John Harvard

[Seniors, November 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health has just returned from Winnipeg where she met with her provincial and territorial colleagues responsible for seniors. I would appreciate knowing the outcome of that meeting.

What is the government doing to ensure that the needs of the seniors are met in the face of shrinking budgets and increasing demand on social programs?

[Committees Of The House, November 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations on Bill C-52, an act to establish the Department of Public Works and Government Services and to amend and repeal certain acts, with an amendment.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

If you do not listen, you might as well be deaf. I would submit that the opposition benches are deaf, completely deaf. Their hearing has gone faulty.

I say that because we have said many times that the red book of the Liberal Party laid out a vision. For example, the red book made it very clear we would aim for and achieve a deficit of 3 per cent of GDP by 1997. The Minister of Finance, after the red book, after our election victory of a year ago, built on that vision by producing a budget. The budget reiterated our absolute unshakeable target of 3 per cent of GDP by 1997.

The finance minister laid out a strategy in the budget and it continues. Part of the strategy is an unprecedented set of consultations that will begin almost immediately. The minister through the medium of the finance committee will be consulting Canadians from coast to coast on how best to achieve the target of 3 per cent of GDP. Can there be anything more democratic? Can there be anything more consultative than that?

I wanted to lay that out because it seems that the opposition parties do not want to listen. Canadians are going to participate. Canadians are going to join in achieving the target of 3 per cent of GDP. That is my comment. If the previous speaker wants to respond to it, be my guest.

[Northern Hemisphere Distribution Alliance Incorporated, September 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Winnipeg's future as an air transportation hub for all of North America got a much needed shot in the arm this month. Northern Hemisphere Distribution Alliance Incorporated will receive up to $620,000 in federal government funding to research opportunities and develop action plans to realize its goal.

Local firms have come together with the Winnipeg airport to develop a multimodal transportation centre to act as a transfer point for cargo between the markets of the Pacific rim, Europe and North America.

This initiative has strong potential to create 6,000 new jobs in Manitoba, generate $105 million in tax revenue for the three levels of government and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of economic activity. It shows the benefits of co-operation between the private sector and government to foster growth in Manitoba and all of Canada.

I commend the Minister of Human Resources Development for his leadership in bringing this dream closer to reality.

[Party Fundraising, September 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this amendment which restricts individual donations to political parties to $1. It sounds like an extreme thing in the current political context and I guess it is, but I am not naive enough to believe that I will witness something like this happening in Canada in my lifetime. However, I do think the debate this afternoon allows me to enunciate a few principles which I believe in and which I believe should be applied to political fundraising.

My friend from the Reform Party indicated a few minutes ago that he does not think the system is that bad and that it should not be fixed. He was not concerned about the use of money buying elections or buying a referendum. He pointed out the Charlottetown accord. We all know the yes side in the Charlottetown accord referendum spent more money than the no side. Despite that, it lost.

Anybody with an ounce of brains knows that the presence of money in any election campaign is not a guarantee of success. We all know that. Again, I think anyone with an ounce of brains realizes that money can help and it can make a big difference under many, many circumstances. That is why political parties and politicians are constantly on the search for money. They know it helps.

Let me ask my good friend from the Reform Party a question. How many candidates were there in the last presidential election in the United States? We know of three prominent candidates: Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush and Mr. Perot. They all did fairly well. Mr. Clinton won, but there were about 40 other candidates. How come we never heard about the other 40 candidates for the highest office in the United States? They did not have any money to provide a profile.

The only person who could break that barrier was Mr. Perot. That was because he is a billionaire. He was able to literally buy a successful campaign, successful that is in the context of a third party candidate. He could not beat the established candidates from the Republican and Democrat parties, but he could put on a fair showing because he had enormous financial resources. Money can make a difference even in lost causes such as in the case of Mr. Perot.

I support this amendment to the motion because I happen to believe that the business of political campaigns is public busi-

ness. I believe that public business should be paid for by the public. It should be publicly financed not privately financed.

I believe that democracy works best when we involve as many Canadians as possible and that includes the financing of election campaigns. We should not as democrats and believing in a democracy when calling an election turn that engagement, if I can call it that, over to private parties or private donors.

When General Motors carries out certain private affairs, let us say looking for a new board of directors, does it come to the public and say: "Gee, we have this little election campaign of our own to find our new board of directors and we would like you to help out". General Motors does not do that. It does it on its own. It expects that particular private engagement to be paid for privately by the shareholders of General Motors. We should apply exactly the same logic when it comes to political campaigns. We should not be looking to private donors to finance election campaigns. But we do it.

I am not suggesting for a moment that the system is fraught with corruption, that it is all broken down. But I think that we as politicians should constantly strive to do better, to improve our institutions including the largest and most pervasive institution that we have, the institution of democracy.

In this particular era we often hear the term level playing field. We want a level playing field when it comes to politics and especially election campaigns. But when we have private donations there is an edge for those who have money.

I will use the old jargon that when it comes to licking stamps, stuffing envelopes and knocking on doors and walking the streets the poor, the modest people, average Canadians are on equal terms with the rich. They are. They can walk as well and they can knock as well and they can lick stamps as well as anyone with a huge bank account. The one difference is that the rich have money and they can exercise influence. They can bring their clout to bear with money, something that most people do not have because most of us are not in relative terms rich. Therefore we should constantly look for a level playing field.

Then there is the whole matter of perception. There is a perception out there that money does have a major influence in political decisions in our politics, in our governing. I do not happen to believe that it is as bad as some people believe, but there is that perception that if you have money, if you are high and mighty you are going to get a little closer to the politicians, a little closer to the decision makers and you are going to have access and influence that other people do not have. That is the kind of thing that we should avoid.

Politicians and the people who work around politicians should not be spending a lot of time raising money. We should be spending our time governing the country, working on policy, working on legislation. It is not so bad in this country vis-a-vis the United States.

We hear horror stories about how much time politicians in the United States have to spend on the road raising money. Is that why Americans send congressmen or senators to Washington, so they can spend 50 per cent of their time raising money? I do not think the purpose of politics is to go around raising money. Yet a lot of politicians in the United States have to do that.

In conclusion, I would say that by moving toward a more publicly financed system in this country we would have a better, stronger and more representative democracy.

[Criminal Code, September 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend from Kootenay East suggested in his remarks that retribution is not vengeance. I looked it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary . According to the dictionary, retribution is vengeance.

He was indicating that one of our members was treading on dangerous ground. When the member stands up and suggests that we should be basing our criminal justice system on retribution as opposed to basing it on the rule of law, he is treading on very dangerous ground.

I want to make one other point, his arguments with respect to hate crimes. He is arguing as have other members of the Reform Party that we should not be drawing any distinction when it comes to crimes based on hate.

We should all remind ourselves that this great country of ours is a multicultural country. It is made up of peoples from all around the world and that is one of the reasons why this country is so great and so strong. We have the best peoples from all parts of the world.

We also have to say to all these people from all parts of the world that they are equal, they will not be the targets or objects of contempt, hate or prejudice, and that when we witness contempt, prejudice and particularly the acts of hate, the acts of violence of hate, we will express our dissent and our loathing in a very strong fashion.

There are different kinds of violence and different kinds of crimes. Surely my friend from Kootenay East would not suggest that violence that comes from a drunken brawl is bad and no worse and no better than violence that comes from hatred.

It seems to me that whether it is a woman, whether it is a person who belongs to a religious group or a so-called ethnic group harmed, and they are the victim of terrible violence only because that person belongs to a particular group, we as a society have to condemn and contend that strongly. That is why I disagree with the member from the Reform Party.

[Yukon First Nations Land Claims Settlement Act, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was not able to be here for the beginning of the vote. Had I been here, I would have voted with the government.

[Department Of Citizenship And Immigration Act, June 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I too am looking for some clarification. I do not hold any particular brief for immigrants who commit especially serious crimes. If I understood the hon. member correctly I think he indicated that he would like to see the collection of some data on the criminal

activity of immigrants here in this country. I really wonder about that, where that would take this and what some people might do with it.

My concern would be that if we were to compile data on the criminal activity of immigrants it would be easy for some people to strike an average for any group of immigrants, whether it is Iran, Haiti or Scotland or wherever. If they were to be committing crimes above average, any more of them would be discouraged from coming to Canada. Those committing crimes below average would be encouraged to come to Canada. I am not too sure.

[The Constitution, June 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians spoke clearly last fall that they were fed up with the uncertainty over Canada's Constitution created by the previous

government. They voted for a government that promised to focus on issues that were more vital to them; jobs and economic growth.

Yet on Tuesday of this week the constitutional issue was back in the House, thanks to the leader of the Reform Party. It is a touch of irony that the party that promised to make deficit reduction its top priority and swore not to talk about the Constitution, should be the perpetrator of such a divisive debate.

This apparent contradiction may be one reason why the Reform Party's popularity has dropped right across the country, especially in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The opposition has tried to derail the nation's business by setting a constitutional trap. We will not be fooled. We will stick to our plan. Canadians can be sure that we do not intend to fall off the track.

[Translation]

[Supply, June 7th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member would like us to believe that only Reform Party members are concerned about safety in this country, that only they are concerned about crime. That is not true. We on this side are just as concerned and sometimes just as befuddled by crime as they are.

I am concerned about how in her remarks she glosses over the causes of crime. In fact she said that we do not know the causes of crime, which I do not think is true. If she were to ask herself that again she would have to answer that we know most of the causes. They relate to family dysfunction, substance abuse, poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of education, lack of hope, racism. Those are many of the sources of crime.

If the member does not think those are the sources of crime, if she really thinks we should treat only the symptoms, I would ask her about the problems facing the aboriginal community. Why do so many aboriginals fill our jails? For example, why in my province is well over half of the jail and penitentiary population made up of aboriginals?

It is self-evident. It is because aboriginals unfortunately share more family dysfunction than anyone else. They suffer more racism than anyone else. They suffer from poverty more than anyone else. They suffer from the lack of hope more than anyone else, and so it goes. That is the reason aboriginals fill our jails.

It is nonsensical for the member to suggest we can ignore the sources of crime, that we can ignore the causes of crime and treat only the symptoms. We will never get to the solutions if we do not focus on the sources of crime. We can build all the jails in the world. We can have all the punishments and all the deterrents, but as long as the mills keep grinding and turning out young criminals, it will be an endless process.