Steve Mahoney

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted an audience. I generally perform a little better when I have an audience, so here we go. That is exactly the kind of nonsense that sends this place into disarray because that party over there does not have—

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to some of the members opposite and I half expect someone in a red or blue cape to come flying through here. They just have all the solutions and all the answers. Frankly, I find it a little bit tiresome and a little bit frustrating.

First, here are a couple of facts. We are sitting here and it is 9.15 p.m. On a normal sitting day the House would have been recessed by approximately 6.30 p.m. We will be here until 11.30 or 12 o'clock tonight at least. Just so people know, the cost to run this place beyond the regular hour is somewhere around $25,000 per hour. The debate this evening will cost the Canadian taxpayer, for whom I assume my friend from the Bloc could not care less, about $125,000. I just wanted to make the cost clear.

Why do we have the motion? Other members have stood up and said to speak to the motion. We have sat in this place through 24 hours of not debating and not talking but simply voting on motions that would make absolutely no difference to the legislation or to the quality of the legislation. They would have no impact on the end product. They do nothing more than delay. To sit here doing that is not just a waste of money, it is an abuse of the democratic system.

If members opposite want to talk about ways to reform this place, why do we not start with this motion? The motion is indeed parliamentary reform. The motion says to my hon. friends opposite that if they want to filibuster and stand in their place and talk with at least a modicum of intelligence about the particular issue involved they can do so. They have that opportunity. In the good old days, filibuster meant talking out the issue, debating.

When I was a member of the Ontario legislature I recall sitting through filibusters that would last a day or two. I may not have liked it or agreed with it but I had to respect the ability of parliamentarians to stand in their place in opposition to the government of the day. Whether we were members of the opposition or members of the government, we had to respect the ability of the individual to stay on topic and talk about the issue that was of concern to their constituents and, in that example, to the people of the entire province, and in this example, all of Canada.

What have we had? We have had a major debate. The one that comes to mind is the Nisga'a treaty. The opposition did not agree with us. It did not like the treaty and did not like what we were doing. I did not have a problem with that. It is totally within its rights and its purview to disagree with us.

However, the opposition submitted hundreds of amendments that were—and I love the word—vexatious, which means annoying. They did not change the treaty one bit and did not change the outcome of the government legislation one iota. They simply required the government to stay here and vote on periods, commas and semicolons.

Now, really, is that what Canadians elected any of us in this place to do? Absolutely not. Canadians may have some respect for a member opposite who could stand up and clause by clause, line by line, word by word, go through that particular bill and explain to the Canadian public why he or she is against a particular bill.

I do not care what bill it is. I have served in opposition and I have served in government. I respect the responsibility and the important role that opposition must play in this kind of democracy.

What bothers me, though, is that when the opposition today does not like what the government is doing it says that it does not like the process. When it says it does not like the process means it lost. Rather than argue the substantive impact of the motion, the bill or the document before parliament, members of the opposition cry foul that somehow the big, bad Prime Minister whipped them. He has chains and runs racks in the back room where they are tortured mercilessly. Their brains are taken and put in jars somewhere when they arrive. They just denigrate the role of MPs.

When I am here in the nation's capital as a member of parliament, like many of my colleagues on all sides of the House I work between 12 and 18 hours a day. Our day starts very early with committee meetings, working in caucuses and working with opposition members. We find quite interestingly that in spite of the theatre which goes on in here, when we get members of parliament from all across Canada sitting in committee talking over issues they can actually be reasonable. I wonder why they are not like that in the House of Commons. Why can we not work together?

Someone from the NDP asked when we would start to work together. I was at the HRDC committee the other day talking about Bill C-2 and changes to the employment insurance bill. At that time I questioned the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the construction trade unions that were before us.

I asked the chamber why, when the country is in a recession, when the government supports all people who lose their jobs and when the EI account is in major deficit, we do not hear from it? Why does it not say that it knows the account is in deficit and it will pay more? We do not hear from the chamber in that instance, because it is the responsibility of the government to be the insurer of last resort.

Is that a question that someone might expect from a government member? I think not, because I think some of the more socialist minded folks might agree. Some of the more right wing people might not agree. They might think I was being hard and harsh on the poor chamber of commerce. I see at committee all the time where we cross on issues.

The member opposite doing most of the chirping served with me on the citizenship and immigration committee for some time. With the odd exception, when that member decided to ignore the rules of parliament and released a document to the media before it was tabled in the House, for which he was properly chastised by the Speaker of the day, I found that he tried to work and to deal with issues of concern around the citizenship bill and around refugees. He tried to put forward from time to time some thoughtful comments in debate.

Why is it that after we have gone through the process of losing whatever is the issue of the day—

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I know the Alliance members do not like it when people bring up the problems they have within their own organization, I understand that. However, it is about electoral reform, there is no question.

The motion here is that the NDP members wants to change the system so they can get elected a little easier and in greater numbers than they have been able to up to now. If we are going to do electoral reform, should we look at what does it mean to get elected as a leader in a party structure? I think that is relevant to this motion.

We cannot get to this place until we are nominated and elected by the party, either to be the candidate in a given riding or to be the leader of the party. Do we want to just talk about what they want to talk about or do we want to talk about the entire issue?

I will close by saying we have to compare apples to apples. If we are going to reform the system then we have to look at some of the mistakes and the unusual circumstances that have been going on across the way.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Is that not something the member chirping over there thinks is the kind of electoral reform we should undertake? I would have no difficulty with that. I do not think it is not right to pay off a sitting member to vacate his seat so that the leader can simply come walking in.

We know that the Canadian Alliance, like its predecessor, the Reform Party, simply wants to adopt the American system. I have heard some rumours the Alliance is going to take a committee of its own down to Florida to learn how to count in the electoral process. We have—

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, there is a fairly substantial amount of activity going on around here, but I will try to focus on this particular debate.

The interesting thing about this motion in one sense is where it comes from. The motion comes from the New Democratic Party, which all of a sudden, in this place at least, seems to have discovered something on the road to Damascus: that perhaps there is a better way of getting elected. I can certainly understand why the NDP would want to look for a better way to get elected given the lack of success that it has endured over the past many years.

I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park.

I can understand why the NDP would want to make changes and I can understand why members of the official opposition might want to support those changes. This issue of representation and how people arrive at this place is something that generally occupies the minds and time of those who cannot succeed under the current system.

The proof of that would seem to be in the fact that when the New Democrats have enjoyed power for some number of years in British Columbia there is no talk of proportional representation or changing the system. I suspect that after the next provincial election the NDP will be reduced to a rump of their current status and of course the first thing on their agenda will be to change the way the NDP gets elected in British Columbia.

The other example would be the province of Ontario, where Bob Rae enjoyed five years in office. The rest of us did not, but he did. During that five year period when I had the challenge, shall we say, of serving in opposition with the Liberal Party of Ontario, I do not recall the government of the day, the New Democratic government of the province of Ontario, leaping forward, standing up and shouting that it would have to find a new way to get elected.

Clearly this only occurs when someone is either bitter or confused or is looking for something that might work because the current system simply will not work.

The other issue that I find curious coming from opposition parties is this constant feeding frenzy about reform in the House. The denigration of members of parliament, particularly on the government side, I personally find offensive. I know the great work that many of my colleagues have done and continue to do. I have talked about it in this place so I will not go there today.

I would suggest that is another example of the bitterness that a political machine or a party has when it arrives in this place and realizes that over 90% of the Canadian public did not vote for it, that it is not the government and that it does not get to make the decisions about how the country runs, whether it is the budget or whatever it happens to be. These parties can only try to put some pieces of metal into the spokes of the wheel of the governing party to see if they cannot trip it up.

Frankly that is what is happening here. This is the second time we have had an opposition motion. We have not had a motion here that deals with the substantive issues Canadians are concerned about, such as the changes in our health care policies that are occurring at the provincial level, such as upholding the Canada Health Act and the role of the national government. I have not seen a position come from the opposition saying that the government should do that, even though that indeed is what we do. I have not seen concern expressed by the opposition with great indignation about the two tier health care systems that are on the verge of occurring in the province of Alberta and, who knows, possibly even in the province of Ontario.

I do not see an opposition motion coming forward dealing with the recent decision that perhaps should be debated in this place, the decision of George W. Bush to bomb Iraq. I do not see anything coming forward. That is an issue that I think Canadians care about. Canadians care about what is happening in that part of the world.

I do not see an opposition motion coming forward to deal with the government's recent announcement to put $120 million into clean air in the province and the country to meet the standards we committed to at Kyoto.

What do we hear from opposition members? We hear them saying let us find a different way to get elected, because it did not work in 2001, it did not work in 1997 and it did not work in 1993. All they want to do is talk about how they can change the electoral system.

There are perhaps some areas where reform could and should be looked at. The Lortie commission was started by this government and reported here. There were bills adopted and there were changes made. It makes sense. We should not just say everything we do is right.

Surely to goodness there are other areas of concern that parliamentarians should be putting their minds to. I am sure that the Canadian Alliance would get somewhat nervous if we were to have parliamentary reforms that dealt with the referendum policy we all heard about with such fondness during the last election, about how if 3% of the people would submit a petition there could be a referendum on any particular item. Then the leader of course distanced himself from that particular issue and said it was not necessarily 3%, that it could be greater, that the party members were not sure. In fact at one point, I think, they were going to conduct a referendum on what the percentage should be so that they could then determine when and where they should hold a referendum.

Maybe we should have a look at reforming policies like that, at reform in the electoral system and making it more transparent. How about releasing the names of people who contribute to leadership campaigns? Would that not be interesting?

We do that. We have no difficulty with it. Members opposite do not seem to want to do that, yet we see as recently as yesterday and today the Leader of the Opposition trying to respond, in a rather feeble way, to questions put by the media about a $70,000 contribution to the Canadian Alliance Party made by a member of a law firm that was paid some $300,000 or $400,000 to defend the Leader of the Opposition in his defamation suit. Interestingly enough, the payment of that $300,000 or $400,000 came from Alberta taxpayers. Maybe there should be some way for us to investigate that.

Is it appropriate in electoral reform that when a leader of the opposition or a leader of any party in the House is elected at a party convention that the party then has the moral and legal authority to write a cheque for $50,000 to a sitting member so that person will vacate a safe seat, in the case of the Canadian Alliance, obviously, to allow the leader to run in that seat? Is it proper? Is that appropriate?

[Credit Valley Hospital, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I extend congratulations to the Credit Valley Hospital in the city of Mississauga on joining the energy innovators initiative of Natural Resources Canada.

The energy innovators initiative is set up to support Canadian companies and institutions in adopting environmentally friendly practices, procedures and technologies. As one of 850 energy innovators, Credit Valley Hospital has made a long term commitment to use energy efficiently to reduce costs and slow the growth of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

The leadership shown by energy innovators such as the Credit Valley Hospital will assist Canada in meeting its environmental objective of reducing atmospheric emissions that contribute to climate change.

Once again I congratulate the Credit Valley Hospital for its voluntary commitment to energy efficiency and for doing its share in assisting Canada with its goals toward the ongoing protection of our environment.

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member understands the process. There is a negotiating team, in this case, with 34 countries. They will enter into an agreement. There is no question about that. Canada will be part of it. Before any implementation of that agreement, it will come back to this place, as every other agreement has.

Do not try to twist my words or anything that is going on in the process. It is standard with the FTA, or the WTO, or Chile or with Israel. This agreement will be done in exactly the same way.

I would also invite that member to read Hansard . There will be a lot of people falling asleep early tonight as they research Hansard to find out what was really said.

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I did, and my apologies. I know better. They returned us to government. We have a responsibility to govern.

I totally understand and appreciate the role of opposition. I said I had no difficulty with the fact that the Bloc put forward this kind of a motion. It is much more constructive than many of the others that we have seen. However, let us be clear what the motion says. It says that the House demand that the government bring any draft agreement on the free trade zone area of the Americas before the House. They want us to bring to the House a draft agreement, an amendment, a change or a negotiation point. It is a recipe for gridlock that will not be in the interests of Canadians.

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would invite the hon. gentlemen to maybe put himself to sleep tonight and get the instant Hansard and read it. He will find out that I said none of the things that he has accused me of saying.

In fact, the opposite is true. I said that I believe there is a clear cut role for the opposition in this place, The fact is that the Canadian people returned the Liberal Party, Jean Chrétien and this—

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am not excited at all. It may just be my normal glowing personality the member is referring to. I was saying that the standard process is that there is a negotiating team. In this case 34 countries are involved in the negotiation.

My point in relationship to the motion is that hon. members opposite would have us bring draft agreements and amendments into the House to debate them before there is any agreement between the chief negotiators of the 34 countries.

It is a recipe for gridlock. It is an impossible situation in which to put together a quality agreement. It would simply allow those who would to grandstand on issues. It would not work to the betterment of all Canadians in the international trade agreements.

We will follow the normal process that has been followed in the past and negotiate agreements in the best interests of the country.