Gilles Bernier

[The Late Fred McCain, October 23rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, on October 12 Canada lost a man who dedicated over 34 years to serving the people of his community, province and country. Canada lost a statesman held in the highest regard by all those whose lives he touched in so many ways.

On October 12 the people of western New Brunswick and Canada as a whole lost a friend. Fred McCain died two Sundays ago and left behind a family and a province who loved him dearly.

Fred was a man who became the yardstick by which all other politicians are judged. Throughout both his public and private life, Fred always acted with a genuine concern for those around him. Fred was a man who did not see himself to be above those he represented but rather would take the time to walk through a potato field to check on the year's harvest and chat with the local farmers.

One of the last times I had the opportunity to see Fred was during the recent election campaign. The leader of the Conservative Party had taken the time out of a busy campaign tour through Atlantic Canada in order to stop by and say hi to an old friend. The look on Fred's face as the Charest tour bus pulled up and Jean stepped out is something I will never forget.

Even in his last months, Fred took the time to grant an interview to local newspapers. He took the opportunity to stress to the people of Carleton county the importance of a return to a Progressive Conservative government was in the best interests of our country.

Fred's commitment to the Progressive Conservative Party and to the people of this nation will never be forgotten. I consider it a privilege to have known Fred and to represent the portion of the riding he so proudly worked for just a few years ago. It is an honour for me to pay tribute to him in this House.

[Supply, October 21st, 1997]

Madam Speaker, to answer the question from my colleague from the NDP, government cannot create jobs but it can work in co-ordination with the private sector with big companies to create jobs in this country. It is the companies that will create the jobs, not the government.

[Supply, October 21st, 1997]

First of all, Madam Speaker, I am not on the government side. I am on the opposition side. I am just like one of them. Second, I was not part of the past Conservative government that put the GST into place, but I agreed with the tax 100% and I will tell members why.

I own two companies. As a contractor and as a painter, before the GST came into effect in 1990 when I wanted to buy a gallon of paint it would cost me 18% on that gallon of paint. It never showed because it was incorporated into the price of the gallon of paint. On a roll of masking tape, I would pay 11%.

When the GST came along, the companies would have had to get out of that tax and include the 7%. Some of the companies did that. They took the manufacturers sales tax out and just included the 7% but there are a lot of companies that did not do that. They kept the manufacturers sales tax as a profit and included an extra 7% on top of that. That is what made it a bad tax but it is not the fault of the previous Conservative government. The GST was a good tax.

Talking about the HST, this government felt that the HST was not a good tax. They brought up the HST but now we are paying 15% instead of 7%. In my store alone my business went down by 40% and my gas consumption went down by 90% but my electricity bill went up by 8% and my oil bill went up by 8%. Do you call that fair?

If I were here in the province of Ontario or in Manitoba or further west, I would only pay 7%. Why should I have to pay 15%? That is why I am saying to this government to give us a tax break so that we can really create jobs in this country, especially in New Brunswick. We cannot create the jobs we need because this government is choking us to death with taxes.

[Supply, October 21st, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from South Shore.

I would take this opportunity to thank the people of my riding of Tobique—Mactaquac for electing me to represent them in Canada's House of Commons. I feel very humbled and honoured to be able to stand here today on behalf of the people of my riding.

Tobique—Mactaquac is a riding which stretches some 250 kilometres along the Saint John River Valley from Grand Falls to the outskirts of Fredericton, from Plaster Rock to Woodstock, from Bath to Stanley and all points in between. It includes some of the hardest working people in the country. I fully realize they would expect nothing less from their member of Parliament.

The people of Tobique—Mactaquac are a proud people. They are proud of their families, proud of their rural heritage and proud of their community. It is a privilege to sit in the House on their behalf. I will make every effort to represent them to the best of my ability.

This week we are celebrating National Business Week. It is sad the government only recognizes businesses one week out of the year. The other 51 weeks it is choking us to death in taxes.

In 1996 Canadian businesses shut down in record numbers. We have in New Brunswick the harmonized sales tax and a 15% federal tax. It is the government which introduced and put the bill into effect.

I am also a businessman. I own and operate a little convenience store and I sell gasoline. Before the HST came into effect I was selling on average 3,000 litres of gasoline per day. Now I sell on an average 300 litres a day. This is a drop of 90%. At the same time, before the HST came into effect, 80% to 85% of the people buying gas would come into the store to buy something else. My gross sales have now dropped by 40%. I have five employees in my little convenience store. Now I have one. Is this what the government calls job creation?

Today there are many Canadians who believe it is up to the government to create jobs. As a businessman I say it is not up to the government. Government cannot create jobs. It is up to us, the private sector and the business community, to create jobs. The government has a responsibility to help us create the climate and to create much needed jobs for Canadians.

The government could start by giving us a tax break that would help us create much needed jobs. A good way would be to cut the EI payroll tax, not from $2.90 per hundred to $2.80. Why does the government not bring it down to $2.20? Why have a $5 billion surplus in the EI fund when we could keep people to work?

When the government came to power we had a $42 billion deficit. I agree totally that this deficit had to come down and had to be eliminated. What I do not agree with is the way the government brought it down. It shoved its problems on to the provinces instead of cleaning its own mess in Ottawa. The only cut the government made wasted a lot of money.

What is more important to all Canadians is their health and education of their children. Yet the government cut those two items by $6 billion. What a shame to see the youth unemployment at 32% in New Brunswick. The government had a youth internship program but it was cancelled this summer. According to the Speech from the Throne the government will be putting more money toward our youth. I hope that some of that money will make its way to my riding of Tobique—Mactaquac because the people are hurting.

Government does not come first. The people we represent come first. I will be voting for the NDP motion because in my riding we believe in the same values and principles attached to it.

[Supply, October 21st, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I do not think we have a quorum.

[Credit Cards, October 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in his economic statement last week the finance minister said the government has cut up its credit cards and called this responsible financial management. In rural New Brunswick we call it potato fertilizer.

Recently the auditor general said the use of credit cards has increased tenfold. The government does not know how many cards have been lost or stolen and in three months it ran up an $80,000 bill for late payment charges because the Liberal government could not pay its credit card bills on time.

Is this what the minister of public works calls responsible financial management?

[Public Works, October 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it was said in the auditor general's report the other day that there are now over 20,000 credit cards loose in federal government offices.

The report indicates that the regulations governing the use of these cards are not properly enforced, meaning there is nothing to prevent civil servants from spending taxpayers' money on personal items or from lending their government cards out to friends.

Will the minister of public works bring in proper controls to ensure there are no abuses of taxpayers' money?

[Youth Employment, October 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, over the past several years youth in particular have been made to bear the brunt of the needlessly high level of unemployment imposed on this country by the Liberal government.

In my riding of Tobique—Mactaquac, more specifically school district 12, progress was being made. District 12 had implemented a school based youth internship program that was extremely successful, resulting in 60% of the participants having paid employment after the school year.

That is the good news. The bad news is that the Liberal government took one look at the results of the program and did what came naturally. It cut its funding.

I hope that some of the $90 million announced in the throne speech and earmarked for youth internship will find its way to Tobique—Mactaquac so that the school program can be reinstated.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, October 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in a 1993 Liberal Party press release the prime minister described the decision to purchase much needed maritime helicopters as a colossal waste of taxpayers' money.

Since he made that statement his government has slashed health care transfers to the provinces by 35 percent. Simultaneously he spent over a billion dollars only to delay the necessary replacement of Canada's aging Sea King and Labrador helicopters.

Our health care system is viewed by many as the best in the world. It is one of the most important achievements in our history and a cornerstone of Canadian society. Preserving and improving health care are top priorities for Canadians and must be judged as important to every government.

Over the last three years the current government cut health care funding to every province and territory. It has hacked more than one-third out of health transfers to the provinces and territories.

In the last three budgets of the Minister of Finance these federal transfers were cut by more than $6 billion. This has put extra pressure on provincial governments, health care institutions, health care providers and, most of all, patients and their families.

As provincial and territorial governments struggle to absorb the federal spending cuts and community hospital cuts, many Canadians fear the health care system they has come to count on may not be there when they need it.

That begs a question. Has the government taken every measure necessary to secure funding for our health care system? Has the government spent taxpayers' money wisely and only cut health care transfers as a last resort? The answer unfortunately is no.

In 1993, in the heat of an election campaign, the prime minister made a hasty campaign promise to scrap the purchase of 43 maritime helicopters needed to replace the Department of National Defence aging Sea King and Labrador helicopters.

The decision to cancel this purchase was not made on sound judgment as part of an overall strategy for Canada's military. It was not a decision based on what is best for the value of taxpayers' money. It was made for purely partisan political reasons. The prime minister made the unwise decision but Canadians have been paying the price ever since.

Since the Liberal government took office there have been more than 511 emergency landings for the Sea Kings and 259 emergency landings for the Labrador.

The original deal on helicopters was not just a purchase but an opportunity for Canadians to co-develop proprietary technology for the EH-101. Canadians have lost forever the 10 percent job royalties guaranteed to them from all international sales of EH-101 helicopters.

The deal would have created 4,000 person years in new, high paid technology driven jobs. Instead the government must deal with the additional cost of lost jobs, closed companies and lost tax revenue.

Finally, after four years of delay, the government is poised to announce two new helicopter contracts to replace the Sea Kings and Labradors. The price of this delay, we now know, is more than a billion dollars to Canadian taxpayers in cancellation fees, additional maintenance costs and lost jobs and tax revenues. What did we get for $1 billion? Nothing, not a single helicopter.

Canadians believe and I believe the money should have gone into health care transfers. This is a time when government must make hard choices about how to use scarce health funds.

Was the obscene amount of money spent on keeping a poorly thought out campaign promise worth it? Absolutely not. That is money that could have benefited our health care system.

[Government Expenditures, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is now for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

The Liberal government has spent close to a million dollars cancelling a helicopter purchase, which it now admits it will have to go through with anyway. It argues that spending $90 million to create 3,000 jobs will reduce the excessively high youth unemployment rate.

When will this Liberal government stop wasting the taxpayers' money for petty politics and start assuming its responsibility to deal with the crisis of youth unemployment?