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Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was debate.

Last in Parliament May 2004, as Conservative MP for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot (Ontario)

Won his last election, in 2000, with 41% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1998 April 27th, 1998

Madam Speaker, the member for Portneuf makes the point that the primary jurisdiction in matters of the environment should rest with the provinces. He made this point several times in several ways.

Hamilton is near my riding. Some months past there was a disastrous fire at a company called Plastimet. Thousands of tonnes of recycled plastic in bales went up in flames, right in downtown Hamilton, spilling into the atmosphere dioxins, furans, all kinds of toxic smoke. The fire went on for more than 24 hours. Some people were made sick by the fire. The water table was contaminated and so on. It was a disastrous fire.

As the probe into this fire goes on, it becomes clear that the Ontario government failed in its responsibilities to ensure that the recycling firm was obeying proper standards of protection to make sure such a fire did not occur. Perhaps not in Quebec but certainly in Ontario the Ontario government is withdrawing in every direction from environmental protection. It is getting out of the field entirely. It is cutting money from environmental protection. It is laying off staff and so on.

I would suggest to the member for Portneuf, whom I respect greatly indeed, had the Plastimet fire occurred in Ottawa or in some community next to the Ottawa River, and that smoke had spilled over into Quebec and if those dioxins and that contamination had gone into the Ottawa River, that fire would have affected and poisoned regions in Quebec as well as regions in Ontario.

Given that, I wonder how the member can possibly feel that provincial jurisdiction exclusively held in matters of the environment would be a protection to Quebec when Ontario is abandoning its responsibilities. Does he not agree that a strong national law is precisely what all Canadians need in the event that any province does not fulfil its responsibilities to the environment as is the case in Ontario just now?

Supply April 23rd, 1998

Mr. Speaker, I observe that the government is certainly acting on the situation in this instance. However it is controversial and there are feelings both ways. Even on our side there are some problems.

It cannot be anything but a confidence vote now because of the rhetoric from the other side. I allude to a speech by the leader of the NDP in which she said that the Canadian government now had the opportunity to act with compassion and end the battle being fought by the wounded. Then she said that instead of acting with fairness and justice the government has drawn an arbitrary line, et cetera.

When a government tries to do the right thing and the rhetoric comes from the opposite side saying that the government is acting without principle, there is no choice but to treat the motion as a confidence motion.

Supply April 23rd, 1998

Mr. Speaker, the member made an allusion in his speech that party discipline on this side is governed by a punishment process whereby if we do not align ourselves with the government we may lose the opportunity for a free trip or a position as parliamentary secretary.

I understand from the member that he was a Liberal for 14 years. How many times did he vote against his conscience because he wanted a parliamentary secretary's job or because he was afraid he would lose the opportunity for a free trip? Come to think of it, how many free trips did this member take when he was a member of the Liberal Party?

Supply April 23rd, 1998

Mr. Speaker, I presume from the final remarks of the member that members opposite consider this to be a free vote issue. I would hope that if arguments are presented to them which are cogent they would consider voting with the government when it comes to the test before the House.

I would like to draw the hon. member's attention to an analogy.

In 1986 there is no doubt that the Red Cross should have done something about the blood products because screening procedures were available and the whole issue about liability revolves on the fact that action was not taken at a time when it could have been taken.

However, I would point out to members opposite that there is a clear analogy between having this medical technology available in 1986 and not using it and not having it available to the victims of hepatitis C before 1986.

I draw the hon. member's attention to parallels like the Salk vaccine. Would he propose that those who had polio or who suffered from the consequences of polio should have been compensated by the government when the Salk vaccine was introduced? Is he suggesting that all those who were suffering from the disease before the arrival of the vaccine should have been compensated, even though the vaccine was not available at the time they contracted the disease?

It is exactly the same with insulin. Diabetes was a great killer and a great maimer of people several decades ago. Insulin was discovered by Sir Frederick Banting. It became available. Do we assume that the government is therefore liable to all those people who suffered from the disease before the vaccine was available or before the medical technology was available to address that disease?

Penicillin is a great example. Penicillin was known and available but was not widely used by the medical profession when it could have been the answer to all kinds of diseases of the day. Does it mean because penicillin had been invented but was not widely available in all medical communities that everyone was liable because of something that was not yet in common use?

I hope they listen very carefully because we are coming to exactly the same situation now with antibiotics. The efficiency of antibiotics is deteriorating rapidly. Are we going to hold governments responsible if a specific antibiotic is prescribed for tuberculosis but no longer works? Are we going to hold the government liable for a failure of medical technology?

The government can only be liable when it can affect the outcome, when it can make the wrong decision that creates the liability.

As much as our heart goes out to those suffering who contracted hepatitis C before 1986, the reality is that the government could not have done anything about it at the time and, therefore, the government cannot be held accountable for it, in the same way that the government cannot be held accountable for all the polio victims and all the people suffering from tuberculosis who will not get a result from the vaccine.

Standing Orders And Procedure April 21st, 1998

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to follow the remarks of the member for Mississauga Centre. I too intend to speak on private members' business and I endorse many of the recommendations she made.

I begin by referring to the remarks of the member for Calgary Southwest in his speech a little earlier in this debate. He suggested that the government side could very easily have free votes. His proposal was that individual backbench MPs should always examine legislation and vote exactly according to their evaluation of that legislation and that it should not be a show of lack of confidence in the government.

The problem with that, as the member for Calgary Southwest should know, is that each one of us in the backbench does not have the resources of the government in examining all the legislation the government must put forward. We also have commitments to our ridings. We have commitments and interests and specializations.

No individual backbencher on the government side or on the opposition side for that matter can possibly hope to examine every bit of legislation with the kind of due diligence that is necessary to always vote independently. We have to trust our leadership. I do note on the other side that the opposition MPs also usually trust their leadership and vote with their leadership.

That is not to say however that there is not a need for more independence to be shown on behalf of backbench MPs. I think the solution for that is in improvements in private members' legislation.

One of the problems is that our role as backbench MPs is not seen very clearly by the public. What we actually do is work in committee. We adjust legislation in committee.

Members on the opposition side, and fortunately I am not on the opposition side, but the opposition MPs by their criticisms contribute in a major way to the progress of legislation. Their criticisms enable backbench government members to arm themselves in caucus to push the government in the direction they want to go.

For example, the fact that the Reform Party came to parliament in 1993 in such strength certainly gave some backing to those of us in the Liberal caucus who are fiscal conservatives and wanted to push the Minister of Finance in the direction of cutting back spending and bringing down the deficit. Now there are more members of the New Democratic Party. This gives, shall we say, ammunition to those members in the Liberal caucus who want to push the government in the direction of more social spending.

The opposition makes very important contributions to the progress of policy and legislation in the House. The problem is that the public does not see this. Some opposition members from time to time feel a sense of frustration, as we do occasionally in the backbench when we are not recognized for the efforts we make in committee.

We saw an example yesterday in the opposition benches. A member was terribly frustrated by not getting the attention he felt he deserved. I am referring to the member for Lac-Saint-Jean who felt it was necessary to take his seat out to the lobby before the press in order to get attention. I submit that this was extremely juvenile and a great disrespect to the rest of the MPs who do feel that we are contributing but do not have to pull pranks for the media.

That aside, what can we do as backbench MPs to make the public see that we do have an important role in this House, a role that they can see on a daily if not weekly basis? The solution is in private members' business. We have to expand the opportunities of meaningful private members' business in this House certainly to the extent that the member for Mississauga Centre mentioned but even more so.

There is a great opportunity for private members to engage in amending existing government legislation. One of the problems now in parliament is that when the government enacts legislation it does not come up for review again for approximately 10 years. This is a formula which exists. It is a tradition in this parliament.

The reason is that governments feel there would be a lack of confidence in the government if once the law was passed and went out and was tested in the field, in Canadian society it was found to be inadequate in certain ways. Past governments have been very reluctant to return to the legislation to make the adjustments that would make that law better.

We as parliamentarians cannot anticipate all the problems of legislation when we pass it. When legislation gets out into the community there are inconsistencies. Examples are the tobacco bill, the gun bill and the competition bill. The competition bill is 10 years old and we are only revisiting it now with amendments in Bill C-20.

Private members could play a vital and important role in the legislative life of this House and this nation by doing more to amend existing legislation, to fix it up and make it work better in society. For example the notorious gun bill did go through but is not working. We as members and the government should not be afraid if members on all sides of the House introduce an amendment to the gun bill and support that change. I would propose that we look in that direction to give backbench MPs a more meaningful role.

I would also suggest that we do good service to improve private members' business to take the monopoly of writing legislation away from the Department of Justice. Almost all meaningful legislation that comes into this House is written by the Department of Justice. It is not that the department does a bad job in general but the job is sometimes inconsistent. It is the old story that if there is no competition in an endeavour then the quality of the product deteriorates. If we had better and more meaningful bills coming from private members through the legislative counsel rather than through the justice department maybe we would get an overall improvement in the quality of legislation that actually comes before this House.

How do we do this? The member for Mississauga Centre made one very good suggestion. This is a recommendation of the subcommittee of which she was the chair. She indicated that we ought to have a system whereby if an individual member has a very good bill and the member can obtain the support of 100 seconders on all sides of the House including the opposition benches, that bill should jump the lottery and should get on the order of precedence.

That is a way of getting quality bills introduced in the House by private members. It is a very good suggestion. I hope that the report which contains that recommendation is tabled by the government and I hope the government will show a certain amount of sympathy for doing so.

We also have to make more time for meaningful Private Members' Business. It is difficult to extend the hours of the House. I would suggest that we do away with private members' motions.

Private members' motions do not accomplish anything in the House and we all know it. It is an opportunity for partisan point scoring by the opposition. That is fine and so it should be. Sometimes it is an opportunity for partisan point scoring by members on the government backbenches. The reality is that private members' motions do not commit the government to do anything. It is a charade. I recommend very strongly that private members' motions be set aside in favour of more private members' bills. That is what we want.

There is one flaw in this scenario. It goes back to what the member for Calgary Southwest said. If we give this kind of initiative to backbench MPs will they use it wisely? Will backbench MPs on all sides of the House debate private members' legislation intelligently, coherently and with due diligence? We are all human on both sides of the House and sometimes we do not do our homework. One of the problems of giving a lot more power to private members to create legislation is that occasionally bad bills will slip through.

We have a new role for the Senate. The Senate is dying to have something more useful to do. If we improve the quality of legislation that comes from Private Members' Business and make it meaningful, the Senate will have the time to give it due diligence scrutiny. It would be a new role for the Senate. There would be more public confidence in the Senate. Improving private members' bills would improve public confidence in backbench MPs and in the Senate.

The Senate April 20th, 1998

Mr. Speaker, on the weekend the Leader of the Opposition released to the press the text of the speech he just made today condemning Senate patronage appointments.

A story in this morning's Ottawa Citizen told us that the member for Calgary Southwest was to quote from Oliver Cromwell “Ye have grown odious to the whole nation—are yourselves become the greatest grievance”. That kind of thing.

My picture appears among the 10 who are the target of the member's 17th century rhetoric and I would like to set the record straight. I am the commoner, not the senator. Thus I am sensitive to the context of Cromwell's remarks which the member called “one of the hotest speeches of denunciation ever made in parliament”. What Cromwell was in the process of doing was abolishing parliament. The speech that the Leader of the Opposition saw fit to celebrate today was the maiden speech of England's first and only dictator.

It is not the Senate that is the danger to democracy around here. It is the Leader of the Opposition.

Division No. 112 March 25th, 1998

Madam Speaker, two years ago British Columbia introduced a scheme whereby welfare recipients were required to have lived in the province for at least three months before they were entitled to benefits. This was directly aimed at the poorest sector of the economy, the people who were most in need.

I find it incredible that an NDP government should do something like that, something that would be more typical, shall we say, of California or the western United States.

Nevertheless it was done and it led to quite a confrontation among the NDP government in British Columbia, various poverty organizations and the federal government.

As a result of the NDP action the federal government cut $47 million in transfer payments to B.C. on the grounds that the Canada health and social transfer going to B.C. was aimed at all Canadians, not Canadians based on residency. Indeed this principle is enshrined in the charter of rights, in the Canada Health Act and certainly in the Canada health and social transfer program.

There were some angry words on both sides, but in the end an arrangement was made whereby the British Columbia government backed down and permitted anyone to collect welfare in British Columbia regardless of their province of origin.

Where this has relevance to the debate today is that we have a situation now in Quebec where the Quebec government receives money under the Canada health and social transfer, uses it to provide operating costs and tuition support for students in Quebec and, as of a year and a bit ago, the Quebec government introduced a differential tuition requirement for students out of province.

In Quebec today a student from elsewhere in Canada pays 41% more in tuition to go to a university in Quebec than a Quebec student. Tuition for Quebec universities is quite a bit lower than the rest of the country and this does reflect, indeed, some very wise spending decisions on the part of the Quebec government. However, just like all other forms of cash transfers from the federal government for social assistance, the very essential principle is that it should go to all Canadians regardless of where they are from.

Section 6 of the charter of rights specifies that anything that is accorded Canadian citizens should not be accorded to them or withheld from them based on their province of origin.

We have a Quebec government that is today discriminating against students from outside the province. It keeps young people in Quebec who were born and raised there based on territory and makes attending university in Quebec very difficult for students outside Quebec.

It makes a lot of difference to students. There are 20,000 of them in Quebec who have to pay the extra tuition because they want to go to a Quebec university. It is a difference of $1,200. That is a very high and tough price for a student coming out of province, who may be a francophone, to pay to go to university in Quebec.

What do we do about it? We have several choices. One thing we could do is create a national university in Quebec where it is fully funded by the federal government and where everyone has equal opportunity to go to that university. That is one possibility.

Another thing we could do is what was done in British Columbia and threaten to withhold the transfers that are due Quebec until it allows all students equal opportunity, including those from out of province.

Finally, we can make sure the money in the millennium fund is managed by an independent body outside Quebec and distributed equally to young people who want an education inside Quebec or outside Quebec. In other words, a student going from Ontario to Quebec who is a francophone should be given money from the fund equivalent to what a Quebec student saves. Any student in Quebec should have equal opportunity to travel anywhere in Canada to get an education. That way we get away from the fortress mentality of Quebec separatism and we build a better Canada for tomorrow.

Budget Implementation Act, 1998 March 24th, 1998

Mr. Speaker, when the British North America Act was written and the Fathers of Confederation assigned management of education to the provinces, I do not think they envisaged anything other than that the provinces would treat all Canadian young people equally.

As we heard today in question period—and we had an allusion to it in the member's speech—young people are not treated equally in Quebec. The province of Quebec discriminates against young people from other parts of the country by charging them more for tuition. It costs them more to go to university in Quebec. I do not understand why more is not made of this because it is a clear case of discriminating against people simply based on where they live.

It has nothing to do with culture. A francophone from northern Ontario who tries to go to school in Quebec will be charged more than a young person from Quebec. Yet the Bloc Quebecois is asking for total control of the $2.5 billion in millennium scholarships planned by the federal government.

How can we trust a provincial government that engages in discrimination against young people from other parts of the country who might want to be educated in Quebec?

How can we trust a province that engages in this kind of discrimination to handle the millennium fund, to share it equally with all young people in Canada who are in need? In fact young people in Quebec have an advantage because they pay less. Is it not far better to give it to a federal government which will treat all young Canadians equally?

Reserve Force Act March 23rd, 1998

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this debate.

I looked at the member's proposals very carefully. I have a very genuine concern that I hope he will address in his summing up remarks.

What Bill C-232 does, as I read it, is make it a right for a reservist to have a two month leave of absence annually from the civil service. This is where my concern is.

When we give people a certain right to something, then it changes the entire character of that institution.

My concern is that if the reserve organization fills its complement of soldiers and these soldiers all have a right to a two month leave of absence from their employer, I presume with pay, then there might be a situation where a poorer quality of reservists may stay in the reserve forces. He or she would be guaranteed. He or she does not have to make a sacrifice to stay in the forces because of the mandatory two week leave of absence they get for drilling or service in the militia.

I think it is very dangerous. As I read it, one of the reasons why our reservists have consistently proven to be such fine soldiers wherever they have served is there has been a screening of them as volunteers. They have had to make sacrifices usually in order to belong to the reserve forces. That generally elevates the quality of soldier who serves overseas. I would be afraid that with making mandatory leave would erode the quality of soldier we would have staying in the reserve.

Supply March 17th, 1998

Mr. Speaker, what foolishness this motion is. It has crowded the talk show lines in my riding and people believe that what this is all about is that parliamentarians cannot stand and speak in this House holding the Canadian flag as a symbol.

When I was elected in 1993, I put a Canadian flag pin on my lapel. In all that time, Mr. Speaker, you have never ruled me out of order because I have stood in this House with the Canadian flag pinned on my jacket.

Moreover, from time to time I have risen to speak in this House wearing a tie that had Canadian flags on it and you have never, Mr. Speaker, ruled that out of order.

There are plenty of opportunities to stand and speak in this House wearing a Canadian flag as a symbol.

What is wrong with having a Canadian flag at the desk? Well, we saw it with the Reform member for Medicine Hat. He got angry and took the flag, threw it on the floor and desecrated it. On this side we tried to figure out how to retrieve the flag from the floor of the House of Commons before it was stepped on.

I submit to the member opposite that a flag in the hands of the Reform Party or on a desk may be desecrated. It is safer next to you, Mr. Speaker. Why can he not have on his jacket, as I do, or even on his tie a Canadian flag? Why is that not sufficient for him?