George Baker

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member has claimed we are a government of extremes. He started his point by talking about the debt and the deficit, of economic extremes, as he called it.

I have to admit this country today is in an extreme position because we are at an extreme, are we not? Which one of the G-7 countries leads the world in economic development? Which country is at the economic extreme? Is it Italy? Is it France? Is it Germany? Is it the U.K.? Is it Japan? Is it the U.S.? What country is at the economic extreme? We agree with the hon. member. The country at the economic extreme is the country of Canada, which leads everybody else.

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

The hon. member has asked for an example. We can give examples. Imagine a political party with that much power for accountability being opposed to our health care system. Imagine a political party that includes in its position that it wants the public to have roads built by private enterprise and then we would need toll gates. How else? Imagine the Alaska highway. Imagine if there were tolls on the TransCanada highway. This is the party with these very extreme positions on certain things.

An hon. member from the Reform just mentioned unemployment insurance. They had this great plan. Let us talk about the extreme position of being opposed to reducing the premiums for employees and employers, to use the unemployment insurance fund to pay off the deficit, to make sure that everything becomes zero, and then they will reduce the premiums. That is in their policy booklet, page 24 of the budget they presented.

What we have is the Government of Canada being held accountable to the people of Canada by two political parties that are not representative of the wishes of the Canadian people and therefore cannot really hold the government accountable for their actions. The government holds true to the principles of democracy in the House by giving members of Parliament on the government side a free vote even on matters that are introduced by the Government of Canada.

It is clear the reason the system is not working is the fault of the opposition parties and they only have themselves to blame. They should go back to the drawing board as far as question period is concerned and perhaps come up with some better suggestions rather than hold up all of these excellent committees with these excellent MPs just waiting to do their job as presented by our whip earlier on today.

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

As the hon. member pointed out, this is party of extreme political positions. And so we wonder who the losers are. The losers are the people of Canada.

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I have just a few points concerning this debate.

What started it was the tabling of this excellent report by our whip, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, who is doing a fantastic job. He has been one of the best whips I would say in the history of this place. On the list of names of people serving on these committees, months of consultation have gone into preparing this list to make sure that members are on the committees they want to be on if possible.

All of a sudden, the Reform Party stands up in the House, frustrated by its own unpopularity, frustrated because the government is so far ahead in the polls, but mainly frustrated because of the Bloc. Under our system it is the Bloc, the official opposition, which has many of the privileges the Reform Party would like to have.

Here Reformers are today criticizing of all groups to criticize the Government of Canada for this lack of democracy, for this lack of accountability to the House of Commons, to the Canadian people, to this lack of power over the legislative process. There are only two functions of committees in the House of Commons under our system and they are accountability and the legislative function.

Is it not strange that they should be criticizing the very government in the entire history of this place which has allowed free votes not just on private members' bills, but also on government initiatives. If we investigated the mother of Parliaments, the British Parliament, I do not think we would find there such progressive actions as those by the Government of Canada, by the Prime Minister, under the present administration. It is historic. It has never been done before.

On top of that, with this new found power which has been given to members of Parliament on government bills and private members' bills, we have in this place the best accountability of any legislature under the British parliamentary system. I am referring to question period.

There is no other legislature in the world that has a question period that the ministers, the executive, have to attend to answer whatever questions are posed by the opposition parties- no other legislature in the world.

I will tell the House what we do have in the world. Perhaps the Reform Party would like to have this. Perhaps it would like us to become up to date like the British, the Australians or any other Parliament where one has to give notice of a question to a cabinet minister. The cabinet minister does not even have to be in the House every day. They are only called once every two weeks to come for a day to answer questions in the House, questions for which notice has been given.

Why have we retained this? We have retained this because the Government of Canada, particularly now, is in a situation with a separatist party as the official opposition. The Government of Canada has rejected the many suggestions from the academic community that we go the way the British and the Australians have gone where they have to give notice of every question and the cabinet ministers would not be confined to their places here in this House every day and be answerable to a complete free for all by the opposition parties.

The system we have works only if the accountability of the government is actually accomplished by the two main political parties in opposition, first the power given to the separatist party.

We can imagine why the Reform Party is rather frustrated. We have a system whereby one of the two main players in question period is a separatist party that is only interested in breaking up the country. That is its agenda. It is not interested in anything else. I do not think Bloc members are interested in anything else. When they sleep they dream about it. They plan it day after day: "What are we going to say in question period to break up the country?" Obviously that is not working in the best interest of Canada. Then there is the second party.

[Supply, September 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it still has not sunk in to the Reformers that since the fall of 1993 Canada has become the fastest growing economy of all of the G-7 countries. We have done that and will maintain that. But we will also maintain our commitment to senior citizens and we will maintain our health care system.

[Supply, September 18th, 1996]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. That is why I mentioned right at the very beginning of my comments how incredible it was that the Bloc turned around and heaped such praise on the Senate and the banking committee for all of those changes that gave the big tax cuts to the big multinationals in the United States and in Canada. Some people agree with that. It is a legitimate way of looking at things, the way the world is going with globalization and so on.

I was shocked that the Bloc members would stand in this Chamber on behalf of those poor people they purport to represent and approve en masse the biggest tax cut to the wealthiest people in North America that we have seen in this century. And they are supposed to be the official opposition. There was no examination at all by the official opposition except for some members on this side

of the House. No, we did not vote against the legislation but we used our privilege and our positions in this great democratic party that we represent to question the actions of the Bloc and the Reform Party who welcomed those cuts for the rich so much.

[Supply, September 18th, 1996]

That deserves repeating. We have to repeat it, Mr. Speaker, because we are dealing with estimates of that country called Canada. Who has been the leader of that country, judged to be the most progressive nation in the world today, that the Bloc and Reform are saying here today is an absolute disaster? We are led by the most successful Prime Minister, the greatest Prime Minister this country has ever had and he will lead us into 1998 and beyond.

[Supply, September 18th, 1996]

Let us take the G-7. Could it be Italy? Its growth rate is 1.2 per cent minus, no, not Italy. Is it France? Let us come up a little further now at 2 per cent, no. Is it the U.K. at 1.5 per cent? That is not what we are debating. Is it Germany at .8 per cent? No. Is it the great country of Japan? No. We are not even close to the top in economic performance. Oh no, it is not Japan. Is it the United States at 3.4 per cent? No, it is not. What country is it that we are doing the estimates on? Could it be that it is the country that has been judged by the OECD as being the richest country today in economic growth of all of the G-7 countries, the country of Canada? Is that what we are talking about today?

These figures are not from an organization in downtown Toronto or downtown Montreal. Where do these figures come from? Hon. members from the Reform and the Bloc should visit the parliamentary library and pick up the OECD Economic Outlook. Twenty-seven countries in the world whose job is to do what? They are representatives of 27 governments of the industrialized democracies of the world who discuss and attempt to co-ordinate their economic and social policies. What do they say? They say that Canada since the fall of 1993-what happened then? Wow, is that not a coincidence? Since the fall of 1993 to the beginning of 1996, for those three years Canada had the strongest employment growth of all of the G-7 countries. They did not stop there. Then they said for the year 1997 in terms of economic growth, Canada is projected to rank first among the G-7 countries.

[Supply, September 18th, 1996]

No. "Don't reduce the premiums", they said, "until all the deficit is taken care of, until a new fund has been built up". In other words, sock it to the employers, sock it to the employees. They said that after all this has been done, then they could pass on some savings to the employees and the employers. With the Reform Party everything is a waste of money.

What are we debating here today? We are debating to concur in the main estimates for the year ending March 31, 1997. For what country? To listen to the Bloc and the Reform, boy, what country do members think they are thinking about?

[Supply, September 18th, 1996]

The Reform Party of course says that it is a waste of money. The Reform Party says everything is a waste of money. I was looking at their alternative to these estimates. I was looking a moment ago at what they regarded as being a waste of money in health care, page 24.

What do Reformers say about health care in Canada being a waste of money? They say: "Medicare in which everyone receives everything health care professionals wanted to deliver is not only intolerably expensive, it is undesirable for other reasons. Consumers should be allowed to stay outside the publicly funded system completely if that is their wish, or to supplement publicly funded care with additional privately funded care if that is their wish". A waste of money.

Then the Reformers went on to say that roads and bridges were a waste of money. Let us see. They say on page 14 of their budget: "Typically, physical infrastructure refers to traditional features like highways, ports, railways and airports. Given our current fiscal climate however, governments are ill equipped to spend money on such improvements. In Canada this saving can be done by privatizing aviation, privatizing airports". Then number two, "allowing private sector companies to build and maintain roads and bridges".

Imagine the cost of driving the Alaska highway if that were the case with the Reform Party in power.

Then the Reformers went on to say on page 46 that unemployment insurance was a waste of money. They suggested an incredible thing. They suggested that the premiums not be reduced.