Norman E. Doyle

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

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with the hon. member's observation. The real problems that the government will surely be faced with under the direction of the new prime minister when he comes to office will not be addressed unless we have a truly independent ethics commissioner.

I want to commend the member for putting forward this amendment because as I said a moment ago, not only must there be fairness but there must be an appearance of fairness as well. I cannot understand for the life of me how any government which has come under the fire that the government has come under over the last five years, in particular with the amount of graft and corruption and the number of scandals that have plagued it, would not be rushing a bill into the House that would create a truly independent ethics commissioner. We will be going into an election six months from now. One has no choice but to surmise from it all that the government is afraid to have a truly independent individual poking around in the bag of secrets that have yet to be revealed.

I agree with the hon. member. The problems that have plagued the country and the government over the last five or 10 years will not be addressed if the government does not agree to let an all party committee look at the ethics commissioner, have a search done, have the individual appointed by that committee and report to Parliament. This is the way it should be done.

There has to be a reason. The obvious reason is that the prime minister in waiting is afraid to have his record laid before the people of Canada. He is afraid that a truly independent ethics commissioner will go poking around and find some secrets that he does not want revealed. The onus is now on the government to do something about this and to have a truly independent individual put in place.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words on Bill C-34. I am particularly interested in saying a few words on the amendment:

It reads:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“Bill C-34...be referred back to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for the purpose of reconsidering Clause 4 with the view to ensure that:

(a) a standing or “an all party” committee of the House of Commons search for those persons who would be most suitably qualified and fit to hold the office of Ethics Commissioner; and

(b) the said committee recommend to the House of Commons the name of a person to hold such office”.

My party supports this amendment because it is a good amendment. I cannot see why anyone would not support it. After all, this is public money that the government is spending. It is the hard earned dollars of taxpayers that we are talking about here.

Why would we not want an independent individual, arm's length from government, to oversee the ethics of the people who are spending this money on behalf of the people of Canada? Why would the government not want an all party committee to do the search and find a truly independent individual who would report to Parliament?

The public would then know that we do not have an ethics commissioner who is the lapdog of government, or an individual who is a friend of the Liberal Party of Canada acting as an ethics commissioner for the people of Canada.

It is ridiculous that we should even be talking about this amendment today. The government should already have this amendment in its bill. An all party committee of the House of Commons should be the process to be used to appoint an ethics commissioner.

We all know that an ethics commissioner should have some ethics. If an ethics commissioner were to comment on and preside over the ethics of a minister or the Prime Minister of the country, then his or her own ethics should be above reproach and scrutiny.

One way we could ensure that the ethics commissioner is indeed above reproach is to have an all party committee of the House of Commons do the search. After all, we should have absolute confidence in the ethics commissioner to do what is right.

When we get right down to it, is it fair to ask any future ethics commissioner to go poking around and judging the very people who appointed the individual if that person is not a truly independent individual?

Therefore, one has to ask the question, is the government afraid to have a truly independent individual appointed? Is the government so caught up in scandal, wrongdoing, graft and corruption that it cannot bear the thought of allowing a truly independent person to be poking around in the government's bag of secrets?

We should not even be talking about this amendment today. The amendment should already be included in Bill C-34. After the numerous scandals of the government, it should be truly rushing to have an independent person appointed as the ethics commissioner.

We all remember the main feature of the 1993 election campaign was a promise by the Liberal Party to establish new standards of ethics. It has certainly done that. The Liberals have established new standards of graft and corruption, and standards which the people of Canada are very concerned with.

The Prime Minister, for instance, intervened with a Crown corporation to benefit a business of which he had once been a part owner. At least three ministers have been forced from office for conflicts of interest. A fourth has been given safe refuge as ambassador to Denmark. If we had a truly independent ethics commissioner, I wonder if these things would have occurred?

The Minister of Canadian of Heritage, for instance, broke the guidelines. According to the rules, she should have resigned her cabinet position. However, the Prime Minister, going against his own rules, chose to protect his cabinet colleague. One has to wonder if we had a truly independent ethics commissioner, whether that would have happened?

The government is now proposing new legislation establishing new ethics commissioners whose appointments can be controlled by the government majority. That is not the way to go if we want to give the people of Canada confidence that their money is being spent properly and that their ministers are acting in the way they should be.

Remember the observation on Shawinigate by Gordon Robertson, the distinguished former clerk of the Privy Council, who wrote the first conflict of interest guidelines for Prime Minister Pearson. Mr. Robertson noted that there had been no specific provisions governing the Prime Minister because it never occurred to anyone that a prime minister's actions would require guidelines. It was not until this government made a show of appointing an ethics counsellor and then made a sham of the office by having it report not to Parliament, as has been promised, but to the Prime Minister of Canada. That makes a sham of the ethics commissioner.

The most notorious loosening of the rules involved the so-called blind management trust. We are all very well aware of that. For decades cabinet ministers in the House were required to put their assets in an absolutely blind trust. If one pursued one's private interests, one stayed out of cabinet and if one served the public interest, one cut off all contact with one's private assets. A choice was made. That is the way it worked way back when.

The government changed that rule deliberately. It deliberately broke the separation between private interest and public interest. It created a system where a minister could look after his or her private interests and at the very same time he or she was purported to be acting in the public interest.

If we had a truly independent ethics commissioner acting for the people of Canada over the last four or five years in particular, I am convinced that the scandals that have plagued the government and the people of the country would not have occurred, or at least would have been a whole lot less serious than they were.

As a footnote, but to make matters worse, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that this system had been used by ministers of former governments. He knows that is not true, but he has not had the rectitude to correct the record of Parliament.

I do not know why the government lets ministers abandon blind trusts. I do not know if that was done specifically to meet the requirements of the Prime Minister-in-waiting, the member for LaSalle-Émard, but he was certainly quick to take advantage of the looser system that had been established. As the Minister of Finance for the country, he knew very well how he could take advantage of that system.

Some time ago, under pressure, the member for LaSalle--Émard, the individual who will be the Prime Minister of Canada, announced that he was divesting himself from his giant shipping company, Canada Steamship Lines. He admitted that during the time he was Minister of Finance he held 12 separate private meetings with his company officials regarding business activities of the multi-national private company that he personally owned. I really do not know if people are truly aware of the seriousness of that.

The Prime Minister-in-waiting--the person who was second in command in this country, the most powerful position outside of the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Finance--held 12 separate private meetings with officials of his own company while he was sitting around the cabinet table of Canada talking about tax havens, environmental problems, shipping standards, and all kinds of things pertaining to the operation of his own company. He sat around the table with his corporate officials on 12 different occasions and had 12 different meetings while he was number two in power in Canada.

For the record, I do not believe he had these meetings to make himself any richer than what he already was. He came here as a rich individual, and I do not believe he needed any more money. F. Scott Fitzgerald noted that the rich are not like the rest of us. He probably did it because he thought the rules that applied to others should not apply to him The former Minister of Finance felt that the rules that had been established really did not apply to him, but did apply to everyone else. If we had a truly independent ethics commissioner who was capable of delving into these problems, would this have happened?

Whatever the motive, the government broke down the wall between private and public interests. That is what it amounts to. Even the member himself, the Prime Minister-in-waiting, now admits that the system fails the test of appearing to be fair. We always hear that not only must the system be fair, but it must have the appearance of being fair as well. What is clear is that the tailor-made system was not recommended by independent, outside experts who could examine the current rules and regulations and come up with some really good ones to make cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister truly accountable to the people of Canada.

Justice Parker, who conducted a public formal inquiry into the Sinclair Stevens affair, which I am sure all members remember, warned specifically against the type of arrangement that we have today. Justice Parker defined conflict of interest in his report as:

--a situation in which a minister of the Crown has knowledge of a private economic interest that is sufficient to influence the exercise of his or her public duties and responsibilities.

The minister need not act on that knowledge. Justice Parker did not find that Mr. Stevens acted on that knowledge. He was required to resign simply because it was alleged that he had done nothing more than what the member for LaSalle--Émard has set limits on doing on 12 separate occasions. That is worth noting.

That was the standard in Canada before the Liberal government deliberately lowered the bar on ethics in this country. Simple knowledge of a private economic interest was enough to constitute a conflict of interest. Is that not interesting? Simple knowledge of a private economic interest was enough to constitute a conflict of interest. We are all very much aware that for eight years the member for LaSalle--Émard, the prime minister in waiting, regularly acquired that kind of knowledge. That is not in dispute. The member himself admitted that he regularly acquired that kind of knowledge.

According to the Prime Minister, Justice Parker's definition of conflict of interest is at the heart of the government's code of conduct for ministers. He has repeatedly said that in the House of Commons.

Here is a very interesting quote from former Liberal Prime Minister Turner who said in Parliament on May 12, 1986:

In public administration a minister has the burden of proof, the duty to show that what he is doing is beyond reproach. The burden of proof is not on Parliament. It is not on the opposition, nor the media. The burden of proof is on the minister.

That is what former Prime Minister John Turner said on May 12, 1986. But the new looser system of the managed blind trust does have its own clear rules. Canadians have a right to know whether even these rules were respected. Article 7 of the agreement stipulates that if at any time while this agreement remains in effect it appears that an extraordinary corporate event is proposed or threatened which might have a material effect on the shares of an asset, the supervisors may consult with and obtain the advice, direction or instruction of the public office holder.

The then minister of finance was allowed to be briefed only if first, Canada Steamship Lines had an extraordinary corporate event, second, if it had a material effect on the asset, and third, the supervisor was unable to handle it on his or her own. We are asked to believe that that happened 12 times in eight years, with the former minister of finance, the prime minister in waiting, and Canada Steamship Lines.

The Prime Minister says that while he has no knowledge of the subject of these 12 meetings, he is satisfied that each of them met the criteria of article 7. Why? Because Howard Wilson said so. The member for LaSalle--Émard agreed and the Prime Minister declined to do his duty and find out if his new loose rules were respected or whether they were broken. Again this points out the need to have a truly independent ethics commissioner who will be appointed by an all party committee of the House.

The member for LaSalle--Émard says he excused himself, that he stepped aside from the cabinet table whenever there was a possible conflict of interest. However, more than the vast majority of companies, Canada Steamship Lines is critically dependent upon a wide range of federal laws and regulations, including the tax system. The question has to be asked, was the then minister of finance outside the room whenever taxes were talked about, or environmental laws, or shipping regulations, or safety standards, or changes in international laws or treaties?

Hopefully the government will agree to have an all party committee of the House look at this issue and make recommendations for a truly independent ethics commissioner.

[User Fees Act, September 18th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words on this bill on behalf of our finance critic, the member for Kings--Hants, who supports the bill in principle and as a consequence of that, all of us in the PC caucus will be supporting it.

As we are all aware, back in 1994 the government moved massively into charging fees for mandatory regulatory services. It increased regulatory fees for businesses in general by almost 47% over a two year period. For manufacturers in Canada, fees increased by 153% over that same period. From inspecting meat to approving ingredients for anti-bacterial kitchen cleaners, if Canadians wanted a regulated product the fee had to be paid. No fee, no product.

The government insisted on more money to regulate products and services and it promised program efficiency, better service and smarter performance. Very little of that has happened. Canadians and their companies are paying much more and getting a whole lot less.

I am told by the member for Kings--Hants that the problem is the vast majority of these user fees were set by regulation, with no parliamentary input and no real consultation on their business impact or how they compared internationally.

Both the Auditor General and the parliamentary finance committee have pointed to the seriousness of this problem. Added to that, the Supreme Court has now decided that some user fees are a tax levied by governments. Individually and viewed together these judgments point to serious problems which the government will now have to be seized with.

We need a public debate about whether services delivered actually give value for money.

This legislation would make Parliament rather than government departments and agencies ultimately responsible for approving new user fees or increasing existing ones. That is why we support Bill C-212 in principle.

User fees are really hidden taxes or taxes under another name and ought to be examined with parliamentary scrutiny to see how effective they are. We have always argued that Parliament needs to play a wider role in how government raises revenues. This is a clear example of that.

While the government asserts that fees are not a tax and are primarily focused on improving resource allocation, the evidence clearly points out that they are having the effect of a tax on business, with the sole purpose of generating revenues for departments.

The Supreme Court appears to agree with that assessment. In its recent ruling in the Eurig case, the court ruled that probate fees in Ontario are a tax. In making its decision, two key points were raised by the court: first, fees must be directly related to the actual cost of providing a service, otherwise they are a tax; and second, taxes must be imposed by an act of the legislative body, not by regulation.

We need to encourage innovation in Canada. For example, we need to ensure that in line with our environmental and health related commitments, new products coming out on the pharmaceutical and chemical markets which are more effective and less toxic receive timely turnaround and can be introduced on the Canadian market to encourage people to use safer products.

Moreover, it is imperative that we take into consideration how we measure up internationally and this bill would require that the departments that wanted to charge a new fee or raise an existing one benchmark it against the country's major trading partners. If a department overshot its timeline to complete the work by more than say 10%, it would start to lose its fee on a sliding scale.

About five years ago our finance critic, the member for Kings—Hants, brought forward the same kind of issue. He argued that the government ought to implement its regulatory budget parallel to the traditional spending budget which would detail estimates of the total cost of each individual regulation. The PC finance critic supported a risk benefit analysis of each regulation to enable a cost benefit analysis of regulations for parliamentarians.

The bill we have before us today differs somewhat in substance but it retains the same important philosophy. Because of that, we support the bill in principle.

[Government Policies, September 18th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the drawn-out Liberal leadership race will waste millions of dollars because we continue to hear from his supporters that the new Liberal leader will be changing legislation on the marijuana bill, same sex marriage, aboriginal governance and heaven knows what else. That being the case, the current work of this Parliament and even the Supreme Court could all be a waste of time and money.

Why are the Liberals showing such contempt for public funds and due process?

[Supply, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I recently read a very informative, insightful and well thought out column by Richard Gwyn which I do not know if any other members read. He said:

Now that the law is to be amended to legalize marriages between same-sex couples, in what way is an intimate relationship between a man and two women or between two men and a woman...less deserving of being recognized as a legitimate marriage?

He went on to say:

[It] is wrong only to assume implicitly that the current change--permitting same-sex marriages--will be the last change...

At some point, a marriage will cease to be a marriage in any recognizable sense of that term.

I want to ask the member if we are not running the risk of destroying the institution of marriage entirely. What is the member's opinion that same sex marriage is indeed a contradiction in terms, that marriage is a heterosexual relationship, is a unique form of sexual expression and is necessary to procreation?

[Community Activity Support Fund, September 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words on Motion No. 393:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should make available to Members a support fund for community activities in each of their ridings.

I feel this matter probably deserves a bit of serious consideration, and of course I would be pleased if this issue could be sent to an appropriate parliamentary committee maybe to work out the snags and flaws that could be inherent in the motion itself.

In the meantime, I want to make a few observations. We have 301 members in the House of Commons and decision making powers and authority currently rests with the Prime Minister and the cabinet of the country. Money is spent in the ministry through departmental programs which are generally operated by bureaucrats according to a fixed formula and fixed spending criteria. That is the way it should be done and that is the way it is done in every province in Canada and here at the federal level as well.

However, we have to recognize that in that process not everyone is well served. Many community organizations from around the provinces and the country often do not meet program criteria. As a result of that, they very often cannot access public funds. Given the billions of dollars spent on an annual basis by the federal government, such criteria and procedures are of course necessary for the protection of the public purse.

We have seen in the House of Commons, over the last couple of years in particular, how HRDC funding has been allocated. We have seen a number of scandals in the Department of Human Resources Development and what happens when politicians meddle in the provision of regular government spending and funding. Bureaucratic procedures are very often short-circuited and program criteria, as in the case of HRDC, are often ignored and were ignored. This was brought to the floor of the House of Commons, and we are all very much aware of it. Direct involvement by politicians in current funding programs has led to scandalous behaviour and many heated exchanges in the House of Commons. Last year was a typical example where the Prime Minister himself got involved in calling certain government officials to have funding approved for his own riding.

Obviously we cannot have bureaucrats or politicians passing out grants willy-nilly. On the other hand, we have to ask ourselves as well if worthy causes and community organizations should be shut out completely, as they very often are. Maybe this motion points to a way in which we could have the best of both worlds.

To cite an example of where this way of funding certain community organizations has worked, I can point to my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador where it had a system in the house of assembly that allowed MHAs, known as MLAs here, to use public funds to support community organizations and activities. Each MHA was allocated about $10,000 annually. Standard application forms were developed which applicants could submit to their MHA. The actual payment of the grant was done by a department designated by cabinet to be a line department for these applications. I believe the system was in effect up until a couple of years ago. I gather it is no longer in use although my colleague from St. John's West tells me it is.

In any event, I am not aware of any major outcry or major scandal arising from that program. As far as I know, it worked very well, and probably is working very well if it is still in effect.

Another factor would be the cost of that program. The Alliance members have some very legitimate concerns with the cost of the program. As I said earlier, each MHA in my province was given approximately $10,000 for distribution. In the 48 seat house of assembly that would come to about $480,000 annually. A $10,000 allocation to each of the 301 MPs would come to approximately $3 million. It is not an unreasonable sum but one would have to ask, in the federal riding, if that would be enough money. I think one would have to go a bit higher.

My current federal riding and most Newfoundland federal ridings, including I guess the member for Gander—Grand Falls, would have a riding that encompasses 10 or 11 provincial ridings. We have a much larger population to service, so a $10,000 allocation may be kind of low. Perhaps if the appropriate parliamentary committee had a chance to look at it and at some of the federal ridings across the country that could benefit from it, maybe we could have a $100,000 allocation that would go to each federal member.

We would have to know a little more about the motion itself. The motion seems to be a little vague in that community activities are not really defined in any particular way or what kind of organization might be able to avail of this kind of funding. As well, there might be a very real danger that a fund like this could be mismanaged, if MPs themselves exercised any authority on the allocation of funds. We know what happens when politicians get involved in the actual allocation of the funding. It has the potential to be abused and misused. Therefore there might be a real danger of mishandling the fund if politicians become involved in the allocation of the funds themselves.

Would there be, for instance, any partisan influence in the decisions? If there is to be no partisan influence, then the bureaucracy would have to be involved. Are we creating another program for the bureaucrats to administer? Many questions need to be answered before we get down to the business of approving this motion.

What guarantees would there be that MPs on the government side would not have any kind of special influence in the allocation of the funds and how could we ensure that all MPs, if they were to be involved, would have any kind of equal representation in the allocation of the funds?

I think it is fair to say that we could support the motion depending on what the finished product might be, depending on reasonable allocations being made to the fund, and not having it so low that the fund could be almost useless in itself, and depending as well that every MP would have equal influence in the allocation of the funds.

Maybe MPs should not have any influence in the allocation of funds because they do not do a very good job. Politicians generally do not do a very good job when they are able to influence the spending of government money. We should have very clear criteria established. To that end, I would support the motion going to a parliamentary committee to be fleshed to see what could be done to make it happen.

[Petitions, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by a number of people from various parts of Canada who say that non-embryonic stem cells, known also as adult stem cells, have shown significant research progress without the immune rejection or ethical problems associated with embryonic stem cells.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary to treat the illnesses and diseases of suffering Canadians.

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, that would be a question more aptly put on the agenda for the government. I certainly do not know why there would be tax relief for one and not for the other. I do know that we need the federal government heavily involved with municipalities if we are going to fund some of the larger infrastructure projects in the country. I made reference a little while back to the fixed link.

We have often looked at having a fixed link from Newfoundland and Labrador across the Strait of Belle Isle. I do not believe we can fund these kinds of projects unless the federal government is fully involved with a commitment to ongoing funding for municipal infrastructure.

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, one of the main problems we would have with the motion is it would be very difficult to build the kind of structure whereby the federal government created tax room for the provincial government to implement its own taxes.

As I said a few minutes ago, dedicated taxes have a tendency to go on for ever and ever. I do not know if the hon. member was in his place when I mentioned it, but Newfoundland had a cottage hospital tax shortly after Confederation. When I served in government back in the 1980s, the old cottage hospital tax was still in place and only was eliminated sometime in the 1980s. They have a tendency to go on for ever and ever.

To have dedicated taxes wherein the provincial government would take the taxes from gasoline would in no way guarantee that the federal government would not continue to raise taxes on gasoline over time. I do not think it is the way to go about it. Municipalities have to be better involved in the budgetary process at the federal level. The federal government needs to be a full partner in assisting municipalities in dealing with the costs associated with meeting the infrastructure needs.

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Cumberland—Colchester.

The Canadian Alliance motion states that Canada's infrastructure needs should be met with stable funding. Of course we can all agree that Canada's infrastructure needs should be met with stable funding, but the motion goes on to call upon the federal government to reduce its own tax on gasoline in return for negotiating a deal with the provinces, where each province would then introduce a new tax to fund its own infrastructure needs. On that particular point, I think I am safe in saying that we profoundly disagree with the motion. We think it would be complicated. It would be a convoluted way to get moneys to fund infrastructure in Canada.

One of the main problems with the motion has to do with dedicated taxes. Simply put, I believe that dedicated taxes are not the Canadian way. In our system tax revenues from all sources go into one pot and the government allocates expenditures on its priorities from that one big communal pot. Dedicated taxes are often used in the United States. Such taxes are useful when they are used probably to fund a specific project.

However, our national infrastructure requirements are varied and they are ongoing as well. Older infrastructure needs to be replaced or upgraded. New and more modern infrastructure has to be constantly built. That situation requires an ongoing commitment to maintaining and building infrastructure. It is something that should be met, we are of the firm opinion, with leadership from the federal government and cost shared funding from the federal treasury, not dedicated taxes.

A number of years ago we in Newfoundland and Labrador had a cottage hospital tax to help fund health care in rural areas of Newfoundland and Labrador in the early days after we came into Confederation. That tax was still around, believe it or not, when I served in the provincial government back in the 1980s.

That dedicated tax was used to fund part of the health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, the old cottage hospital. That dedicated tax was still around back in the 1980s. Dedicated taxes have a tendency to stay around, to hang on forever and to grow and grow regardless of whether or not they are currently serving the purpose for which they were implemented.

As I said a moment ago, there are very big infrastructure needs in this nation, projects of a size and scope that demand federal involvement at the financial level, at the federal-provincial agreement level. Some very big projects have happened in the nation. The fixed link between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick was a very big project. I do not know if a project like that could be funded without some kind of federal-provincial agreement, not a dedicated tax.

Passing the taxation power down to the provinces and expecting the provinces, each with its own agenda and priorities, to build something of a national nature is doomed to failure. More important, from the point of view of the House, it is an abdication of our responsibilities in nation building and is the main reason that we would not support this motion.

We have always had very good success with federal-provincial agreements. All it takes is more agreements and a greater commitment by the federal government to fund these agreements between the two levels of government.

The motion brings into contrast some of the main differences in philosophy between our party and other parties in the House. One sometimes gets the impression that the Alliance in this particular case believes that government is the main problem and is not part of the solution. We believe that government at the federal level has to be part of the solution. In this motion it readily gives up its national responsibilities in favour of devolving taxing and spending powers to the provinces.

Our party, on the other hand, recognizes that most Canadians do not look upon their government as the enemy, that they expect their government to play a role in making their communities and their country a better place in which to live. Canadians want their federal government to play a leadership role through cooperative agreements. Federal-provincial agreements have worked very well in the past.

The Alliance motion does not lead; it passes the buck. Better put, it passes the power to raise and to spend the buck. If we had the kind of system that the motion encourages, as I said, small provinces like Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland and Labrador would not have the capability to fund the larger projects like the fixed link in Prince Edward Island.

Canadians these days are feeling the effect of our country existing in a leadership vacuum. We need leadership in building our infrastructure. We need leadership in building the health care system. SARS and the mad cow crises have shown just how absent federal leadership has been in our country. We need leadership in maintaining and developing our national transportation and our municipal infrastructure needs.

Canadians today can sense the drift in the focus of their national government. They need leadership like never before in this very troubled world of ours. Yet what is the official opposition response? Its response is to let the provinces handle it.

Instead of embracing the challenges of rebuilding our national infrastructure system, I think what we are looking at in the motion is a way of passing the buck on to the provinces. This should not mean that the federal government should be going it alone. The federal government has to work in partnership with the provinces and the municipalities to rebuild our national infrastructure. That is not an easy task in the kind of diverse federal nation that we have. Then again, leadership in Canada has never been easy. If there are serious imbalances in the taxing and spending powers of our national, provincial and municipal governments, this is something we should look at globally in concert with the provinces. Shifting around responsibility on a tax by tax basis is only a recipe for trouble and confusion.

I do not believe we should be passing the buck in this regard. We need to be taking the bull by the horns and getting on with the job of making Canada a beacon in an often dark world.

I believe we can achieve our municipal infrastructure objectives much better with the use of federal-provincial agreements than we can by dedicated taxes.