Val Meredith

[Divorce Act, February 14th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, today this House will once again be looking at Bill C-41. Maybe this time government members will actually listen to the Reform Party's concerns.

Earlier this week I had the occasion to hear a number of government members talking about how they were unaware of the full consequences of Bill C-41. One suggested that they should just acknowledge their mistakes and accept the amendments.

This is quite typical of how the Liberals have managed this Parliament. They just accept the notion that their cabinet ministers create perfect legislation so they put their brains in neutral. Independent thought is not welcome in the Liberal caucus.

I encourage members opposite to actually think for themselves and listen to the Reform Party's amendments in this House rather than rely on the patronage appointed hacks from the other place.

[Immigration, February 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard this promise before from the government and it has not done the job.

It has been reported that the backlog for refugee claims has increased 75 per cent since the government took power, that thousands of genuine refugees have to wait years to have their cases heard because of bogus refugee claims made by war criminals, convicted criminals and terrorists.

When is the government going to develop the fortitude to rid the country of all undesirables starting with the 250 war criminals?

[Immigration, February 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are embarrassed by the Liberal's pathetic record in dealing with Nazi war criminals. Now they appear to be taking the same attitude toward a new group of war criminals.

At least 250 suspected war criminals from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia and various Latin American countries have been allowed to remain in Canada despite being denied refugee status and having their appeals rejected.

Can the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration please explain why the Liberal government is protecting war criminals?

[National Citizenship Week, February 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, today is the beginning of National Citizenship Week and it is a very special anniversary.

Prior to 1947 anyone who was born in Canada was not a Canadian citizen but rather a British subject resident in Canada. It is ironic that Canada has existed as a nation for almost 130 years, yet Canadians as a people have existed for only 50 of those 130 years.

While Canadian citizenship is something to be proud of, it is often difficult to celebrate. Just last year while filling out my census form I had the option of marking my ethnic background as Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Filipino. I could not say I was Canadian unless I marked "other".

Canadian citizenship should be something we can be proud of regardless of race, creed, colour, ethnicity or when our ancestors came to this land. Maybe we will even be able to indicate this pride during the census.

[Impaired Driving, February 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak today on the motion of my hon. colleague from Prince George-Bulkley Valley. The motion to get it clear is not overreacting; it is simply a motion which states:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should consider strengthening penalties in those sections of the Criminal Code which deal with impaired driving offences in order to: (a) enhance deterrence; and (b) bring the penalties into line with the seriousness of the offence.

I have four adult boys. They are normal young men who are enjoying life to its fullest. Every night when they leave the house I worry that they will become a statistic because somebody else is out there drinking and driving. I share that worry with most parents across this country.

I have had the unfortunate circumstance of talking to parents who have been in the position of having lost children to an impaired driver. One of my board members is a father whose son and grandchildren were quickly killed by an impaired driver in Prince George, B.C.

A father encouraged me to get involved in a campaign he is starting up to go across Canada with the message that drinking and driving kills. He lost his young 23-year old son who was just beginning life, full of opportunities. Early one evening an impaired driver went through a stop sign, ran into his vehicle and killed him instantly.

That driver had had numerous impaired driving charges, had had his licence suspended and had been brought to the attention of the police twice that very same day, once for sideswiping parked cars while impaired and once for running red lights in the community while impaired. Was he taken off the streets, put away for the day, incarcerated or whatever because he had had impaired driving charges months before that? No, he was left on the street to continue to drive while impaired and in the evening he killed a young man who had had his whole life ahead of him.

People who drink and drive lack responsibility. They have choices. They can make a decision. They know there are penalties out there. They know their licences can be suspended but that does not seem to send a very strong message to them. They do not seem to consider the seriousness of what it is they are doing. I share the concerns of my hon. colleagues.

I will admit I had some problems with the private member's bill which said that if impaired driving caused death it should automatically be a seven year minimum sentence. If it was a first time occurrence, I thought that seemed a little bit harsh.

Since being elected to this place and in the true fashion of Reform, I put the issues to my constituents. Therefore I shared with them my concern that it might be a little harsh for a first time offender and asked what they thought about it. There were 3,685 constituents who responded to my questionnaire. The question was: Should anyone convicted of impaired driving causing death be sentenced to a minimum of seven years incarceration?

They answered the question knowing I was a little uncomfortable with it if it was a first offence. In response, 2,463 or 66.84 per cent said yes, they felt that there should be a seven year minimum charge. There were 1,082 or 29.36 per cent who said no. They shared my concern that in some circumstances it might be overreacting to it.

I have to believe that those people out there who dealt with the issue looked at it from their own circumstances and recognized that suspended sentences are not reducing people's use of alcohol and driving. A few months of incarceration is not stopping people from drinking and driving.

I will not argue with the Bloc and the Liberal members who say education is important. One thing that impresses me more than anything else is that because of the education on impaired driving and that driving and drinking can kill, young people today are far more responsible than people our age.

Young people today when planning an evening out in most cases will have a designated driver along with them. Young people today are more willing and more likely to leave their cars at home and take cabs or public transit. They are far more aware that drinking and driving might kill. However, that does not protect those young people from those among us in society who drink to extreme and then get behind the wheel, thus turning their vehicles into dangerous weapons.

Today of all days, when an individual tried to drive a vehicle into the House of Commons shows us that vehicles can be and are a dangerous implement. When that vehicle is put into the hands of somebody who has had too much to drink or is impaired because of other substance abuse, it is an extremely dangerous weapon on our streets.

Some of the crime statistics are quite frightening. People know there is a law against drinking and driving. We all know that those convicted of crimes while under the influence of alcohol are given

lenient sentences. Most of the support material in the Criminal Code are cases of impaired driving. Most of the Criminal Code book is a history of cases of impaired driving which have gone through the courts.

The Mothers against Drunk Driving have an ongoing campaign to bring forward things at which we should be looking, and the changes that should be made to legislation but they have not been very successful in convincing the government.

Some of the stats, as I mentioned, are quite frightening. I am going to use the stats from 1994 because those are the ones that I have at my disposal. There were 1,414 people killed in Canada as a result of impaired driving. When that figures is broken down it shows that 3.8 people each and every day are killed as a result of impaired driving. In Canada 311 people are injured each day by impaired drivers. The Ontario Medical Association estimates that it costs Ontario $100 million per year to treat impaired driving injuries. Another frightening statistic is that one out of five drivers every night are impaired.

Education is fine but people do ignore the message that is being put out loud and clear through MADD, the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers program, court programs for anyone who has had successive impaired driving charges; Alcoholics Anonymous programs and throughout out the schools systems. Do they help? I would suggest that from the statistics before us that people are ignoring the information. To consider it a social disease which is not recognized as being a criminal is naive. It is not only naive but it is a refusal to look at what is happening and to try and do something about it. It is naive to think that education is going to stop that kind of behaviour.

I come from a family which unfortunately has been touched by alcoholism. My father spent many years bringing treatment programs into the province of Alberta and is recognized for having done so. I believe that we have to consider alcoholism as a disease and treat it as such. But that does not stop us from saying that it is a criminal activity to drink and drive. We must do all that is in our power to see that is stopped.

I do not want to join the ranks of other parents who lose a child because of someone who drank too much, got behind the wheel of a vehicle, a very dangerous weapon under those circumstances and I would be left to mourn for the rest of my life.

I am in a position where I can try and do something about it. I do not think it is too much to ask this government to look at the Criminal Code and at changes that can be made to that federal legislation to send a strong message to people who will make the decision to drink and get behind the wheel of a vehicle and drive. It is not too strong a message to tighten up the Criminal Code and make the offences a whole lot stronger to get the killers off the streets.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I did not name any word. What I was doing to avoid the circumstances was I said that it was a four letter word starting with l . I did not say any word at all.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me somewhat of a pleasure to speak on this legislation.

All Canadians realize that a promise was made to them prior to the 1993 election. It was very clear from candidates going door to door, from candidates meetings and also from the Prime Minister's statements to the public via TV and radio that the promise to the electorate was that the Liberal government was going to scrap the GST.

I do not and I am sure most Canadians do not recall the word harmonization being used. It brings distress to most Canadians that we are now looking at a government which has decided it will harmonize the GST with the provincial sales tax. The government has started in the maritime provinces. It bribed those provinces. It did not follow the initiative of the provinces asking for it. It just bribed those provinces with $1 billion of borrowed dollars to the Canadian taxpayer.

It should also be noted that three provinces have said they will not even contemplate this issue. They will not contemplate entering any negotiations or proposals with the federal government. The three provinces that have said they will not contemplate it are the three have provinces, those that seem always to be paying up front for federal government programs.

The Ontario Minister of Finance has even stated that a blended sales tax using the GST base would cost Ontarians over $3 billion in extra taxes.

This government has managed to reduce its deficit not by substantially cutting government spending, but by raising fees and taxes to the Canadian people. This is one more example where the Liberal government thinks that if any Canadian has any money in his or her pocket, it is fair grab.

The finance minister also plans to force federally regulated industries, including airlines and banks, to bury the GST in their prices. Canadians need to know just how much money their federal government is taking out of their pockets above and beyond their income tax contributions. I do not think Canadians appreciate the underhanded methods this government has used to get more money out of their pockets.

One of the most frightening aspects of this harmonization plan is the cost in jobs. Three major retailers in Atlantic Canada have stated that the net annual retail deficit will total $27 million once harmonization is implemented. The Retail Council of Canada has said that by forcing stores to bury the new tax in prices, the harmonized tax regime will cost retailers at least $100 million a year.

The tax included pricing hits retailers in four areas. One is the duplication of the information systems and the rewriting of software. Another is in the re-pricing of pre-priced goods: books, greeting cards, magazines, et cetera. The third one is in the duplication of advertising costs in flyers and catalogues; one set for the Atlantic provinces and another set for those areas where there is no harmonization. The fourth is in the warehousing and distribution costs; sorting out which ones have the tax included for the maritimes and which ones do not.

The Halifax Chamber of Commerce predicts that the harmonized sales tax will push up new housing prices by 5.5 per cent, as well as force municipalities to raise their property taxes. The Canadian Real Estate Association says that the harmonization of the GST and PST will increase the cost of a new house by $4,000 in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and by $3,374 in New Brunswick.

What is happening here is that the taxpayer is having to pick up the extra tax burden.

GST harmonization is responsible for the closure of five Greenberg stores and the loss of 79 jobs. Woolworth Canada states that due to the tax inclusive pricing it is considering closing a quarter of the 126 stores in the Atlantic region meaning a loss of over 300 jobs. Carleton Cards predicts that it will close 19 of its 39 stores in the region, throwing 116 people out of work.

I find it an outrage that this government can talk about job creation and about using the infrastructure to create part time, temporary jobs yet it stands by and watches permanent, full time jobs disappearing, particularly in a region like Atlantic Canada which, Lord knows, has few enough jobs for its people. How can this government deliberately be putting together a proposal and putting legislation in place that is a detriment to jobs for the Atlantic people?

Consumers, the ones who will have jobs and might have some money in their pockets, will be paying more for funeral services, children's clothing and books. What happened to the promise of this government to remove the GST from books? Auto repairs, electricity, gasoline, home heating fuel and haircuts. Not only are we taking away their jobs, we are raising the cost of living. They are going to be hard pressed to provide their children with proper clothing and to heat their homes, and that is anticipating they can even afford to buy homes with the rising costs this implementation is going to create.

One of the more irresponsible results of this is that the Liberal government defeated a Reform motion to hold hearings in Atlantic Canada on GST harmonization which would have allowed the people of Atlantic Canada to participate in deciding on whether or not GST harmonization was something they wanted and they felt they could support. Refusing to allow the people in Atlantic Canada to exercise their right to participate in the discussion, in essence is the same as having taxation without consultation or without representation. That should not be allowed in this country.

If this government is under any misconception that the people of Canada support it in retaining the GST instead of scrapping it, removing it or abolishing it and if government members feel that Canadians support them in their efforts to hide the GST through harmonization, let me read a couple of comments made by constituents of mine on their householder returns.

One response says: "Get rid of all the governors general. It will save billions of dollars no doubt as we do not need the Queen". He goes on to say: "When will they abolish the GST? Prime Minister Chrétien promised. You can see it on the old tapes when he made this promise-

[Petitions, February 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition deals with people who are caught in the disability system where they have a disability and there is no financial support for them.

The petitioners pray and request that Parliament introduce mid-term disability benefits legislation which allows working Canadians who suffer from a debilitating illness or injury to receive continuous sickness benefits in the following form: (a) 15 weeks UIC; (b) mid-term disability; and (c) Canadian disability pension plan.

[Petitions, February 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. One of them addresses the appalling condition of our national highways.

The petitioners call on Parliament to urge the federal government to join with the provincial governments to make a national highway system upgrading possible.

[Liberal Government, February 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, during our winter recess I met with a number of constituents who told me about how this Liberal government has ruined their lives.

Like the boat store owner who has had to lay off 70 per cent of his staff because of high taxes. Or the builder who was in dispute with GST over the amount owing. Revenue Canada garnisheed 70 per cent of his net income, forcing him into bankruptcy which has led to the loss of his home and the breakup of his marriage. Or the young trucker who decided to buy his own truck. However he failed to incorporate his business and when he fell behind in his GST payments his personal accounts were garnisheed and he and his wife, who was six months pregnant, lost their home.

If only this government would attack its own wasteful spending with the same zeal it has gone after the average Canadian taxpayer, then maybe we would not have such high unemployment, a record number of bankruptcies, or the personal tragedies that were brought to my attention over the past six weeks.