Elsie Wayne

[Veterans, October 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, there has been $182 million cut from the Department of Veterans Affairs' budget. This has made it most difficult for the veterans and their families.

Cuts to the last post fund have made it more difficult than some of the other cuts because it costs a lot more today to bury a veteran than it did 10 years ago.

Once again I ask the minister to please take a look at the last post fund to see if there is not some way we can bring back dignity for the veterans.

[Veterans, October 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

The government has cut the last post fund for veterans from $26,000 to $12,060. This has made it very difficult for veterans.

Will the minister assure the House that he will have his department review the cuts it made to the last post fund and deal with the difficulties and injustices it has caused to the spouses of those families?

[Speech From The Throne, October 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. Liberal member for his throne speech. I am very pleased to hear him talk about non-partisan issues.

I am hoping that he, along with a lot of members of his party, will help me to see that the infrastructure program, which has been implemented by this government, will be done in a non-partisan way.

We have real problems in the province of New Brunswick with political interference from the premier of the province of New Brunswick and those little communities that were supposed to get part of that infrastructure program.

They were all cancelled by the premier. He took all the money out of the Tobique—Mactaquac area and put it into the riding of his previous minister, who is still in this government.

He did that also in the other part of the northern part of the province. Now he has interfered in my area. We did it in a non-political way. I would like the hon. member to tell me is he going to help us to take the politics out of infrastructure.

[Speech From The Throne, October 2nd, 1997]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I did not want to interrupt once again the hon. member from Cape Breton as it is his first speech in the House, but we do not have a quorum in the House at the present time to continue on.

[Speech From The Throne, October 2nd, 1997]

Madam Speaker, you do not have a quorum in the House at the present time.

[Vacancy, October 1st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Sharon Hayes was a good friend to me. As I sat alone in the House of Commons many times, she always reached out to me. She is a very special person.

I saw Sharon the other day because I was looking for Daphne, another lady who was very kind to me. I knew at that time something was wrong because there were tears in her eyes. One of her colleagues told me after about the illness of her husband and the difficult times for Sharon.

The prayers of my friends and colleagues here are with Sharon, her family and her husband. They did not know her like I did but she was very special. We will reach out to her. She had respect for every person who sat in this House. We will miss her, for she did fight for the family and we know that is most important these days.

[Speech From The Throne, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, does the hon. member of the Bloc understand that when the country was founded the aboriginal people were here and that when the francophone people arrived the aboriginal people said to them “come on to the land and we will continue to build Canada?” Then the anglophone people arrived and the francophone people and the aboriginal people shook hands and said “come, we will build Canada”.

We are all the same. We are all one and we form Canada. I say to you, sir, that we have to realize that. I ask you and your party to look at that. We formed Canada, we built it, and I am asking you to be part of it.

[Ports Canada Police, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Ports Canada police officers are specialists in their field. They are trained in national and international crimes such as drug trafficking, illegal immigration and terrorist activities, as well as gun running. Security guards and local police forces are not.

Why is the Minister of Transport subjecting our communities to the possibility of increased crime by disbanding the Ports Canada police? Does the minister realize that a lack of national standards for policing our ports will make them much more inviting to criminal elements?

[Speech From The Throne, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member for Guelph—Wellington has to do with the throne speech and what is lacking in it, which is that there is absolutely no reference whatsoever to veterans or the merchant navy veterans.

The hon. member's government took $182 million away from the veterans programs in the last three and a half years. The merchant navy veterans have never been treated equally. Five years ago $100 million was put into a fund that was allocated for them to become equal. However, the government legislation made them ineligible to have access to it. They came to me and asked for help. There are only 2,100 of them left out of the 12,000.

What is the hon. member's government going to do to correct the error it has made and help those veterans become eligible for the veterans programs? It should put more money back into the last post fund and all the programs it has removed.

[Speech From The Throne, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know if the New Democratic Party agrees that this government should send a team Canada group into the Atlantic region so that there will be a better understanding of the needs of our people in the Atlantic region, and find a way to create the jobs for all those mature people who are out of work, the moms and dads who want to work, who want to feed their families and pay for the education of their children and get back their dignity.

I would like to know if they agree with that.