Lost his last election, in 2000, with 28% of the vote.
Supply February 23rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask at the end of my question, or perhaps after I hear the response from the minister, that you seek unanimous consent to extend this question and comment period. I liked his last response a great deal and this is one of the few chances we are going to get to question him.
As a serious point of order, I would ask for the consent of the House to extend the question and comment period for 10 or 15 minutes to allow other members to ask the minister a question.
Petitions February 23rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, the second petition contains signatures mostly from residents of Kamloops but also from residents in a number of communities throughout central British Columbia.
The petitioners are calling on the government in the budget tomorrow that if it is going to consider any tax reductions it begin by phasing out the GST.
Petitions February 23rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, it is my honour pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition on behalf of a number of people from British Columbia.
They are very concerned about the government's announcement that it is going to soon introduce changes to Canada's retirement and benefit system. The petitioners are asking the government not to proceed with any changes to Canada's pension system until adequate input from Canadians from all points of Canada has been considered.
Child Poverty February 23rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, back in 1989 the House unanimously passed a resolution to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. Instead there are 538,000 more children living in poverty.
In recognition of what the Deputy Prime Minister has just said, would he not think it a good idea for the government to set a target to reduce child poverty by the year 2000 by at least a third?
Child Poverty February 23rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Tomorrow when the finance minister presents his budget 1.5 million Canadian children will be living in poverty. The minister said in London yesterday that the government was preparing plans to address growing social inequality.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that tomorrow's budget will not ignore the 1.5 Canadian children living in poverty?
Supply February 23rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I might be pushing my luck a little bit, but I do have a whole lot more to say about the MAI. I wonder if I could seek unanimous consent from my colleagues to allow me to continue for a few more minutes.
Supply February 23rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, not that my friend would attempt to distort the facts or anything that was said, let me first say what Premier Roy Romanow of Saskatchewan had to say about the MAI. He declared that Saskatchewan will never be part of any global trade agreement that was essentially a race to the bottom in terms of conditions and standards for people. He said that any international trade agreement would have to recognize trade union rights, the preservation of the environment and human rights before Saskatchewan would even consider signing it.
Those are all absent from the MAI. My friend said there is no such thing as the MAI yet. We should send him over a copy so he can have a look at it. He would notice that those are all exempt from the MAI.
I just want to reiterate for the record that whenever there is a New Democrat government in this country, be it in Saskatchewan, British Columbia, the Yukon or New Democrats in legislatures across the country, we are all unanimous in saying the same thing. The MAI ought not to be signed. The MAI is against Canada. The MAI is really a special constitution of rights and freedoms essentially designed for the multinational corporations.
We believe that the duly elected representatives of the people of Canada and not the multinational corporations ought to make decisions about the future of our citizens.
Supply February 23rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, I am glad my friend asked this question.
The first day back after the 1997 general election we felt that we ought to raise the most important question facing the future of Canada, which we did. We asked for a special debate on the MAI. We asked for cross-country hearings on the MAI. We asked the government to inform Canadians about the details of the MAI. That was our first item of business.
We called for cross-country hearings and so on but we did not get the support from our friends in the other political parties. I do not know whether that was because they did not want to tour or they did not know anything about the deal. But we will set that aside.
Then along came our first opposition day and we had a choice to make. We acknowledged that there were 1.5 million children living in poverty in one of the richest countries in the world. We acknowledged that there were 400,000 young Canadians looking for work and could not find a job. We acknowledged that there was only one other country that has a worse record when it comes to child poverty and that is the United States of America.
We felt that it was appropriate to speak out on behalf of those young children who cannot pay for a lobbyist. They do not participate in election campaigns. They do not give contributions to political parties. We felt it was appropriate that they have a voice. Because the children of Canada are our future we have put them first in terms of our opposition day motions.
Supply February 23rd, 1998
And yes they are Tories, but it was the NDP member of the legislature who raised the issue.
In 1997 it was raised 20 times in this House of Commons, 11 times by New Democrats. To be fair, two Liberal backbenchers mentioned it and one member of the Bloc. There were no Tories and no Reform members.
We do not have much time to get into the details of the MAI. But it is fair to say it is now obligatory because of the impact on Canadian culture, because of the impact on the ability of elected governments to manage the economy in the best interest of the citizens they represent, because of the implications of the MAI against the Canadian environment and against Canadian labour standards, that Canadians be informed.
Before this deal is signed, I would at least hope that the government would seek the input of Canadians as it did on NAFTA. We will do whatever we can as New Democrats from coast to coast to coast to oppose this deal. We do not think multinationals should be making decisions about our children's future. We do not think multinational corporations should be deciding what comes first.
In closing I will simply say let us be reminded that as we speak today, Ethyl Corporation has sued the federal government for trying to protect the health of Canadian citizens because it says it takes away from its profit to do away with additives to gasoline. That is what we are getting into, a trade deal that will impact on the lives of every Canadian. We are locking ourselves for 20 years into the future. Even future Parliaments will not have a chance to deal with this issue.
Supply February 23rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks this afternoon by suggesting that this is the first time we have had a chance to debate this issue in the House of Commons.
After more than a year of negotiations on a deal that will profoundly impact on the lives of every Canadian citizen, this is the first chance we have had to say anything other than raise the issue in question period from time to time.
As someone indicated, the MAI is about who will make decisions for the future generations of Canadians. Will it be duly elected governments at the local, regional, provincial and federal levels, or will it be large corporations?
I remind the House that Mitsubishi is bigger than the country of Indonesia in terms of size. Philip Morris is bigger than New Zealand. Wal-Mart is bigger than Poland, Israel and Greece. In my judgment and in the judgment of my party, if the MAI is passed and accepted by the government, it will mean that we will be turning over the sovereignty of our country to the whims of large multinational corporations.
When the question was put to my friends in the Reform Party about whether they thought it was a good idea, the spokesperson from Peace River said he thought it was. On behalf of the New Democratic Party, we think this is bad. For that reason it is fair to say we are the only political party in the House of Commons that is clearly on record as opposing the MAI.
The Liberal Party supports it. It has been the enthusiastic cheerleader since day one. Some people would say that Canada actually initiated the original discussions in the OECD to begin the MAI process.
The Conservatives have been enthusiastic NAFTA supports and FTA supporters. They support the MAI. Bloc members support the MAI. They are enthusiastic NAFTA supporters. My friends in the Reform Party have indicated that they enthusiastically support the MAI.
We do not support it and I will say why. Fundamentally we do not want to throw away our sovereignty, but it has almost become a mantra in the country—and we heard it again today—that $1 billion in foreign direct investment will create 45,000 jobs. All cabinet ministers have this text in their hip pockets which they pull out and read during every speech.
That may be true, but when they look at what happens to foreign investment in Canada a very interesting picture unfolds. In 1997 the total of new foreign investment in Canada was $21.2 billion. If this is true, at first glance we ought to have no unemployment at all. The reality, however, is quite different.
What percentage of $21.2 billion of foreign investment in Canada in 1997 was for new business investment and what percentage was for the takeover of existing Canadian companies?
In 1997, 97.5% of the $21.2 billion went for acquisitions and a meagre 2.5% went to new foreign investment. For all intents and purposes we can say that virtually all foreign investment in 1997 was not to open up a new mine, a new business, a new mill or a new manufacturing plant. It was to buy up an existing one with no net gain in jobs, no net gain in R and D, and no net gain in community benefits. Virtually 100% of the foreign investment last year was simply foreign companies coming in and buying existing ones. The notion that foreign investment will create jobs is an absolute mythology.
For the past three years, at the urging of its corporate backers, the Liberal government has been negotiating a deal to secure a brand new charter of rights for investors behind the closed doors of the OECD in Paris.
Until very recently Canadians could not find out what this negotiated deal was all about. They could not find out what our negotiators were negotiating. They could not get a text. It was only when the Council of Canadians leaked a text that it became a quasi-public document. Later the government was embarrassed enough to have to generate a copy that it was working on in its negotiations.
If the government really believed its rhetoric and that the MAI was a good deal for Canada, would it not want to be telling Canadians what it was doing? Would it not want to inform Canadians about the deal? Would it not want to tell Canadians the main essence of the negotiated deal in the best interest of Canada?
If the government wanted to do that it could send an abbreviated copy or an executive copy of the entire copy to virtually every household in Canada. The government has the ability to do that at the snap of a finger.
My feeling is that the government does not want Canadians to know what it is negotiating. Let us be reminded that whenever Canadians had a chance to vote on NAFTA they voted against NAFTA. They voted against free trade with the United States and Mexico. The government imposed it anyway, but that is another story.
The government knows that if Canadians knew the essence of the agreement they would vote against it. To this day I have not heard a single Canadian stand to say they think the MAI is a great deal. I have heard hundreds of people say it is a bad deal.
I recognize the incredible work of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party over the last few months, criss-crossing the country, holding public meetings and speaking wherever they could to try to inform people about the MAI because the government refused to do so. Somebody had to tell the country about the MAI and we have taken that up.
I am surprised that my friends in the Reform Party are even mentioning the whole issue today. Back in April of last year it started to be raised in the House of Commons by the New Democrats. I was one of the questioners. A number of my colleagues were asking questions about the MAI. They asked about the implications for Canadian sovereignty, Canadian culture, Canadian labour standards, environmental standards and working conditions. We raised these questions day after day.
Along comes the election and my leader tried time and time again to get it on the political agenda of that campaign. Many of our candidates tried to get it on the political agenda, but the Liberals did not even want to talk about it. The Reform Party candidate in Kamloops said that he had never heard of the MAI. He thought is was something like missing in action, something to do with Vietnam. The Tories did not dare say anything about it.
The most critical deal that will influence the lives of generations of Canadian was not even mentioned by Liberal candidates or the Prime Minister during the election campaign. That is shocking.
As soon as we got back here, what political party was up in the House of Commons asking to hear more about the MAI, asking for public hearings and an emergency debate in the House of Commons? Every time we were turned down, not only by the government but by the other political parties. The Conservatives, the Bloc and the Reform Party did not want a debate on the issue in the House of Commons. They voted it down. I could go on.
In 1997 the MAI was mentioned on 20 days in the House of Commons. It was raised in question period because the government did not permit any debate on it. There was a debate in the British Columbia legislature on the MAI. I think it was the only province to do that. As a matter of fact it is clearly on record as opposing the MAI.
The NDP in the Yukon Territory as well passed a resolution in the legislature against the MAI. The NDP representative in Prince Edward Island put a motion on the floor of the legislature to oppose the MAI at least until public hearings across Canada were held, and it passed unanimously.