Grant McNally

[Human Resources Development, February 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is having trouble explaining that aspect. Let us move to another one.

This weekend the Prime Minister compared the billion dollar boondoggle at human resources to Canadians not being able to balance their chequebooks, a poor analogy to say the least.

When the Prime Minister is entrusted with billions of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars, he has a responsibility to keep track of them. Why does the Prime Minister try to minimize the bungling of a billion dollars as though it were a commonplace occurrence in his government?

[Human Resources Development, February 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, while the minister attempts to minimize the scandal and blame others, it is clearly in her area of responsibility.

We have obtained a list circulated by Peter Donolo, the Prime Minister's former director of communications, to members of the Liberal caucus. It lists hundreds of places where Liberals can go for a photo op with recipients of government grants and contributions. Does this not just prove that this billion dollar boondoggle is more about buying political support than about creating jobs?

[Veterans Health Care, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Waterloo—Wellington says rubbish, but the Minister of Industry says this, and I will quote it directly for him and send him the article:

Essentially the brain drain is a job drain.

What studies are turning up is not that personal taxes are such a big deal, but that opportunity is leading people to the United States. If it is opportunity, then we have to look at the policies that are going to increase opportunity in Canada.

He goes on to state that corporate taxes are high on his list of wishes. That was the Minister of Industry. I hope he has a chance to sit down and talk to the Minister of Finance in the next couple of days because the Prime Minister already leaked that the budget would be announced on February 28. We hope there are going to be substantial reductions in taxation, not only for small businesses, but for hard working Canadians as well. We really hope that will be the case. We somehow doubt it, but we hope that will be the case.

I am going to anticipate part of what the answer of my colleague will be: that we have low taxes, the minister has reduced taxes, everything is going fine, just wait until February 28 and we will see what kind of great things the government is going to do. I would state that this is the government that has increased taxes year after year in a shell game approach of saying that it has reduced taxes when, in effect, it has increased them.

The government does not see that reducing personal income taxes and taxes for business will stimulate the economy. The Reform Party has a proposal which has been endorsed by WEFA, a highly regarded independent organization which the Minister of Finance uses himself for his own numbers that he runs for his budget projections, which says that this is a very good program in which we will be able to substantially reduce taxation to stimulate the economy.

It is my wish and my hope that the government will take such an approach to stimulate the economy and to substantially reduce taxes for businesses and for all Canadians. However, I do not think it is actually going to be delivered by the Liberals because of their actions of increasing taxes over and over again. We will wait to see.

I urge Canadians to wait to see what kind of new spending the government is going to announce when the budget is brought forward. I wait with bated breath to hear my colleague's, hopefully unscripted, response.

[Veterans Health Care, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the member for Waterloo—Wellington also saying that he wishes the parliamentary secretary would put away his scripted question and answer as well. I thank him for that.

The Minister of Industry has just wakened to the fact that corporate taxes are very high in this country and they need to be reduced.

[Veterans Health Care, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on November 5 I asked the Minister of Finance a question about taxes for business and why he did not undertake to reduce taxes for businesses to help the economy. At that time the parliamentary secretary responded that we already have very low taxes for businesses. I simply disagree with that statement.

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources will be answering my question, I assume the Liberal government views taxes as a natural resource to be gathered into their coffers to redistribute as they see fit. We are witnessing that with what is happening at human resources. We know all about that billion dollar boondoggle. Perhaps it is because of the underlying belief that tax dollars are a natural resource. I can only assume that.

I did see the parliamentary secretary practising his answer. I hope he puts away the scripted response that has been given to him by the department and actually answers the question. It would be reassuring.

[Health Care, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is responsible for the crisis in our health care system. It has cut over $10 billion in health transfer payments to the provinces and now fund less than 20% of medicare costs, a far cry from its 50:50 cost sharing promise.

In my home town of Mission, B.C., severe service cuts are being proposed at the Mission Memorial Hospital. Over 1,300 people recently attended a public forum to share their concerns about these proposed cuts. In addition, my office has received hundreds of letters and phone calls urging me to bring this issue to the attention of the Minister of Health.

The people of Mission are fearful that they may lose core health care services in their community. This is a fear that my constituents and all Canadians should not have to live with.

I want to tell the Minister of Health that his slash and burn approach to health care funding hurts real Canadians.

My constituents want the government to take immediate action to ensure that small towns like Mission can maintain adequate facilities to care for their communities.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, February 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is incredible what we have just witnessed in this place. We have a colleague from the New Democratic Party who has lived the life of a Cape Bretoner with the experiences he was talking about and the hon. member for Durham, a Liberal, has the gall to stand up in this place and lecture that member and other members of the opposition about what they should do and what they should think.

It is the Liberals' policies and their arrogance, which he has just demonstrated, that has led to this kind of situation in Cape Breton. This is the kind of arrogance that is a pattern across these benches that speaks every day to the reason why we need a change in the governing party and to throw them out of office so that people will have a different approach and a different way of governing in this country.

I would just ask my colleague if he might comment on that.

[Human Resources Development, February 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's plan does not have any requirement to answering questions in the House.

In any normal investigation suspects are denied access to incriminating evidence. In this case the human resources minister and her officials have a free hand to alter, destroy or fabricate documents. Canadians will never get to the bottom of the billion dollar bungle in this case.

I will ask the attorney general again what assurance she can give Canadians that the integrity of these files will be maintained so that we can get to the truth lying behind this scandal.

[Human Resources Development, February 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the human resources minister and her officials have a free hand to take a look at these files and there are no safeguards guaranteed.

I am going to ask the attorney general what assurances she can give Canadians that these files and their integrity will be protected so we can get to the truth lying behind this scandal.

[Human Resources Development, February 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, while the human resources minister is in a serious conflict of interest, we have already seen her attempts to cover up her billion dollar bungle—