Val Meredith

[Petitions, April 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present to the House today.

The first petition, although it is late and third reading has already been given, prays that parliament withdraw Bill C-23 and affirm the opposite sex definition of marriage in legislation and ensure that marriage is recognized as a unique institution.

[Human Resources Development, April 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this is incredible. In 10 weeks the minister's standard response has gone from “There are a few problems, but I have everything under control” to “There are a lot of problems, but Canadians are benefiting from the expenditure of funds” to “I can't answer that because of the police investigation”.

Since the parliamentary secretary cannot give us more of the specifics, can she provide us with an update? How many police investigations are there into the grants and contributions from HRDC and how much Canadian taxpayer money is involved in those investigations?

[Human Resources Development, April 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, for two and a half months the HRDC minister has stood in the House defending her programs as being beneficial to Canadians. Now we see how Canadians are benefiting. A select few who control the funds are receiving five figure honorariums. They are playing the stock market with Canadian taxpayer dollars, and they are buying motorhomes.

Are these the types of activities that the minister has in mind when she tells Canadians that they are benefiting from her department's funds?

[Foreign Affairs, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is blunder after blunder by the Prime Minister. Every day brings a new surprise.

Before the Prime Minister goes any further in destroying diplomatic relations, perhaps his deputy would tell the House, just how many years will the Prime Minister set back diplomatic relations in the Middle East? How many years will he set them back?

[Foreign Affairs, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised before he left for the Middle East that he would be careful not to cause any controversy. Imagine the damage that he would do if he was actually trying.

He is seriously jeopardizing delicate diplomatic relations. Why will the government not bring the Prime Minister home before he does permanent damage?

[Via Rail, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Transport predicted the revival of passenger rail in Canada when he announced an additional $400 million in funding for VIA Rail.

However, let us look a little closer at the announcement. The Liberals have to put the money into VIA. After all, the government provided a billion dollar loan to the American passenger rail system Amtrak.

The minister says the loan will get commuters out of their cars and on to the train. The only problem with this is that VIA Rail does not operate commuter rail. The regional transit authorities do.

The minister says that privatization would not work. Can he explain why the Rocky Mountaineer, a profitable private company that has never received a penny in government subsidy, would like to buy VIA Rail's transcontinental route?

While the minister is correct in stating that trains helped build the country, we need to remind him that train travel has changed over the last 120 years. It is too bad that the government's thinking has not.

[Petitions, April 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table a petition from my constituents who pray that parliament withdraw Bill C-23, affirm the opposite sex definition of marriage in legislation and ensure that marriage is recognized as a unique institution.

[Millennium Bureau Of Canada, April 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, no matter how much the government tries to spin the mismanagement of public dollars, there is one fact that it cannot avoid. Every dollar that the government spends on one of its vote-buying slush fund projects is a dollar that cannot be spent on health care or education.

Can the Deputy Prime Minister explain to Canadians why the Liberal government feels it is more important to put money into these vote-buying slush funds than into health care and education for Canadian citizens?

[Millennium Bureau Of Canada, April 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, HRDC, EDC, regional development, the millennium bureau and now Option Canada spent billions of taxpayers' dollars and the Liberals see them all as one big vote-buying slush fund. But it is not just that the Liberals are spending billions of taxpayers' dollars to buy votes, they ignore their own rules in doing so.

With the millennium bureau less than 1% of the grants have been audited. Why does parliament pass laws and regulations to monitor the expenditure of taxpayers' dollars and yet the Liberal government just ignores them?

[Export Development Corporation, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade keeps justifying the billion dollars plus EDC loan to Amtrak by claiming that these loans are creating jobs in Canada. We know however that most of the jobs were created in the United States with the Amtrak loan.

I ask the minister precisely how many new jobs were created in Canada with the EDC billion dollar loan to Amtrak.