John Harvard

[Supply, May 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to follow your admonition.

I wanted to remind the hon. member from Capilano-Howe Sound that he should not have to look any further than his own colleagues to find the source for the partisan debate that has taken place in the last hour. The members of the Reform Party have done very well painting supporters of this government as the terrible oppressors of the taxpayers.

There is naturally a very legitimate debate over what is right and proper about taxes.

I suspect that there is not a Canadian anywhere who does not have at least some partial legitimate complaint about taxes. I find that acceptable. Too many of the speeches from the Reform Party members this afternoon have been monuments to greed and selfishness.

The parliamentary secretary made the comment this afternoon that the Reform Party members do not know anything about the way government works. I suspect that she is wrong on that point. I think they know very well how government works, and very often government gets in the way of their greed and their selfishness. All I hear from them is: "I don't want to share. I want to pay less. How can I get out of my responsibilities?"

They talk over and over about their rights, but never once do they talk about their responsibilities. We do have responsibilities to each other. The member from Skeena even invoked the name of Jesus Christ. I think he has nerve to use that name in this particular debate because his entire intervention was about greed and selfishness: "How can I get out of my responsibilities? Give me more as an individual but allow me to pay less. Allow me to contribute less to Canadian society."

These speakers contribute to this victimization syndrome that besets this country. We hear it from these people all the time: Politicians are rotten, leaders are rotten, Parliament is rotten, every governmental institution is rotten, you are the victim and you must cry out because those people in Ottawa and other capitals around the country are the oppressors. You do not have any responsibilities whatsoever. You are supposed to be on the take. You take everything for yourself. You do not contribute anything to your community. I think that is very irresponsible.

I have a question for the most recent Reform speaker. Tell me about your responsibilities. Where do your rights end and your responsibilities begin?

[Supply, May 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank the hon. member for Capilano-Howe Sound for his representation. I thought you spoke very well. It was anything but an inflammatory speech, quite unlike some of the speeches made earlier by your colleagues from the Reform Party. You began your speech by complaining-

[Supply, May 3rd, 1994]

REAL Women.

[National Sport Act, April 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to rise and speak for just a couple of minutes on this bill. I certainly want to indicate my support for the bill in principle and its amendment. I am more than happy to give my support to it.

I think it is entirely appropriate for a Winnipeger to stand up and enter into this debate because Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba have contributed greatly to this great game of ours called hockey, especially the NHL.

I would like to remind the acting Speaker, who naturally served in the NHL as a referee, that perhaps one of the greatest of referees ever to serve in the NHL and currently serves in the NHL is none other than Andy Van Hellemond and he comes from that great suburb of Winnipeg called St. Boniface.

Andy's name is just one of dozens and dozens from Winnipeg who have contributed to this great game of hockey. For example, does anyone know, and this is just a little piece of trivia, that the NHL player holding the record for the three fastest goals comes from Winnipeg. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you would recognize the name Billy Mosienko. He is probably about six months older than you, or something like that. Sorry about that. Billy Mosienko of course played for many years. He had a sterling, outstanding career with the Chicago Black Hawks and his record of three goals I believe in 21 seconds still stands. I would doubt whether that record will ever be broken.

Who can ever forget Bill Juzda, the great defenceman who probably could deliver some of the greatest bone cracking body checks ever delivered on ice in the NHL.

I am sure you cannot forget Don `Bones' Raleigh who was a great player with the New York Rangers. How about Tom Johnson who played with not only the Boston Bruins but the Montreal Canadiens. I would like to say politicians are given to this kind of thing. The Tom, who shares my ancestry which is Canadian Icelandic, grew up a mere 14 miles from my community. He grew up in a little town called Baldur and I grew up in a little town called Glenboro.

There was another great hockey player from Manitoba. Again, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that given your age and your interest in hockey and participation that you would remember a great player by the name of Black Jack Stewart who grew up in Pilot Mound, Manitoba.

I just wanted to share a little bit of this history because Manitoba has played a great part in hockey and contributed greatly to the game. We are all proud of it. I am happy to support the bill. I think that by adding this amendment that it is in itself a great symbolism of the way we do politics in this country because this is the quintessential Canadian compromise. You start off with a proposition that hockey should be named the national sport then people come in and say: "Now hold it. We have a history, we have a record. Lacrosse also has a lot of merit in this so why do we not reach the Canadian compromise and name lacrosse the summer national sport and hockey the winter hockey sport".

I think that is a great compromise and I am more than happy to support the bill.

[Pearson International Airport Agreements Act, April 26th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I would like to place a couple of comments on the record before putting a question to the hon. parliamentary secretary.

Bill C-22 is reasonable, prudent and protects the Canadian taxpayers. After all, the developers behind the Pearson deal were warned. The Liberal Party stated long before the 1993 election that it smelled something rotten in this deal. We put it on record that we would take this action if we found there was something rotten about the deal. The Nixon report confirmed that and now we have Bill C-22. It is the only course of action to take.

Leading up to my question I am glad the government is taking this action. It indicates to me that the government is committed to transparency and accountability.

The House probably already knows that airport authorities are being proposed for other centres in Canada, including my home city of Winnipeg. The hold-over model proposed by the former government for the proposed airport authority in Winnipeg is flawed.

In my opinion the accountability under the plan proposed by the Conservative government is weak. Transparency is not there. For example there is no provision for the public tendering process. The conflict of interest guidelines are a joke and representation can certainly be improved.

If we are going to go ahead with establishing airport authorities, be it one to replace the Pearson deal in Toronto or to replace other Transport Canada management at other centres in the country, let us get it right. Let us get it down so we do have public accountability, transparency and so on.

Perhaps the hon. parliamentary secretary could answer my questions. Are we going to establish further airport authorities of the kind proposed in Winnipeg, not for profit but still an airport authority, a kind of privatization? When these airport authorities are established will public accountability be the top priority?

I do not want private clubs operating airports. I want bodies that operate airports in the public interest and have public accountability at the top of the list.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask a question by framing it this way. Earlier it was said that the Reform Party would like to see priorities set and spending cuts with respect to cutting back the provisions of the Official Languages Act. I would ask this: What would be a greater priority than the federal government providing French language service to the four million unilingual French speaking residents of Quebec and also service in English to the millions of English speaking-

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate all afternoon. I would like to say most respectfully that the members of the Reform Party have been intellectually dishonest in this debate.

The member from Calgary said, or implied at least, just a few moments ago that because very few Canadians are bilingual that represents failure of the bilingualism policy of this country. Nothing could be farther from the truth because there was never any intention of the Official Languages Act of 1969 to cause all Canadians to become bilingual.

Similarly and earlier the member for Fraser Valley East said that he was not against bilingualism. He said that he was in favour of Canadians picking up a second language. Again it is not the intention of the Official Languages Act to cause Canadians to become bilingual. It is the intention of the government to provide bilingual service to the founding language groups in this country.

It offends me that the members would use-

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that this is on debate.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer one observation as a result of the remarks of the hon. gentleman pursuant to the CBC.

He may or may not know that I spent 18 years at the CBC and so I know a little about that corporation.

What he neglects to say is that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation finds itself in a catch-22. Those of us who are what you might call purists and who defend public broadcasting would be more than delighted to see the CBC get out of commercial broadcasting completely. I really think that a public broadcaster has no business being in the commercial business.

As the hon. member should know, there is a refusal on the part of a lot of Canadians, probably himself, to fully fund a public broadcast network, and so the corporation over the last many years has felt the need to get into commercials even in a larger way.

Then when the corporation does resort to gaining commercial revenues a gentleman like him comes along and complains about the CBC in broadcasting sports events. Sports events in our culture attract large audiences and when we attract large audiences that is how we attract commercial dollars or first of all how we attract advertisers and that attracts commercial dollars. That is the catch-22 or the vicious circle that the CBC finds itself in.

Do not complain about the CBC's involvement in commercials. It is forced to because of the refusal to support it well as a public broadcaster. That is the catch-22 the corporation is in.

[Jury Duty, March 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, government should not speak out of both sides of its mouth. A case in point is jury duty.

Unless excused for a very good reason Canadians when asked are obliged to do jury duty. Most people do not complain because it is a service to our country.

But consider what happened to one of my constituents. She was on unemployment insurance when called to jury duty. She met her obligation but discovered later she lost her UI benefits while serving as a juror. What we have here is one department of government ordering a citizen to carry out her duties to Canada while another department penalizes her for doing so.

That is government speaking out of both sides of its mouth. Is this hypocrisy? Is the law an ass? The verdict surely is guilty on both counts.