Elsie Wayne

[Petitions, December 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition that was presented to me by the public service workers in my riding of Saint John, New Brunswick. They are eagerly awaiting a decision on the pay equity dispute. The petitioners call upon this Parliament to urge the President of the Treasury Board to authorize an interim payment to all employees affected based upon what is now agreed upon as being owed to these employees.

[Ship Building, December 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.

A few weeks ago, the minister asked me for some information from the ship-building industry that he could review before looking at a ship building policy.

My question is for this wonderful, handsome minister. Has he had an opportunity to review this information and will he now look at a ship building policy?

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that if I were a teacher, knowing the Premier of Newfoundland as well as I do, under his government I would not dare oppose anything he said or I would not have a job tomorrow. There is no wonder they went before them and said yes. I would not lay too much on that one.

I have to say this. I am pleased but I want to say one thing to the hon. member from Newfoundland. I had a letter sent to me from a man whom I highly respect and I am sure members do as well. That man is from Saint John, New Brunswick. He is head of our catholic church and he said that, if this goes through, there is no protection for any minorities including—

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I certainly do. There is no question about that. I know myself, when I was mayor of the city of Saint John, I used to go to Mr. Tobin when he was in opposition to help me win certain things for my city. However, I have to say that the way in which it was handled was unbelievable.

They would not permit any scrutineers to be present in the balloting booths during the voting process or during the counting of the ballots or to oversee the measures taken for the security of the ballot boxes. Never have I seen anything like that.

I want to thank the hon. member for saying that he is there with us all the way. I appreciate that.

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member from the Reform Party for his question. No, I do not believe that. There is no way. There is absolutely nothing in term 17 that will guarantee there will be religious denominational teaching as we know it today through our Pentecostal churches, through our Catholic churches, our Protestant churches, no. It is not—

[Amendment To The Constitution Of Canada (Newfoundland), December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, like my hon. friend from Newfoundland, I am also opposed to term 17.

What we have to do today is take a look at where this country has gone over the last 20 to 30 years and what it has done to our young people of today. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is a major concern to me when I look at the direction in which so many of our young people are going. We are not supposed to show them any moral values. We are not supposed to talk about religion any more.

But when we went to school it was there and it was good for us. It was very good for us. We did not have a Morgentaler looking over the House of Parliament. We did not have abortions taking place. We did not have any of these things. So we just have to take a look at today's society and ask ourselves in which direction has it been going. Let me tell you, it has been going in the wrong direction and this term 17 is taking us further down that wrong road. It is time for us to turn it around.

What I want to address is the fact that one wants to take a look at what the Newfoundland government did in order to get this through and to bring it here before this government. I want to bring attention to the following points respecting the proposed amendment of term 17 of the terms of the union of Newfoundland with Canada.

In June 1995 the Government of Newfoundland announced that a referendum would be held on September 5 of that year to seek approval from the electorate to limit the power of Catholic and Pentecostal churches to operate separate denominational schools. The process involved an amendment to term 17 of the terms of the union of Newfoundland with Canada which had provided certain guarantees of rights of parents to denominational education of their children. They should always have that right. Always.

The result of the ensuing referendum was a majority vote of 54% of the 52% of the eligible voters who cast their ballots in favour of the proposed amendment. Term 17 was amended accordingly by Parliament and became law on April 21, 1997.

The Government of Newfoundland amended its own legislation to bring into effect the limitation of denominational education which is now permitted under term 17. However in its haste to use its newly acquired powers to eliminate religious education by denominations in as many schools as possible, it failed to comply with the statutes and regulations it had enacted to attain its objective.

As a consequence an application was made to the Supreme Court of Newfoundland on behalf of aggrieved citizens alleging violation of the law and discrimination by government against members of the Catholic and Pentecostal churches. Mr. Justice Leo Barry upheld their petition and granted them injunctive relief. In his judgment filed July 8, 1997 the learned judge roundly criticized government for utilizing unlawful and discriminatory measures to implement the provisions of term 17 as amended. That came from Justice Leo Barry whom many of us respect.

Having frustrated its own efforts to change the educational system the government blamed its failure upon the Catholic and Pentecostal denominations. It then called a new referendum requesting public approval to abolish denominational education altogether without having given the amended term 17 a reasonable trial.

The following are some of the questionable measures taken by government to gain a majority vote in the second referendum. In a democracy I cannot believe that any government would support this.

On July 31, 1997 the government announced that the referendum would be held on September 2 next, giving the public a mere 32 days to analyse what it believed would be the government's proposed amendment and prepare campaigns to express and promote their views. It failed to inform the public of the text of the proposed amendment to term 17 until August 25, just 12 days before the referendum. For persons voting in the advance poll this meant a notice of less than two days. Try that one in the next federal election and see what happens.

It declared as one of its reasons to abolish denominational religious education in schools that Newfoundland's standard of pre-university education was low, intolerably low and that it would be greatly improved by getting rid of church influences in our schools. However the truth is that the standard of education for schools in the province of Newfoundland rates third highest across the whole of Canada and that is because they have denominational schools and for no other reason. And they are going to lower that standard as well. I want to say as well that they rank third despite the fact that they have such a large number of rural schools.

The government informed the public that the cost that denominational schooling adds to the general system of education is intolerably high. The fact is that the cost of education on a per capita basis in Newfoundland is the lowest in Canada.

So tell us why they would want to take out the denominational schools and the rights for other people in Newfoundland. They have the lowest cost per capita yet they are ranked third highest when it comes to their educational system. So tell us why.

At present denominational schools can only be established where viable and where numbers warrant. This places upon the government the responsibility to ensure that costs will not reasonably increase. Its power to do this is unquestionable. From the day it announced the referendum, government utilized public moneys and resources to finance and support its own campaign but it gave absolutely nothing to the other side.

I sat on the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future. I travelled this country from coast to coast. I was in Newfoundland. Students from Memorial University sat with me that day. I was only supposed to be there for four hours. They asked me to stay overnight so I could talk to them. They said they wanted to talk about their country. They were very special.

On the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future we were told by experts that we have a big problem in Canada, that the big problem is the charter of rights and freedoms because we did not bring in responsibilities for all of them. Yet we are saying what we are going to do is what Newfoundland is doing now. We are going to let the Supreme Court of Canada make all the decisions.

I cannot believe that those who are sitting on the government side in this House of Commons cannot see what a backward step we are taking when we eliminate denominational schools. I ask the government from the bottom of my heart to help our children today, to guide our children today, to give them the opportunity to pick up God's word in that Bible. It should be in every school. I feel very sorry for anyone who votes against it and I feel very sorry for the children of Newfoundland, as I do for children in other provinces across this country.

[National Defence, December 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of defence.

In 1994, a Sea King flying over my city of Saint John tragically crashed and killed two crew members.

The families of the military have been in touch with me since 1994 looking for new helicopters. The aging Sea Kings were grounded last week for repairs. They are supposed to be fixed up for the next four or five years.

My question to the minister is for the safety of our military and for the comfort of their families, when will this government stop playing political games and announce new helicopters?

[Sugar Exports, December 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade. First I want him to know that I am also a passionate person, particularly when it comes to Canada's sugar export quotas to the U.S., which have been reduced from 35,000 to 10,000 tonnes due to the 1995 WTO. Lantic Sugar refineries in Saint John and in Montreal are suffering because of this.

Will the minister inform this House regarding what steps he will take at the next WTO negotiations to restore Canadian sugar exports to the U.S.?

[Pornography, December 1st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to the attention of this House the deep concerns of many of my constituents regarding pornography.

The Saint John local chapter of the Catholic Women's League has sent me several little ribbons in recognition of White Ribbons Against Pornography or WRAP week. The CWL took part in the WRAP activities from October 19 to 26 this year.

The members of the CWL and their parishioners wore the ribbons and then they wrote their names on the back and sent them to me to show their opposition to pornography in any form. We need stronger laws to protect us from this destructive menace in our society.

Today, with the Internet, pornography is within easy reach of our children.

I commend my constituents for their efforts and I wholeheartedly agree with them. I urge this government to protect Canadians and their children and pass stronger anti-pornography laws.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, November 27th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand and participate in this debate on changes to the Canada pension plan. I congratulate my colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche and the other members of our Conservative Party who have mounted solid arguments and amendments to try to fix this ill conceived plan that the government has brought forward.

Also, and this is probably the only time this will ever happen, I want to commend the Minister of Finance for the amendments he brought forth yesterday. I did not get a chance to speak on them then but I was happy to see that the minister listened to our concerns about his bill and being silent on the auditor general's ability to request documentation on the CPP investment board.

As we pointed out to the House, the auditor general himself indicated that there were no guarantees in this bill that would ensure he could request the documentation that he needed to oversee the board's operation. With the amendments he submitted, the minister clarified that situation and we were very pleased that he finally saw the light even if it was for only a brief moment.

I wanted to speak today so I could talk about Motion No. 15. This motion was introduced by one of our colleagues from the NDP. It proposes that self-employed persons pay a CPP premium rate according to their incomes. We believe this is a very good idea and a very good recommendation.

One has to remember that self-employed persons are required to pay the employee's portion and the employer's portion of the premium. When rates go up even a little, self-employed persons have to bear the brunt of the entire increase. In other words, when rates go up to 9.9% the self-employed have to pay $9.90 to the government for every $100 they make. That can be very hard, especially when we know that in 1997 more than 2.5 million Canadians were self-employed.

Consider for a moment that according to Stats Canada, 45% of the self-employed earn less than $20,000 a year. At $20,000 a year you do not have a lot of disposable income left after you give so much of your pay cheque to the government. We must help those millions of Canadians who are trying desperately to earn their livings and to have their dignity.

We can help low income Canadians by lowering payroll taxes. That is the argument we bring forward today when we say that the hike in CPP premiums should be offset by reductions in EI premiums. I was very pleased to see that the minister came forth after I rose to speak in the House and lowered it by 20 cents. However, according to the actuarial report he should have lowered it by 90 cents because he will still have $40 billion in an account by the year 2004.

We can also help self-employed workers by making them pay CPP premiums according to a sliding scale based on their yearly revenue. If you make only $20,000 a year, you could pay a lower rate than someone who makes $60,000 a year. It is a small measure but it can make a big difference in the lives and the pocketbooks of many Canadians.

For the first time in our history a whole generation of Canadians is unsure that it will be able to enjoy the same quality of life its parents did.

Many Canadians worry that some of our most fundamental institutions and values such as health care and Canada pension plan might not be there for them and their families when they need it. Canadians have every right to expect the federal government to set the right priorities and policies and to chart the right course to achieve what they need for the future.

We need an innovative, realistic plan that sets new priorities for government as part of a long term vision for our future. One of these priorities is security for retirement for all Canadians and more especially the restoration of the Canada pension plan.

In 30 years the average age of Canadians will be higher than the present average age of the population of Florida, with no corresponding adjustment in temperature. A lower birth rate and increased life expectancy, along with a sharp rise in disability claims, also put new stress on the CPP. The CPP has also been jeopardized by inadequate contribution levels and inefficient plan management as a consequence of faulty legislation.

CPP funds, for instance, have been loaned to the provinces at the rate Ottawa pays on its 20 year bonds. This is less than what the provinces pay other bond holders and it is also less than what private sector plans earn. No wonder Canadians think the government cannot add.

The liberal plan to fix the CPP is basically a $11 billion tax hike on working Canadians out there and employers over the next six years. This is coupled with already high EI levels which the Minister of Finance, as I have stated, has refused to lower, the 90 cents he should have done.

What this government is doing with these changes to the CPP is a traumatic tax grab that will have a devastating effect on job creation. If we were in power, we would increase CPP contribution rates to levels adequate to ensure the long term viability of the plan. However, these increased contributions would be offset by a substantial reduction of personal income tax rates and EI premiums. This means putting more money into the plan without asking Canadians to pick up the tab and without creating threats to job creation.

We would also make provisions to finance the extra cost per year of seniors benefits resulting from demographic changes. We would also ensure that the mandate of the Canada pension trust and its trustees would be to advise the government on required contribution levels and to select the best private managers acceptable to the industry to invest the fund's growing surplus to secure long term returns.

It is most important that we guarantee all our young people today, not just the ones who are sitting in the House, but those across the country, that there will be a retirement plan for them, a Canada pension plan for them. It is up to each and every one of us to make sure this happens. Now it is our generation's turn to become nation builders. Part of that responsibility is to ensure that Canadians of all ages and all circumstances can count on a secure retirement.

I would argue that unless Bill C-2 is amended to meet the changes that our party is advocating and that the NDP is advocating as well, the Liberals will be passing the biggest tax increase this country has had in a long time and it will impact and hurt every Canadian very hard.

I urge all members of this House to consider this very seriously.