Julian Reed

[Drinking Water Management, May 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the hon. member that Canada has a role to play in terms of a decision regarding the export of drinking water.

At the present time Canada opposes large scale exports of water. The matter in question in Ontario has been referred to the International Joint Commission and we will await the results of its findings.

[Canada Student Loans, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my hon. colleague for the comments he has made about the minister's response to the committee's work on MAI. I point out that it has now been acknowledged by the Council of Canadians and by the Canadian Council of the Arts as a matter of fact that our minister has made the whole process transparent for the first time.

Negotiations over the last 35 or 40 years were always conducted very quietly. It was not because they were private, not because they were close to the vest, but because nobody was really interested in them, not until the Internet came along. Now the Minister for International Trade has realized that the time has come to open up these negotiations and make them painfully transparent so that everybody can be bored by them as they go along over the months and years. Some people are interested and they deserve to know exactly what is happening.

I should point out that the minister has also made it clear that there are reservations which are unassailable. The provisions on the protection of culture, education, aboriginal concerns, our health care, social system and so on, Canada will continue to be master of its own house regardless of what happens.

Just briefly, I point out that because talks have now been set back until October of this year, that does not mean that they are finished or over. They will resume at that time and Canada will continue to make vigorous representations.

[Canada Student Loans, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my friend's information base for the words he is using today is almost a year old. It comes off a draft on the Internet last May. The suppositions that arise from that draft have little relationship to any proposed multilateral agreement on investment.

It is an agreement that Canada is pursuing vigorously because it protects small and medium size business. That is the basic reason. The concept of some megacorporations coming in with a big foot and determining policy would have happened 30 years ago. Canada now has 54 bilateral investment agreements around the world. No one has taken us over. No one has interfered with our health care system, our education system or the way we deal with aboriginal people. Canada is the master of its own house. A multilateral agreement on investment will simply enhance that in years to come.

We want to protect our investors in other countries. They are mostly small and medium size business. They cannot afford a battery of lawyers to follow them around in litigation in the jungle out there. We need rules. We accept rules. We try to persuade other countries to go along with understandable rules so that all of us can benefit from the commerce that results.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we have just seen an example of the disease of selective memory.

About three minutes ago I finished an exchange with a member of the NDP and pointed out that there were 13 governments involved, the provinces and territories. The Reform Party would dearly love to load all the responsibility on to a minister who courageously got the provinces and the territories together to work out some sort of agreement. They came to an agreement and the minister defended that agreement.

There have been some changes made in the minds of some of the provinces. That has opened a window of opportunity.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows the blood system and the processing of blood was in the hands of the provinces and the Red Cross. There was responsibility there.

In order to come to a successful conclusion on this issue every province and territory had to be included. They are part of the answer and their unanimity is absolutely necessary.

I share the feeling of concern for all victims. There is not a member of this House who does not.

The fact is if we are going to come to some successful agreement and conclusion on it, it has to involve not just the federal government by itself but also all of the provinces and territories. Quite frankly in this case there is no other choice.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that the maintenance of the Canada pension plan will be one of the means by which people who are too ill to work, who are totally incapacitated, will be assisted. The Canada pension plan is there for those people. As modest as it is, it is there for those people at any age.

The Reform Party wanted to dismantle the Canada pension plan. We all know that. Today the Canada pension plan is there for those victims of hepatitis C who have lost their ability to work. It is there as a backstop for all of them. Reformers wanted to do away with it.

We will be voting for the NDP motion this afternoon. We support it. The vote is certainly free, as far as I am concerned, because I am perfectly content to vote for the motion.

I hope and pray there is a change taking place in the minds of the provincial and territorial governments. The responsibility rests with them to get together and to come to some decisions that will allow us to move forward on this issue.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

I will never be lost for words defending someone who has shown the courage that the minister has shown over the last five weeks defending the government against the disease of political opportunism.

I spoke about the reversal of policy. The Reform Party must bear the brunt of responsibility for its reversal of policy. The Reform Party uses this issue to try to look good on health care because it knows that the Reform approach to Canada's health care system is not popular. It is strange to see the Reform Party suddenly talking about compassion when the sum total of its policy over the years has been anything but compassion.

Where was the compassion when the Reform Party said it would cut $3.5 billion from social assistance programs? Where was the compassion when it said it would cut $3 billion from old age security and $5 billion from the employment insurance program? Where was the compassion when it said it would cut $3 billion from equalization payments to Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba? Where was the compassion when it said it would dismantle the Canada pension plan and eliminate benefits for both disabled and pregnant women on maternity leave? I point out that the maintenance of the Canada pension plan—

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have been called worse by better.

I point out that my minister brought this issue to the table when the previous government wanted to cover it up. It did not want him to do anything because it knew it would be contentious.

At first the provinces and territories would not engage in a dialogue on any kind of compensation. Finally the minister got them together and they agreed on the package that he came back to the House with, which he has defended.

I would suggest that the Minister of Health who has been castigated in this place for the last five weeks is a hero for doing that. He is a hero for taking a position of leadership that previous governments would not take.

The selective memory loss of the opposition is simply a refusal to acknowledge that there were other governments involved in the agreement. There were 13 provinces and territories involved in those decisions. When governments began to hang the minister out to dry, starting with the premier of the province of Quebec and spreading from there, it was—I wonder why I stop speaking when the hon. member interjects. I really should keep going.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

I am sorry my hon. friend feels so sensitive about it.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, this debate is taking place in the light of a change of mind or a change of heart by the province of Ontario. According to news reports it has changed its mind three times in the last four or five days.

I would caution all members of this House that the changing of the mind of one province does not an agreement make. The NDP Government of British Columbia has been steadfast in refusing to budge on this issue. At this date we do not know what the chairman of the committee of ministers, the minister of health for Saskatchewan, is going to say in response to that change of mind by the province of Ontario.

Our minister, in response to Ontario's change, has agreed to meet once again. There are some very good reasons for that. The fact is that the decision which was brought to this House was the decision of 13 provincial and territorial governments. That message has got to be made very clearly. When our Minister of Health was standing to defend that decision, he defended an agreement of 13 territorial and provincial governments.

During the last five weeks there has been a disease in this House. It is a disease called political opportunism. That disease has some symptoms that are clear. The first one is selective memory loss. You forget part of the story and only tell half the story, and that becomes the case. The second symptom is failure to recognize where responsibility really lies. The third is, in many cases, a complete reversal of party policies in order to exploit this tragedy.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that had it not been for the Minister of Health this issue would never have reached the table. The previous—