislated paydown.

My colleague mentioned that debt paydown would happen with surpluses that were left over, that when they control spending and surpluses are left over it goes to the debt. New spending of $50 billion was mentioned in the document presented to this place yesterday.

How in the world could Canadians believe the Liberals are committed to legislated debt paydown when it is not here? They are the ones who introduced the debt. They are the ones who continued to spend. Whenever the member uses reinvest, we should read in the words a new spending initiative of taxpayer dollars.

I want to ask my colleague about the issues he raised. I also want to ask him about the point he made about a Liberal committee that looked into HRD and other grants and contributions in 1995. If that were such a good plan, how in the world did we get to the $1 billion boondoggle, with billions of dollars not being used appropriately? How is that possible?

That indicates to me that the report was put on a shelf and nothing happened. I would like my colleague to address those issues.

[Cancer Awareness, October 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, last April our three year old son was diagnosed with cancer and I just wanted to take a moment to thank my colleagues, my staff and my constituents for all their warm thoughts and prayers. It has been a great encouragement to all of us at home.

I want to say that as our son is battling leukemia there are many others that have battled cancer in this place.

I want to give a special thank you to the doctors, nurses and staff at the Children's Hospital in B.C., especially to Dr. Jeff Davis, Jenny Parkes and also to Dr. Finch in Mission. We know that at times like this it is family that means the most. I want to thank all my colleagues for their support during this really rough time.

I also want to encourage all of us to pull together. We celebrated the Terry Fox Run and the Run for the Cure which are very important things and we know that by working together cancer can be beaten.

[Petitions, October 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from hundreds of my constituents who are shocked by the legal determination that the possession of child pornography is not criminal. They ask that the House do everything necessary to make sure that the possession of child pornography remains a serious criminal offence.

[Points Of Order, September 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I seek your advice on this question I have for the government on something that I know you have addressed in the House before during question period, and that is a tactic by the government in that when the opposition parties, which have a limited time to keep the government accountable, do ask questions, often a technique is for government members to actually ask questions of the opposition. I think if you check the record today, that happened on at least eight different occasions. I am wondering what can be done in order to remedy this.

[Business Of The House, September 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to ask the government House leader this very important question on the business of the House for the remainder of this week and for next week.

Also, in light of the questioning during question period with regard to the auditor general's report, which we now know the minister of human resources has, would it be part of the government's agenda to release that prior to the imminent election call?

[Canada Development Corporation, April 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in relation to the finance minister's involvement in the tainted blood situation, I would like to follow up on what the Deputy Prime Minister said.

He said that all the documents were under the control of the government. He also said that board members were interviewed. The fact is that the same board members could face liability issues on this too. It is no wonder that they said there was no conflict.

The truth of the matter is that the ethics counsellor and the government have the board minutes and they are stonewalling and refusing to release them. What is it that they are hiding in these documents?

[Business Of The House, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this being the most favoured day, Thursday, where we get to ask another question after question period, I would like to ask a very important question of the government House leader.

Would he be able to tell the House what the business of the House will be for the remainder of this week and the week following the break?