Nelson Riis

[Presence Of Canadian Troops In Former Yugoslavia, March 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues in the House of Commons for this generosity.

I feel today it is appropriate to join with others to thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs for his statement in the House today following up on the tradition that was first introduced in the debate in the House of Commons. As my friend in the Reform Party indicated, we appreciated the opportunity to share our views on behalf of our constituents and our political parties as to what the course of action ought to be in our judgment.

At that time our spokesman, the hon. member for Burnaby, indicated a Canadian presence ought to be maintained, the traditional role of Canada in its peacekeeping tradition ought to be maintained, and it was crucial that our presence be there.

I am pleased that the minister has taken time in the House today to announce the government's decision. We support that and encourage that.

In conclusion, I simply want to say that we want to acknowledge the extraordinary contribution Canadian troops have made to bring peace to this troubled part of the world. We also recognize, as my colleague in the Bloc earlier indicated, the support for the families. They also have borne a tremendous burden in this effort as their friends and loved ones were serving in the former Yugoslavia area.

There is a cost associated with this initiative. While we must be sensitive to that cost, if our contribution along with others representing the United Nations can be there and can bring peace to a part of the world where we have seen what can only be described as barbarism, it is a worthwhile cost.

I thank the minister for his statement in the House today. We support it and are very pleased that our troops will be there to assist in peacekeeping and making the peace for the next six months.

[Supply, March 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest, as I always do, to my hon. friend's comments. I find myself once again agreeing with much of what he had to say. I know that he is concerned, dedicated and very committed to the points that he makes.

I wonder if I could make a suggestion. Part of the mandate of the new government and perhaps the new Parliament is to review the Federal Business Development Bank's operations and to ask questions about the kind of job that it is doing, the kind of emphasis that it places in terms of its lending portfolios. I think a lot of us have concerns about the role that it is presently playing and would like to see it in a whole new mandate.

I think one of the more positive initiatives is the CASE program, the counsellor assistance program, where experienced entrepreneurs, experienced business people, assist and lend their expertise and talents to those starting up new ventures and new businesses and the like.

Does the hon. member see a role for the FBDB to play in providing support, particularly for women entering the world of business and entrepreneurship, and could this be a leadership role that that bank could take on that would then encourage the other lending institutions of Canada to follow suit in one way or another?

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. friend and I listened to my hon. friend's colleague, the previous speaker.

I would normally go to some length to defend the institution that Broadbent heads up at a time of globalization and the need to have guidance for many countries now seeking the democratic tradition, particularly the former Soviet Union. If Canada could play a leading role in bringing democracy to those jurisdictions I think it would certainly not only be in their best interests and our best interests but indeed the world's.

I think it would be very much a role for Canada to play.

Earlier one of the member's colleagues indicated a concern in terms of the freeze on public employees' salaries and wages and the suggestion that people making in the mid-$20,000, $24,000, actually had a wage increase while others had them frozen.

I am simply seeking clarification in terms of the position of the Reform Party. Are its members suggesting that certain public employees, I guess maybe 200,000 or something of that nature, ought to have received a salary and wage increase and others either a freeze or perhaps even a decrease?

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we are seeking unanimous consent today and it is going very well. When I sought unanimous consent I know the Bloc gave unanimous consent, as did the Reform Party and the representatives of the Conservative Party, but my friend, the secretary of state, indicated that consultations were ongoing.

Could he explain what he meant by that as to whether or not those consultations will take forever, a few weeks or a few hours?

[Committees Of The House, February 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties. Considering that our Olympic hockey team is to start playing its semifinals in about 90 minutes from now, I think you would find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any standing order and the usual practices of the House, the order for second reading of Bill C-212, an act to recognize hockey as a national sport, be called immediately after routine proceedings; and

That the House proceed to dispose of the bill immediately at all stages, including consideration by committee of the whole, without debate or amendment.

[Public Service, February 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the minister responsible for public works indicated that the government had demonstrated a sensitivity for seniors with the continuation of the RRAP. I agree. The Minister of Finance indicated some sensitivity to low income Canadians with special responsibilities by having a benefit differential with the UI changes.

My question is for the Minister of Finance. When the decision was made to freeze salaries of the public service across the board, and recognizing the tremendous variation from very low paid jobs to very high, why did he not show the same sensitivity to those people who work for the government? Why did he not recognize that to freeze those wages for everybody is quite different in terms of impact for somebody making $20,000 a year and somebody making $120,000 a year?

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, we in the House would all agree that the area the government has supported in the past to a certain degree and needs to support more in the future is the area of high technology.

What do we find in the budget? We find the abandonment of the KAON project in British Columbia. I see some of my British Columbian colleagues across the way. That project would have put Canada on the cutting edge of high technology. It would have been a vote of confidence for our scientists and our top engineers in the country and around the world.

The Conservatives slapped British Columbia in the face by abandoning the Polar 8 icebreaker. This was to be the federal government's show of support for B.C. KAON was the same and the government let down KAON. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars that would have gone into creating jobs in the construction area and, most important, in the high tech sophisticated scientific engineering area have now been abandoned. It is very disappointing that we missed this opportunity.

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

I think it is fair to say that there were some changes that could have had a very serious impact in terms of deficit reduction. I named one, the closing off of some of the glaring tax loopholes like the family trust loophole, a consideration of a wealth tax. Again, we are one of the very few countries in the world that does not have a wealth tax. These are not going to solve the deficit problem but they would show good faith in moving in the right direction.

I think if a person wins $5 million on a lottery they would not mind paying some tax on that. I do not think anybody would say that is an unfair request.

The question of a minimum corporate tax that we have often discussed in this House is something that deserves examining. In other words a whole number of changes to the tax system would generate an awful lot of wealth.

This budget assumes that the deficit will be brought down, which we all support. No one in this House would say we do not have a serious debt crisis and a deficit problem and we have to take steps to get it down.

This budget assumes that because of the steps taken there will be economic activity occurring and then general revenues will flow to the central government. That is a fair summary I think.

However, as my leader indicated, when one person is unemployed or underemployed or afraid of being unemployed, if one is living on social services, one does not have enough disposable income to make much difference. That is what we require. We must get people back to work. I know my friends opposite when in opposition said the same thing. It is critical. If we are to pay down the deficit we must get people back to work so that they can contribute and not be a drain on those revenues.

I do not think the budget will put people back to work. I do not rely only on my own observations. I have listened to the experts who responded to the budget. I have yet to find anybody who says it is going to put a lot of Canadians back to work.

We have all sorts of unused capacity. I remember the figures given earlier this week for manufacturing losses in the province of Ontario alone because of unused capacity and the new technologies. They are simply not putting people to work.

This is why the budget has been such a disappointment. There is nothing in it to give hope to those people who are unemployed or to those people who want to see a meaningful new direction in terms of putting people back to work.

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

Not a single word, not a word.

What about the public servants? The public service was hit in this budget. As a matter of fact 25,000 will likely lose their jobs over the next three years as a result of this budget. The government said it was going to freeze their salaries once again.

Does it make sense to freeze everybody when messengers or people who shovel snow off sidewalks have annual incomes in many cases below $20,000 and deputy ministers have incomes in excess of $120,000? It does not acknowledge the fact that some federal government workers are struggling to simply survive.

The government showed sensitivity when it came to changing UI programs. Why did it not show that same sensitivity to the people who actually work for the government? As somebody said the other day, it is like bombing your own troops.

Show some compassion, show some sensitivity. There are people who work for the federal government right now who quite frankly are just managing to survive by the skin of their teeth. They are suffering. There should have been an acknowledgement about that in terms of that blanket across the board freezing of salaries.

My greatest disappointment is that a handful of people are probably still drinking champagne. Those are the richest families in Canada who had a special tax loophole provided for them by a previous government, actually by the Liberals which was then updated by the Conservatives. There is not a single tax lawyer or single tax accountant in this country who says family trusts make any sense at all, not a single one.

I remember when the experts were before the finance committee. The financial advisers were asked what they thought of this particular tax exemption. They all thought it was crazy. They thought it was nutty. They thought the government was goofy to do this.

The Minister of Finance had a chance to show that even the very wealthy in this country are going to have to pay their fair share this time under this new government. Did he close that loophole? Oh, no. The government is going to study it. What on earth is there to study about a loophole that everybody agrees is absolutely dastardly?

In closing, it was a missed opportunity. I could go on and hopefully I will have an opportunity later. I must say that those Canadians who were hoping for a change of course from the last nine years of Brian Mulroney are very disappointed after this budget.

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

Yes, this is a blue book. They did not even change the bloody colour, for Pete's sake.

We had a chance to start setting targets. When it came to reducing the deficit, targets were set. This is what we anticipate the debt reduction to be. However, when it came to setting targets for reducing unemployment, they were woefully absent from the budget. This is a serious oversight and it is really too bad.

We have the old approach to the Peter Pan school of economics. We thought it would be something a little bit different from the Liberals; that if you really believe that unemployment will come down, it will. But you have to take action. You have to set

targets and then introduce strategies to reduce those levels of unemployment. That is not in this budget. It is not in here.

Here is what happened to me personally. I received calls from a number of small businesses in Kamloops. They called and said: "We have not read the budget, Nelson, but what is in it for us?" I told them there were a couple of things, that there would be a network established and so on so they could bid on international contracts. I was told: "I am running a hair salon" or "I am running a welding shop, I am not going to be exporting my services overseas. What is in it for us?" I had to say, with a heavy heart, that there was nothing in it for the average business person in this country.

The unemployed, as my hon. leader indicated, were again hit with this budget. The victims of these government policies have been now hit. It is a strange way to run a government. We accept it, but it is a continuation of what we saw for the last nine years under the Mulroney regime.

I want to give credit to the government on one point. Actually I could give it credit on a number but let us just pick one. When it was changing the unemployment insurance system, it acknowledged that some people would be really hard hit. I am thinking particularly of single parents or low income families with dependent children or adults that they are caring for. Their benefits went up slightly. In other words, there was acknowledgement that some people were hard hit.

Is there anything in here for the 1.5 million kids who are living in poverty today?