Julian Reed

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell the Reform Party a little story.

In 1975 I was elected to the Ontario legislature and served for ten years. Because I was self-employed, when I retired I assumed it would be a very simple process to pick up the pieces where I had left off and re-enter the career I had left. However, I discovered it took four years to regenerate the income level I had prior to my retirement from public life. I suggest to members of the Reform Party that unless they are farmers the transition back to private life will not be nearly as simple as it seems. I say that with all sincerity. I say that to defend the pension plan and the pension reform.

Why do we have a pension plan at all? We could accept the $150,000 a year the member for Calgary Centre is proposing. I am sure the people of Canada are not ready to embrace that concept. I suppose if all members of the House wanted to accept that salary and do away with the pension plan entirely I have no complaints. We can do it that way.

The pension plan was set up to ease the return to private life, and also the severance package members get at the end of their service. It was done to recognize we are here generally during the highest earning years of our life. The longer we are here and the older we get, the more difficult it is to resume the practice we had before.

We could take this right to the extreme. We could return to the old ways when members did not get paid at all, no pension. The requirement was that one had to be independently wealthy to serve or one had to have a patron. I am not sure the people of Canada are ready for patronage of that kind again. That is the way it was.

The idea of a pension plan was to allow people of modest means to participate in the life of the country. It was no longer then the sole preserve of the elite.

Right now there are approximately 600 former members of the House. Approximately 400 never qualified for any kind of pension whatsoever. They did not serve long enough to qualify. The pension is being delivered to approximately 200 former members of the House.

The Reform Party criticized the plan on one hand and on the other hand some of its representatives, at least one for use, said do the same thing another way, in spades, $150,000 a year. It is interesting but we cannot walk both sides of the street on this issue.

I am a strong supporter of pension plans for members of Parliament for the reasons I have outlined. Whether the package is too rich is a matter of debate. We decided it should be modified somewhat. We also decided it was essential to preserve it. Sooner or later all of us here will not be here any more. All of us will face a new reality as we go on to resume our lives or go on to new lives.

All the populist rhetoric in the world does not allow us to escape from that reality. I know it has been very popular to zero in on MP perks, as they are called. I have not found any yet but I am still looking. It annoys me to no end. The reality is if pensions are done away with the next generation of members will make a decision based on whether there is security at the end of its tenure. If there is limitation on the availability of standing for election the quality of governing will decline remarkably.

It was done for a reason. We have taken a lot of brickbats because the pension plan exists. I think that is due to a general lack of understanding of the reality. There is even a lack of understanding that the pension plan as we have it is contributory, that we actually contribute a portion of our own salaries to the plan.

I support the bill we are debating today. I support the changes being made. However, I think we should all very seriously consider the realities of life and not just the populism that we think everyone wants to hear.

[Sustainable Development, May 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Resources.

Today at noon a group representing all parties in the House met with the forest industry for a very interesting hour. The subject of sustainable development was raised.

I would like the minister to tell the House to date how the government has addressed the subject of sustainable development.

[Grandparent Year Act, May 2nd, 1995]

moved that Bill C-291, an act respecting a national year of the grandparent, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, the next hour is an opportunity for the House to set aside partisan differences, to show our appreciation and to demonstrate the value of grandparents in the family unit.

Most of us have had the honour of knowing one living grandparent at one time or another. Most of us who have a family will have had the pleasure and the reassurance of having grandparents for our children.

As a very young boy and until I became an adult I had a grandfather who was a pillar of my existence. My own children had the privilege of having three living grandparents and one great-grandfather. The value they brought to our family was the same value brought to all families by grandparents.

By virtue of their more senior years, grandparents have many abilities that young parents do not have and contribute many things to the strength of the family. They show the way to young children more by example than by the things they say. They have an accumulated wisdom they pass on, which young parents do not have. Whether we call it osmosis or however it is passed on to younger people, it is done by example.

Grandparents have experience. Young people can ask them questions and they give answers based on experience, very often based on more experience than that of their parents. Naturally grandparents bring love into the family, the great common denominator that binds us together.

Grandparents express by example tolerance and teach us tolerance as children. That is particularly fitting at a time in history when the family unit seems to be virtually under attack from every corner. When grandparents are not available to provide strength and to provide enrichment, we know the results.

The grandparents of my children were of tremendous help to my wife and I as young parents with a young family. Perhaps we utilized their services more than we should have from time to time. However, I do believe that they accepted the challenges of looking after our family with grace and dignity when we needed them. It was always a pleasure and an adventure for our children to spend time with their grandparents. They helped a great deal to enrich our family and they contributed a great deal to family strength.

I know there is a cliché that has been in vogue for a few years, which is the phrase family values. Often family values and what they really mean get hackneyed very badly. But if ever there was an expression of family values and what that means, and certainly what that means to me, it is expressed very much through grandparents and what they mean to the family. They enrich our lives in so many ways, and we pay them honour here today.

I would be remiss if I did not pay tribute to the person who prompted me to bring this bill before the House. Her name is Bubbie Schwarz. Bubbie, as you might know, Madam Speaker, is the Jewish term of endearment for grandmother. Bubbie Schwarz is a television personality in the Toronto area who has a program for senior citizens. It was at her urging that this bill be brought before the House to declare 1995 as the year of the grandparent.

My grandparents are gone now. My grandfather passed away in 1963. But the influence he had on my life was as strong as the influence of my own father and mother. As I spent time with him, in the summers particularly, when school was out, and lived with him I was exposed to his code of conduct, his code of performance, the way he lived his life. A great deal of it rubbed off on me-at least the good parts of it did, I hope; the negative parts I created myself.

Our children had the benefit of a great-grandfather who actually lived with us for a number of years before at the age of 96 he decided he would go to western Canada and spend the rest of his years with his son. Our daughter grew up on his knee for the first eight years of her life.

We look back on our grandparents and on my children's grandparents with great fondness, with great respect, and a straight sense of the value they brought to our family. I feel badly for people who did not have that experience. Many people did not have a living grandparent in their lives and have had to be without that special kind of support they provide.

It is also fair to put on the record today the fact that because of the splitting of families and because of the divorce rate and so on, many grandparents are finding it increasingly difficult to access their own grandchildren. This is a serious mistake, because it denies the grandchildren that opportunity to receive the strength by the example they set.

I hope that by debating this today, as the issue of grandparents and access to their grandchildren becomes more of an issue, which it is at the present time, we will remember what our grandparents meant to us, what they mean to us, and what they should mean to their grandchildren, especially those who are involved in the break-up of a marriage where custody is given to one parent. In Canada there is no joint custody capability, and sometimes rancour, division, and bitterness cloud the break-up. Grandparents can really make a difference and add strength.

I ask the House to consider that. I realize that to speak on a subject like this probably arouses emotions in all of us, which we are not used to experiencing in a place like this. But they are important emotions. It is very important to get the message across that we support the completeness of the family and the bringing together of all the generations and making sure that they are all together. With the stresses we have on family life today, I can think of very few more important things to do in strengthening the family than to make sure that grandparents and great-grandparents and maybe some of the extended family, like great-uncles and aunts, are very much revered, honoured, and accepted as a part of the family unit. We must be aware that

when we make laws in this House those laws must reflect that respect and desire to keep the family strong and together.

It is a great honour for me to say these few words today on behalf of grandparents. I thank the House for arranging the time for this debate. It is not the most usual issue to be raised in this place, but I do consider it very important. I hope this will underline our view of the family and our view of the senior people in the family, who have done so much and continue to do so much for all of us.

[Biodiesel Fuel, March 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in the red book the Liberal government made a commitment to reducing carbon dioxide levels in Canada by 20 per cent by the year 2005. In December of last year the government took a big step toward meeting this target by introducing the national biomass ethanol program which has encouraged large scale production of ethanol.

The ethanol task force was encouraged by this commitment and is now focusing its efforts on promoting new renewable

fuels such as diesel fuel made from vegetable oil. Biodiesel has already established a large market in Germany and France. The Canadian mining industry has shown interest in using the fuel underground due to a lack of harmful emissions.

Biodiesel also holds the advantage of being 100 per cent biodegradable. If it spills, costly environmental cleanups are unnecessary.

I hope the government will respond to renewable diesel fuel with the same enthusiasm it did with ethanol.

[Firearms Act, March 27th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, almost everything has been said about this very troublesome piece of legislation.

I listened with concern and share the concerns of the hon. member for Souris-Moose Mountain. I listened to the concerns and share the concerns of the hon. deputy whip. I listened to the statistical projections of the hon. member from the Reform Party. I do not know whether there are many more details to add to the debate. I will add a few and then make a few points.

I do not know that every concern regarding registry has been addressed. There is still the concern about weapons that have no serial number, weapons that are home-made. There are still some people whose hobby it is to manufacture firearms and ammunition. I have not seen anything in the bill which covers that.

It was pointed out to me the other day by one of my constituents that serial numbers can overlap, that there can be the same serial number on more than one weapon if there are two licensed manufacturers of the same model of firearm. I put those forward as a concern.

Other concerns about the issue of confiscation and so on, about the provision for firearms that have special significance for families to be preserved, will be addressed in the justice committee. Handguns in prohibited classes will be addressed in the justice committee. Firearms used in re-enactments and heritage events will be definitely addressed in the heritage committee.

I have asked for time to address that committee in order to highlight some of those concerns.

I also realize that registry is an issue that is larger than individual weapons, unless I misread the bill. The registry goes beyond individual ownership and gives the government the right to have other weapons in transition registered so that the law enforcement people will be able to calculate the shrink that comes from a shipment of weapons into the country.

I will restate what many other members have pointed out. The bill has three legs. One leg has to do with the smuggling of guns and the attack on smugglers. I think everyone agrees with that. Regardless of whether we are Reform members, rural members or urban members we all very much agree. We all appreciate some of the stepped up activity of the police, especially around the area where I live. Recently they have been able to seize large quantities of weapons.

The second leg is the question of sentencing, the imposition of a four-year mandatory sentence. With the imposition and with the moves the Minister of Justice will make on the issue, I sincerely hope the offence will not be plea bargained away in the future as has been done in the past. I find the plea bargain aspect offensive in itself.

The third leg concerns registry and the other aspects of firearms ownership. I have concerns. It has been painful to go through the exercise, but I point out to those who are opposed to registry that every law made in the country is in one way or another an infringement of rights.

Laws are not made for the vast majority of law-abiding citizens but are made for the few. There is no dichotomy here with the laws regarding guns. These laws are brought into being for the few who have no regard for human life, who lose regard for human life, or who want to use a firearm to commit a crime and have no conscience about doing so.

I plead with those who are opposed to consider that laws concerning robbery, laws concerning theft and laws concerning speeding are not made for the many. They are written to protect the many from the few. I must go on record as saying that there is no right to bear arms in Canada. Ownership of firearms in the country is a privilege and not a right. We should always remember that.

With the struggle I have personally had as a member with the bill and my struggle with the conviction that a registry will be effective, I do not want to throw out the baby with the bath water.

I want to see the legislation go to committee to be amended without affecting the principle of the bill necessarily but injecting some common sense and projections into the bill so that legitimate firearms owners will feel comfortable and that the sacrifices they are making will be made in the spirit of protection of the many.

[The Budget, March 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the record. I am sure the hon. member did not mean it when he said that it was the Reform Party's objective to do away with the debt in three years. I am sure he meant deficit.

Before the hon. member becomes overly defensive about fuel taxes and the impact on Alberta, he should also remember the tax expenditures that go to the oil patch and have gone there over many years. I do not have a figure for last year but I know thatin 1990 the tax expenditures to the oil patch totalled about$850 million. It is only fair to put some of these things intoperspective.

There has always been an element that would like to privatize the CBC. Most people who think that way think of Canada as a long narrow strip of land that ends at about 150-200 miles north of the American border.

Historically the CBC has been one of the ties that have bound Canada together. No private investor would put a repeater station at Wawa, Ontario, for instance, or be broadcasting to the most remote parts of the country. That is what the CBC does.

The people of Canada pay for that service through their taxes so that every Canadian can feel included and a part of this country. If we were to privatize the CBC, what would inevitably happen would be those unprofitable areas of broadcasting would of necessity have to disappear if station was to show black ink at the end of the day.

I would suggest to the hon. member the CBC does perform a very valuable function. The money can be spent more wisely.

[The Budget, February 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am very curious to know what kind of discombobulated crystal ball my friend had that he looks into and is able to predict the future four or five years down the road.

I expect he predicted the decline of the Mexican peso. I suspect four years ago he predicted an anticipation of feared inflation in the United States which would raise interest rates.

I expect he must know the answer to when the budget will be balanced ultimately. The minister has taken a position, right or wrong, that he wanted to do it in two-year leaps, in two-year packages, for the simple reason that he had a better chance of predicting what was going to happen in that time.

As we all know, they did not all pan out the way they had been originally predicted. By what curious vision does my hon. friend express the question or bring the challenge to the government that somehow we should be able to say in x number of months or x number of years the budget will be ultimately balanced? My friend may be surprised that it may end up being balanced before both he and I expect.

I would like to know how he projects into the future in the way he seems to be doing.

[National Biomass Ethanol Program, February 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on December 21, 1994, the National Biomass Ethanol Program was announced committing up to $70 million in contingent loan guarantees to ethanol producers.

On behalf of the ethanol task force, I wish to thank the Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Minister of the Environment for their commitment to making domestic ethanol production a reality.

This program has already inspired nearly $300 million in private investment for two ethanol plants in Ontario alone. These plants are expected to create 1,500 construction jobs, 150 permanent jobs and add $175 million annually to the local economies of Chatham and Cornwall.

As the name of the program suggests, this is a national program and all of Canada will benefit from this announcement. Canadians will now be able to use renewable, clean air fuel which is domestically produced from Canadian biomass.

[Executive Salaries, November 30th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will be quite brief. I rise in support of the motion. I congratulate the hon. member for Winnipeg St. James on his motion that will help to bring Canada fully into the 20th century in terms of business.

Other countries are ahead of us by many years in terms of the requirement to disclose. I approach the question perhaps a little differently than my colleagues who have spoken before. It has to do with the question of fiduciary responsibility. We know the term fiduciary responsibility applies to business, to stock companies and so on. That responsibility is to the stockholders, to the people who buy the stocks, who are entitled to attend annual meetings and who presumably are entitled to all pertinent information about the company, the financial information particularly.

We have lagged behind in this country by not acknowledging that salaries, especially significant salaries of senior executives, have been exempt. It would seem to me, and I do not want to comment on the size of the salaries or the stock options, the perks or whatever, that a lot of senior executives probably deserve more than they are making. Perhaps some of them deserve less. Those are privately held opinions as often citizens hold about members of Parliament as to whether their salaries are adequate, overadequate or under, or whatever.

Since the incomes of those senior executives have a direct relationship with the profitability of the company and with the dividends that are paid and so on and presumably in the end the value of the stock that it would be in the positive interests of that business if those things were revealed. A prospective sharehold-

er then would not be made aware of only part of the financial information it needs but would have all of the financial information. I believe that is correct.

In the case of crown corporations naturally the fiduciary responsibility is to the people of Canada, to the citizens. It seems to me that they are as entitled to that kind of information as are private shareholders in companies.

It is for those reasons that I rise in wholehearted support. I hope this goes ahead and the thrust of this motion prompts us to adopt legislation that will bring us into line at least with other countries we compete with around the world because it will be good for our business and good for investment in this country.

[Grandparent Year Act, November 24th, 1994]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-291, an act respecting a national year of the grandparent.

Madam Speaker, the bill is designed to declare the year 1995 as the year of the grandparent to celebrate the value of grandparents in the Canadian family. Many of us who have had the privilege of having grandparents realize the pillars they are to children and grandchildren growing up.

We also realize that grandparents experience some difficulties in modern day life. They concern access to grandchildren when a divorce occurs and so on. It seems to me that 1995 could be correctly utilized as the year to raise the consciousness of all of us on the value they provide to the Canadian family.

I am honoured to present the bill to the House. I certainly hope it meets with some success in subsequent proceedings.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)