Mr. Speaker, I have three other petitions from my constituents who pray that parliament withdraw Bill C-23, affirm the opposite sex definition of marriage in legislation and ensure that marriage is recognized as a unique institution.
Lost his last election, in 2000, with 34% of the vote.
Petitions April 3rd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I have three other petitions from my constituents who pray that parliament withdraw Bill C-23, affirm the opposite sex definition of marriage in legislation and ensure that marriage is recognized as a unique institution.
Petitions April 3rd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I would like to present two petitions on behalf of my constituents who pray that parliament take all measures necessary to ensure that possession of child pornography remains a serious criminal offence.
Fisheries And Oceans April 3rd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, this minister takes my questions as seriously as he takes our wharves. It is a joke.
Our wharf infrastructure is crumbling. I already mentioned a number of wharves in my riding that were decimated by a January 21 storm. Many others are in serious need of repair.
When will the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans realize that our fishing communities need proper wharfing facilities if they are to continue to provide this very valuable service to our Canadian economy?
Fisheries And Oceans April 3rd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans recently announced record high fish exports totalling $3.7 billion for 1999. This confirms what I have consistently said in the House about the importance of the fishing industry to Canada's economy.
Given the tremendous success, can the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans explain why his government has reduced funding to small craft harbours by almost 50% since taking office, putting at risk our local wharf infrastructure?
Gun Registry March 30th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court of Canada is now deliberating the legality of the government's controversial gun control legislation. This follows a challenge that was launched by a number of provincial and territorial governments, including my home province of Nova Scotia.
The challenge was launched on the grounds that the registration provisions of the Firearms Act are an invasion of provincial jurisdiction over property and civil rights.
The Liberal gun registry is nothing less than a colossal waste of taxpayers' money. The legislation will not reduce crime in Canada. Those intent on committing crimes are not going to register their firearms. If anything, the gun registration process punishes responsible gun owners.
The Liberal government said the new gun registry would cost $85 million. To date costs have exceeded $300 million. I ask myself how much safer would our streets be today if the government had invested the money in more policing rather than wasting it on the registry.
It is time the government acknowledged its costly mistake and repealed this useless gun registry.
Petitions March 29th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 and on behalf of a number of my constituents I would like to present a petition.
The petitioners ask parliament to withdraw Bill C-23, affirm the opposite sex definition of marriage in legislation and ensure that marriage is recognized as a unique institution.
Fisheries March 29th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans whether he would be prepared to provide emergency funding for wharfs between Port Lorne and Delaps Cove. To my pleasant surprise he responded that he had personally visited those wharves and that he had already announced money to fix them.
What wharves did the minister visit in my riding and how much additional funding is he going to provide for Delaps Cove, Hampton, Port Lorne, Margaretsville and Parker's Cove wharves?
Fisheries March 28th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, Canada's wharfs have been neglected by the government for years.
Is the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans prepared to commit in the House today to provide emergency funding to repair the wharves between Port Lorne and Delaps Cove which were severely damaged by a severe winter storm on January 21st?
The Budget March 27th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in the budget debate. I do so with a deep sense of regret and disappointment. I say disappointment because like most Canadians I believe the Liberal government missed a great opportunity to provide all Canadians with the significant tax relief they so richly deserve after years of suffering and making concessions to bring the country's deficit under control.
Over the past couple of years the finance minister has told Canadians that the country is now in a surplus position when it comes to its finances. In normal circumstances this would be reason to celebrate if Canadians were allowed to reap some of those benefits. Instead they are provided with very modest tax relief which in many ways will be felt somewhere down the road in three or four years from now.
Canadians can no longer afford to wait much longer. They deserve significant tax relief now. All Canadians are aware of the billions of dollars of surplus in the EI program. The PC party has consistently called for a significant reduction in the EI premiums. We have suggested lowering the premiums down to $2 which is the level for long term stability recommended by the fund's chief actuary.
Although the government would have us believe that Canadian workers are beneficiaries of some EI premium reductions since it took power, it seems to forget that any decreases in the EI premium were basically washed away by the increase in CPP premiums. That is not acceptable.
The finance minister knows that high payroll taxes kill jobs, as my hon. colleague just mentioned. We saw it and history shows it, yet we are not doing anything about it. The Minister of Finance once referred to high unemployment insurance premiums as a cancer killing tax on jobs. What has happened to suddenly change the finance minister's way of thinking? Why does he maintain these artificially high EI premiums rather than immediately reduce them to $2? That was recommended by the chief actuary.
Canada has the highest personal income taxes among the G-7 and the second highest corporate tax rate in the OECD. Naturally, Canadians expected to hear about significant tax breaks in the finance minister's budget. When the smoke and mirrors cleared away, Canadians still found themselves with the highest personal income tax rate in the G-7 and the second highest corporate tax rate in the OECD. As a member of parliament representing a part of the country in this hallowed institution, I do not feel proud of that.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has criticized the budget for failing to narrow the income tax gap between Canada and the U.S. The huge gap is already responsible for the tremendous brain drain which has and will continue to affect Canadian productivity. We cannot continue to lose our most educated and brightest minds to our American competitors.
A recent study by a senior researcher at the Conference Board of Canada confirmed that there was a significant increase in the number of permanent and non-permanent skilled emigrants to the U.S. It went from 17,000 in 1986 to 98,000 in 1997. Many of the emigrants are in the high tech and health care fields. There is nothing in the budget that is going to stay the exodus of our brightest minds in the future.
Why should Canadians celebrate this budget? The budget will do very little to alleviate the problem facing most of Canada's university students. Already the average debt for an undergraduate degree from a Canadian university is approximately $25,000 and when we tack on interest it gets to $40,000. That is a mortgage on a young person's life which is not acceptable. It will restrict that young person's ability to go ahead in the future and do something worthwhile. Instead of putting something back into the economy, he or she will be repaying that huge debt and will be burdened by it for a long time. That is not acceptable.
Michael Conlon of the Canadian Federation of Students said that the finance minister's budget all but ensured that tuition fees for post-secondary education in Canada would continue to rise. In Nova Scotia our students already pay some of the highest fees in the country. It is time for action before we lose more of our most valuable minds and well-educated people.
As my hon. colleague said, the decision to provide a one time $2.5 billion supplement to the Canada health and social transfer payment for education and health care over four years falls far short of what was expected by those institutions and what is required to help maintain them. Following the budget announcement, the Canadian Medical Association said that the one time $2.5 billion amount was insufficient to deal with the growing crisis in medicare. With an aging society and rising technological costs, the small cash infusion will not address our health care needs.
According to the CMA, Canada loses approximately 400 doctors a year to the U.S. Calls for a $6 billion increase in transfer payments over a four year period to help fund much needed new medical technology have been ignored by the government in lieu of the $2.5 billion announced in the recent budget. The government's failure to address the immediate needs of an ailing health care system simply provides further reasons for doctors to seek better opportunities elsewhere.
We have heard a lot recently about the possibility of having a two tier health care system in Canada. We certainly do not want to see such a system. The federal government is slowly trying to push our provincial governments in that direction because of its serious lack of commitment to the funding of Canada's health care system.
At one time the federal government was contributing to health care at the rate of 50%. Now only 13 cents of every dollar spent on health care in Canada comes from the federal government. Health care in the country is declining and the $2.5 billion over the next four years will do nothing or very little to rectify this serious situation. Canadians demand a far greater financial commitment to health care than what they have seen thus far from the Liberal government.
Just a few minutes ago I listened to my hon. colleague the secretary of state for rural development talk about rural communities. I represent West Nova which is predominantly a rural community.
On January 21 a severe winter storm hit a stretch of coastline and affected some five wharves between Port Lorne and Delaps Cove. These wharves were severely damaged, wharves that had been neglected over the years by the federal government. They did not have adequate upkeep because of lack of funding. Some of these wharves were damaged beyond repair.
What was the answer to the repair question? When it was asked for emergency relief the government said it was going to repair the wharves within the existing budget instead of providing the needed emergency relief. Wharves that should have been repaired this year and which were on a priority list will now not be repaired because the funds will be diverted to those wharves that were severely damaged.
The government is neglecting our rural communities. I find it difficult when I hear my hon. colleague stand and say he supports rural communities. It is not so. The Liberals' words say one thing and their actions say something else.
I could go on for days and days about how serious this budget is and how little it does for Canadians, for some of the hardest hit, the poor. The government said it would increase the personal exemption by $100 from $7,200 to $7,300 in one year. In this country those who cannot feed, clothe and house themselves should not be paying tax. That is how I see it.
I could go on but I know my time has expired.
The Budget March 27th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I was quite interested to hear the Secretary of State for Rural Development speak about rural Canada. My riding of West Nova is very rural. On January 21 a severe storm affected five or six wharves along the coastline of Nova Scotia from Port Lorne down to Delaps Cove and areas in between. Because of the severe cuts the federal government had already done to the provinces and to various programs, these wharves were in a state of some disrepair and the storm severely damaged them.
I heard the secretary of state talk about supporting our rural communities. Would he be prepared to encourage the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to put the proper funding in place to repair the wharves, instead of just using the existing budget that is taking away from the ongoing repair that needs to be done? Would he encourage him to put in place some emergency relief by possibly taking some of the millions and millions of dollars wasted on the gun registry and putting it toward the repair of those wharves and, as my colleague mentioned, helping farmers? What does my hon. colleague think of that?