Norman E. Doyle

[Supply, October 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member on a very good speech. I also want to congratulate the member who proposed the motion for taking leadership on this issue.

Canadians watching this debate today would be inclined to ask, why are we even debating the issue? Surely no one could be against protecting our children from sexual exploitation?

Should we not be looking at other areas of sexual exploitation as well? Maybe we should zero in on the CRTC, since we see on its airwaves at any time of the day or evening sexual exploitation taking place. The airwaves are filled with the kinds of images that sexually exploit children, and it is all done in the name of freedom of speech and artistic merit.

Would the member care to comment on whether or not we need to look at these kinds of things, such as the CRTC, to see what kind of shows and presentations the CRTC is allowing on the air these days? We see children being exploited by these kinds of images when we look at television at any hour of the day or evening. Surely the CRTC has some responsibility in that regard. Is it living up to its mandate?

[Equalization Payments, October 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the current equalization program is supposed to ensure that provincial governments can provide comparable levels of public service at comparable levels of taxation.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, our taxes are among the highest in the nation and our levels of public services are among the lowest in the nation. Obviously, the current equalization program has failed to make the predicted improvements.

One of the reasons for the failure is that new resource revenues accruing to the provinces are clawed back almost dollar for dollar from their equalization payments and without a change in the clawback provisions have not provinces will never make significant economic and social progress.

In this session we have been asked to extend the current equalization program for one more year. What is needed is a much improved equalization program. More of the same old, same old just will not do.

[Supply, October 23rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I agree with the member totally and completely. The business of the nation has certainly been postponed and the business of the nation has been placed on hold while two warring factions do what they have been doing in the House of Commons. It is a very awkward arrangement for Canadians.

As I said a moment ago, this arrangement is really nothing less than having two prime ministers at the same time. It is not in the best interest of Canadians.

Therefore I think the motion is indeed an appropriate one, one which we can readily support. We feel that if the current Prime Minister would leave, then the people of Canada would have the opportunity to question and to hold accountable the real prime minister of Canada. There is absolutely no reason why that arrangement should be so difficult to come by.

Therefore, we support the motion by the Bloc and we think it is entirely appropriate that the incoming prime minister should have the opportunity to come here, lay out his own legislative agenda and be held to account by the people of Canada.

[Supply, October 23rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Brandon—Souris, who has quite eloquently laid out the case as to why the current Prime Minister should be leaving office and allowing the incoming prime minister to sit here and be accountable to the people of Canada.

I would like to make a few remarks on this motion by the Bloc that calls upon the Prime Minister to leave office as soon as possible after November 14. I know it must be difficult for an individual like the current Prime Minister of Canada to leave office. He has been in political life in this nation for a 40 year period. Many of us, who have had a much shorter of period of time in office, can readily understand how difficult it is to leave political life and seek another direction.

However the current Prime Minister of the country is in grave danger of destroying any legacy he might have built up over the last 40 years in office by remaining too long. I think it is safe to say that the people of Canada want the current Prime Minister to step down as quickly as possible. As a matter of fact, I recently saw a television survey rolling across the bottom of my TV screen indicating that 57% of the people of Canada feel it would be in the best interests of the country to have the current Prime Minister leave office as quickly as possible.

In our parliamentary system of government, as we all know, the Prime Minister is generally the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. The current Prime Minister, as we are all aware, said that he would leave office in February 2004. The Liberal Party, however, decided to hold its leadership convention, as the member for Winnipeg—Transcona rightly pointed out, in November 2003.

That leaves us now in the very unique position of seeing the new leader for the Liberal Party not becoming the prime minister until some time in February, which is very inappropriate because between November 2003 and February 2004 Canada will have both a Prime Minister and a prime minister in waiting.

We have to ask ourselves if it is in the best interests of Canadians and if it is good government to have that kind of situation in our country. This country deserves better. As I said a moment ago, if the Prime Minister has any legacy to leave the people of Canada, that legacy will be destroyed if he hangs on to power too long.

Only the Liberal Party of Canada would have the monumental arrogance of foisting that kind of awkward arrangement upon the Canadian people. We have already been treated to scenes of unofficial Liberal Party caucus meetings taking place on Tuesday nights and the official Liberal Party caucus meetings taking place on Wednesday mornings like the rest of us.

Obviously the Liberal Party is so sure of its unassailable position that it can play out its internal workings on the national stage. It is not in the best interests of our country to be witnessing that kind of disagreement between the Prime Minister and the prime minister in waiting.

Simply put, the Liberal Party feels that it can play fast and loose with the parliamentary system and has absolutely no fear of retribution from the people of Canada for the actions it has taken.

As so many speakers before me have pointed out, the member for LaSalle--Émard, who will become the prime minister of Canada, should be accountable to the people of Canada after November 13. He should be in the House of Commons to be accountable and to answer questions from the various opposition parties regarding his actions when he was minister of finance.

Is it any wonder that citizens have been demanding that the various opposition parties in Parliament get their act together and present some kind of a unified alternative to the present government? What I have been hearing from my constituents all across St. John's East is that there should be a better and more unified alternative to the government. They feel that the government is becoming arrogant by the very actions it is displaying with its leadership process.

Word has it, and I think we are all aware that the word is accurate, that the House will be closing soon and we will not be called back until the new Liberal leader is ready for a throne speech and a spring budget. I am sure, as the country is sure, that a general election will soon follow after that.

However, in the interim, which is very important, the country will not get a chance to put the new prime minister to the test here in the House of Commons. We will, in effect, have two prime ministers between November and February.

The Liberals have indicated that they intend to avoid that kind of awkward arrangement by closing down the House for the period between November 7 of this year and the middle of February next year. It is unheard of that the House should be closed for that long a period of time. In the meantime, we will have two parallel administrations in place in Canada, one in the House and one behind the curtain of the House. That simply is not good enough for the people of Canada and it is not in their best interests.

Over the last number of months we have been treated to the spectacle of the Liberal Party washing its dirty linen in public. The outgoing Prime Minister and incoming prime minister have made no secret of the fact that they dislike each other. They seem to have absolutely no shame in letting their personal disputes dominate the public arena. With the two feuding, overlapping prime ministers, the Liberal Party's answer now is to wash its dirty linen in private by closing the House of Commons and not opening up again until some time in February.

I think it is fair to say that Canadians want leadership, not arrogance, from the prime minister and the majority party here in the House.

Nobody is saying that there should not be a reasonable transition period for the outgoing Prime Minister and the incoming prime minister. Given the fact that we have known for quite some time who the new prime minister will be, one would think that a period of a few weeks would be enough for the incoming administration to take office. However, what we are talking about here is a number of months, and that is not good enough.

An election was held recently in Newfoundland. There were two parties of different political stripes and the new one will be taking office. That will be done quite smoothly in a matter of probably a week or so. Since we have known for about two or three months who the incoming prime minister of Canada will be there is absolutely no reason the transition could not have taken place within a couple of weeks.

As I said, the current Liberal government does not have to worry about the niceties of governance. It feels as if it has a divine right to govern because its parliamentary opposition is so fractured and there are so many different parties. I think we will see that coming to an end fairly soon. The incoming prime minister has every reason to worry that he will have a unified opposition going into the next election.

In the meantime, I call upon the Liberal Party to treat Canadians and their parliamentary institutions with a little respect and to provide for some kind of timely transition, yes, but certainly not a two or three month period in which the nation is held to ransom by the government.

[Petitions, October 23rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from a number of people in St. John's East who make the point that non-embryonic stem cell research has already shown encouraging potential to provide medical cure and therapies and that adult stem cells have shown significant research progress without the immune rejection or ethical problems associated with embryonic stem cell research. The petitioners further state that Bill C-13 continues to permit people to kill human embryos.

They call upon Parliament to ban embryonic stem cell research.

[Newfoundland and Labrador Election, October 22nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the PCs under leader Danny Williams rode a Tory tide to victory.

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador elected the PCs in 34 out of 48 seats in the House of Assembly. They demonstrated their confidence in the ability of the new government to bring about effective change in Canada's youngest province.

This election was about sending a clear message that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador want a new approach to economic development in the province.

It was also about the continuous giveaways of our natural resources. I believe the new government now has a strong mandate to take a tougher stand on negotiating new resource revenue deals for the province.

Again, our congratulations to premier-elect Danny Williams and his PC team as they take up the challenge of building a better future for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Petitions, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of a number of people from all across Newfoundland and Labrador. The petitioners are calling upon Parliament to provide Canadians with greater access to natural health products and to restore freedom of choice in personal health care by enacting Bill C-420, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act.

[Progressive Conservative Party, September 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great day to be a Tory.

I want to congratulate Premier Pat Binns and the PC Party of Prince Edward Island on the election of their third majority government. Obviously the PC Party is alive and well in Atlantic Canada.

I also want to wish Danny Williams and the PC Party of Newfoundland and Labrador success in the general election called for October 21. The PCs have held a solid lead in public opinion polls since Danny Williams became party leader a couple of years ago. I have every confidence we will soon see another PC government take the helm in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Obviously, reports of the PC Party's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I want to say a few words on Bill C-406, and act to amend the Employment Insurance Act, but before I do I want to congratulate the member for Acadie--Bathurst for bringing forward this bill. I want to congratulate him as well because he is a great defender of the working person, and that is something about which a lot of us here in this assembly should be more concerned, because it is the working person who contributes so much to the economy of our country.

I want to congratulate him as well on the first clause of the bill. The first clause would change the name back to the unemployment insurance act, and I support that. Only under a Liberal government could a piece of legislation providing protection to the unemployed be called an Employment Insurance Act.

However, more than the name of the unemployment insurance system was changed by the Liberals, under the watchful eye of the former minister of finance. Their new employment insurance system doubled and tripled the number of hours required to draw EI and shortened the benefit period, as well while keeping EI premiums relatively high. The net result of the changes, as we are all very much aware, was a radically reduced draw-down on the EI fund. We know what the net result of that was. It created a surplus of about $45 billion, not million, dollars.

There is nothing wrong with having a surplus. One has to prepare for a rainy day, in this case provide for a period of time when we could have very high unemployment, but $45 billion? Do we really need to have $45 billion in the EI surplus? Actually, when we get right down to it of course, less money is needed for a so-called rainy day because the new rules have made it a lot harder on people to receive EI, and as a consequence of that less people can draw employment insurance, or unemployment insurance as I still call it.

Rather than remaining a lifeboat for the nation's unemployed, the EI system became a cash cow for the former minister of finance in his efforts to balance the nation's books. The other two public services that were raided to balance the national budget were the health care system and the post-secondary educational system. Simply put, the former minister of finance, who is to be the next Prime Minister of Canada, rose to political prominence on the backs of the unemployed, the sick and the young. That is how he got there.

There is a lot in this bill that should be supported and should be taken very seriously.

I recently had a visit from the Canadian Labour Congress, and yesterday I had a visit from the Building and Construction Trades Council, two groups of people for whom I have an awful lot of respect. They provided me with some very graphic statistics on the effect of these employment insurance changes just in the riding of St. John's East. I was absolutely astounded.

Back in 1990, for example, 7,530 people in the riding of St. John's East availed of UI benefits. In 2001 only 2,680 people qualified for regular EI benefits, down from 7,530 to 2,680 people who qualified for EI benefits. That is a drop of 64%. I really wish the drop was entirely due to better employment prospects, but it was not. The lion's share of that 64% drop is attributable to the fact that benefits are now harder to get. When we do get benefits, it is for a shorter period of time.

A large portion of that 64% drop represents people forced to seek social assistance or people forced to migrate to other provinces in Canada. There is nothing wrong with going to other provinces for work, but if one happens to be a fisherman or a construction worker 55 or 57 years old, it gets very difficult to move to other provinces without any mobility assistance from the $45 billion fund that the former minister of finance was been able to accumulate.

How much did that drop in people receiving EI benefits in that one little area in the riding of St. John's East represent annually? It represented $69 million in EI benefits. If a person happens to own a major department store or a local corner store, the loss of these revenues from the local economy has to hurt the people in that area.

In short, the Liberal's new employment insurance system was a systematic attack on seasonal employment in rural Canada in general and in Newfoundland and Labrador in particular.

In Newfoundland and Labrador whole communities have been devastated. Whole communities have been depopulated. Seasonal work supplemented by employment insurance used to allow these families to remain in rural Newfoundland, but that does not happen any more.

It is very difficult if a person happens to be a construction worker. The point the construction trades people made to me yesterday, and it was a very valid point, was the moment workers went on a construction job, they began the process of working themselves out of a job. The same applies whether a person is working on a 50 storey steel building, or as a carpenter on a house, or building a road or building a dam. The moment they work on construction jobs, they begin the process of working themselves out of a job.

A bit of respect is required for the people who work in construction in particular. We should not say to construction workers that their contribution to society, to the people and to the economy of the country is such that we can slash their EI rights to the bone, that it does not matter. If they are finished a job and they happen to be 50, 55 or 57 years old, they should not be told they should move somewhere else. Instead we should make it easier for people who work in construction, or in the logging industry or in the fishery. It is very difficult for these people when they find out that the government has absolutely no respect for the contributions they make to the country.

Since the federal Liberals came to power in Ottawa, Newfoundland and Labrador alone has lost 50,000 people. The city of Corner Brook on the west coast of Newfoundland was our province's second city after St. John's. These days Fort McMurray in Alberta is the second largest city for Newfoundland and Labrador.

As I only have a moment or two left, I will wrap it up. It is worthy to note that on the national scale 855,000 Canadians received regular UI benefits in 1990. In 2001 the number who received regular EI benefits dropped to 456,000. Nationally that was a drop of 46%. The government should be ashamed of what it is doing to seasonal workers.

[Parliament of Canada Act, September 25th, 2003]

No, Mr. Speaker. It is impossible for an individual who is appointed by the Prime Minister and by the cabinet of Canada to be truly independent.

I think that Canadians are waiting on the government to show some leadership in this regard and to show that the Liberals are really serious about cleaning up their act which has been so tarnished and so dark and dirty over the last five or six years in particular. This is a time when they can truly show that the government is serious about protecting the people's money and protecting the institutions that should be protected in the country.

A way that the government can truly give the people of the country confidence again is by having the ethics commissioner appointed and established by an all party committee of the House.