Grant McNally

[Immigration, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the immigration system is broken and the minister of immigration either cannot or will not fix it.

Honduran drug dealers are posing as refugees to sell crack cocaine on Vancouver streets. What is the government's response to the problem? The Liberal government says there is no problem and when the issue is raised by the official opposition it calls it nonsense. I guess any issue that involves B.C. is nonsense to these arrogant Liberals.

Yesterday the Liberals voted against shutting down refugee drug dealers in Vancouver. The Liberal member for Vancouver Kingsway voted against stopping bogus refugees from selling drugs to children in her community. She toed the party line and voted against her constituents once again.

British Columbians are concerned about the situation. The attorney general for B.C. is calling for action from Ottawa. The RCMP, Vancouver police and community leaders are all calling for action. Unfortunately no one in the Liberal government is listening and it wonders why it needs a western alienation rescue team, or should I say WART.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, March 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it was a pleasure to be in the member's riding this week and to talk to some of his constituents. They are telling a very different story than the picture he just finished painting.

I spoke with students at Wilfred Laurier on Tuesday and I spoke to others throughout his community. I can indicate what they are saying about the government's actions, its high taxes, its high debt, and the slash and burn approach that it has taken to health care. It added $11.5 billion to health care, which did not make up for the $20 billion that it slashed and burned from health care. They are not happy about that situation. Individuals in the member's community are not singing the same praises of the government. In fact, they have hard questions for the member.

We heard today in question period the Minister of Industry talk about the falling standard of living. The member was singing the praises of the standard of living as though it was improving in his riding. The minister counteracted that today.

I would like to ask the member a very specific question. How can he justify saying that the standard of living is improving in his community when his own Minister of Industry is saying that there is a fall in the standard of living of up to $7,000 for Canadians?

[Taxation, March 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party believes in tax relief for everyone and Alberta proved that can be done in a single day.

It is this government that is stubborn and that refuses to provide that substantive kind of tax relief. It continues to pick on stay at home parents with kids. It continues to pick on low income families. Eight hundred thousand Albertans will not be paying provincial tax yet the federal government will continue to wring taxes out of those people.

The working poor are left alone by the Alberta tax man. Why does the federal government not do the exact same thing?

[Taxation, March 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister offers doom and gloom about Alberta. It is Alberta that is taking action instead of lip service when it comes to substantive tax relief. In one day it provided tax relief for everyone. In one day it ended tax discrimination against stay at home parents and in one day it reduced its tax system to a much simpler system, and it did this while it increased health care spending.

What is the Liberal excuse today for not cutting its punishing taxes in the exact same way?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I understand exactly where the member stands. I was quoting directly from Hansard , from his comments. He reinforced them again today. He is saying that he is a passionate interventionist and asking why it is that we cannot see that is the right way to go. It is very clear why we do not see that it is the right way to go. It is because we fundamentally disagree with that philosophical approach.

The hon. member is saying “Don't worry, Canadians, don't worry, provinces of Canada, we have all the answers. We are the federal government. We are the big daddy”. That is the kind of thought he is putting behind his comment that the federal government is the one with the answers, that it has the answers and it has the resources. He fails to point out that the resources he refers to are the tax dollars of Canadians, their hard earned money. That is what those dollars are.

The hon. member brags about the national energy program. It sucked $100 billion out of Alberta to fund all kinds of other things that in many instances, not all, were wasteful programs.

The member and his government do not understand their approach and how it has alienated individual Canadians from coast to coast to coast, particularly in western Canada, in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Government members just do not get it. They think that sending out this rescue team from Ottawa, this western alienation team, will somehow solve the problem.

What will solve the problem is when we have the opportunity to implement the policies which reflect the positive direction we have for the country, or when the government starts to listen. I do not think the latter will happen because government members have had so much time here and continue to be deaf on issues.

We are willing to make a positive change for the future. I am hoping that members opposite will also be willing to do that.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 10th, 1999]

I hear harping from the member opposite, the member for Broadview-Greenwood, who made those comments. He referred to interventionist ideas and that big government has the solution to all problems, which is truly not the case, as has been played out in history.

I want to end on that note. The government is out of touch. The bill proves it. We offer a fresh vision and a new approach to dealing with the governance of the country.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 10th, 1999]

It was $100 billion, my hon. colleague reminds me, that it sucked out of the province of Alberta in the name of interventionism, in the name of “we have all the answers for you”. That approach simply has not worked. That is why there is Liberal alienation in western Canada. That alienation is growing in all regions of the country with the kinds of things we are seeing the government do.

We saw reference to that yesterday in the House. We saw it today in question period talking about the government's continued discrimination against families, against families that have made the decision to have one of the parents stay home to look after the kids. We heard discriminatory and inflammatory comments being made by the Secretary of State for the Status of Women, the finance minister and other key members of the government. That is their approach to governing and it is shameful.

The bill which would seek to establish equalization payments was done in the same fashion. There was three days of notice that the bill was coming, after having five years to deal with the issue. The government has had five or six budgets to deal with the issue of single income families and remedy the tax discrimination that it continues to enforce penalizing families in Canada and it did nothing about it.

The government pays lip service to the things Canadians are most concerned about yet it fails to take action. The bill is another example of the way of doing business with the Liberal government. The people of Canada are growing very tired of this approach. That is why there is western alienation and alienation in other parts of the country.

I used an analogy last day of a famous Charlie Brown comic strip of which we are all aware. There is character named Lucy who continues to pull the ball away from Charlie Brown just before he kick it. That is how the Liberal government deals with the people of Canada. It is holding the football, pulling it away every time and punishing taxpayers and other individuals as well.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 10th, 1999]

Yes, perhaps the alienation committee can find out on a road map where western Canada is. It is no wonder the government has to send a crew out to do some kind of damage control when there are members of the government standing in this place making these kinds of comments, saying that the central Government of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, has been the creators of economic development in the country.

Let us just talk about one example of that interventionist approach called the national energy program. I am sure members of the government remember that. It sucked billions of dollars out of Alberta to fund all kinds of other programs.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to resume debate on this important topic.

I began last day by talking about the government's approach to governing, its way of dealing with the Canadian public and with the provinces. I reiterate that today.

The way the government deals with Canadian taxpayers, with provinces and with all individuals in the country is reprehensible. It is an arrogant approach. It sees itself as the one that has the only answers and it does not give credit to those individuals who are doing the hard work in the country, the taxpayers of Canada, the governments of the provinces and the local governments.

I refer to some of the comments made by the government member for Broadview—Greenwood last day when he stated that he was an interventionist and stood proudly in this place to claim so. He said his government's approach to intervening in the lives of Canadian individuals and provinces was the way to go.

That is what the Liberal government believes. I reiterate what he said, that the sectors of the western economic fabric were reinforced and embellished because of Government of Canada intervention.

What the member of the government is saying is that the development of western regions of the country was a result of the Liberal government, that it did it. That is unbelievable. I will list the provinces because I am not even sure the member knows those are the areas he is talking about: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 9th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I hear the member from Coquitlam harping up once again. It is nice to see that he is here for a change. It would be nice to see him enter into this debate in a reasonable manner rather than just shouting across the way as he usually does.

It is the government's way of dealing with Canadians and the different regions of Canada. The Liberal members simply think they have all the answers. Thirty years of governance from the sixties onward have shown that the government does not have the answers, that it does not have the solutions. The programs it has put in place do not solve all the problems. The government cannot see that and that is a shame. That is exactly the approach it has taken with Bill C-65. Once again it has shown its arrogant way of dealing with Canadians. It is a shame.

The government could have taken a different approach. It could have taken a consultative approach where it talks with individuals and mentions equalization in a formula that would actually work. To think that we have seven have not provinces, in this government's own terms, is a shame. It is incomprehensible how that can happen in a country as rich as this.

That is this government's approach to governing. It is disrespect for Canadians that has led to this kind of legislation and this style of governing and it has to come to an end.