Steve Mahoney

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I guess you could say he started it but I will not get into that. Who cares? You are right, Mr. Speaker. We should stick to the debate on transportation. That is the important thing.

It is important that we pay down the debt and the government has started to do it. If we put all our eggs in one basket we wind up with nothing but broken eggs. That is exactly what the official opposition is doing.

Speaking of eggs, if we take a look at the policy of the fifth party, that is exactly what it is doing. Its members are not only putting all the eggs in one basket. They are adding eggs to it that they do not even have yet, that the chicken has not laid yet. How in the world will they fill a basket with non-existent eggs?

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the minister wanted to ensure that the cheque arrived safely. I am not sure why it was done. In any event, it is nice that the member has acknowledged that indeed the cheque did arrive and the project was a go.

Let me just make one correction. I referred to the newest member in the House as the member from St. John's. Some may think he is a saint. People in his riding may think he is a saint but that is not his name. I did not refer to him in the first person. I referred to him as the member from St. John's. There are five names in your new silly party, not two. You should perhaps learn them.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

We need roads to get to the golf course. There are some beautiful ones in his part of the world. The roads to get there are wonderful. I was not talking about them. I was talking about the official opposition and its position.

Here is a statement by the member for St. Albert, a man for whom I have respect as chair of the public accounts committee. I serve as vice-chair. It is meeting at the moment so I will try to hurry. The member for St. Albert said that the newly announced infrastructure program had all the makings to become another administrative fiasco.

Was it an administrative fiasco in 1993? No. Was it a success? Absolutely. It was a success from sea to sea to sea. It seems that members of the official opposition in particular cannot take yes for an answer. If we looked in every one of their ridings in addition to the Conservative ridings that I referred to, I suspect we would find infrastructure programs where the entire community including the provinces were all involved in delivering high quality transportation systems to the people.

Let us ask another question. We all know that opposition parties submit closet budgets, phantom budgets, would be budgets or hoped for budgets. How much money did the official opposition budget for transportation infrastructure? Never mind the Tories. We know what the Conservatives have done. They said they would spend about $30 billion more than already is available on debt reduction and tax reduction to help their rich friends. They would not do anything for transportation except maybe pray to the sky and hope that someone would solve the big picture problem.

How much has the official opposition put in? Nothing. How can its members stand with any kind of credibility and vote for a motion like this one? What do they call their alternative budget? They call it solution 17. In their budget there was not one dollar, not one loonie, toonie, or anything for transportation infrastructure. Their finance critic wrote about an alternative budget. He put the entire surplus of $95 billion over the next five years toward a plan of tax cuts in debt retirement. The official opposition is actually a bit better than the fifth party. The reason is it has spent all the surplus whereas the fifth party spent the surplus plus $30 billion and still did nothing for transportation.

I listen to the policies and to the ongoing leadership debate in the official opposition. I listen to candidates like Tom Long from Ontario. He goes around the country and gives one message in the west and another one in the east. He insists on telling people that he will cut their taxes and get an economic boom going in the country even though we are currently sustaining an unprecedented economic boom that is second to none.

It is amazing to see what is going on all over the country. All we have to do is travel to find out. Yet we have no commitment from any of the candidates who would be prime minister of this great land on what they would do for transportation infrastructure. At the same time we have a fifth party who stands in this place and whose leader will not run for a seat in the House. I wish he would. I would love to see him in here.

I should officially welcome the new member from St. John's to his new seat. I guess they did not tell him that it would be that far back in the corner. I am sure, with his credentials, that he will be moving up. He is a former minister of education in the wonderful province of Newfoundland. I sincerely welcome him to the House and into the fray.

Hopefully he will bring some good old down home Newfie common sense and recognize that when you put forward a statement on a national transportation policy you should try to gild the lily a bit and include some specifics. You should not just stand to make grandiose statements that everybody else should fix all the problems, especially when you come from a part of the country where you would be hard pressed to try to convince anyone who has been there that transportation is not in any kind of difficulty.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

How can members opposite say that is nonsense? It is absolutely the truth. There was involvement with the private sector, the municipal sector, the provincial government, the territorial governments and the federal government. It was a true partnership. By and large, with a few exceptions, the money was used to build core infrastructure which included things like sewers, water pipes and roads.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

The Canadian Alliance Party. They have a party. I will call them what they want but the people will understand what they are voting for, believe me. They will be voting for the same old thing when they get an opportunity after the same leader is re-elected. We know that.

We also know that party's position. By the way, they are all over the map in this regard. The position of the official opposition is that all transportation issues should be run by the private sector, that there is no reason for government to be involved in providing any kind of infrastructure. Its own members have criticized the infrastructure program.

They love to throw around the word boondoggle. I think they learned it as a new phrase this year when they were away at a caucus retreat. We can just see them all gathering around going boondoggle, boondoggle. Anyway, they learned this word and have suggested that the infrastructure program is in some way not a proper expenditure of federal government money.

There has never been in my view a more successful uptake of a program that I can recall than the infrastructure program launched in 1993. Why? Because it involved the entire community. It was not the government coming out, cutting a ribbon and passing out a cheque: “Me and the Prime Minister brung you the cheque”. It was not done that way. There was involvement with the municipalities across Canada. All the provinces had an opportunity.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have two words for the member and they are not Canadian Alliance, but that is another story.

I stand to be corrected but I think that it is the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party. That is five words. That is the registered name or something like that. There are five words in the registered name, not two, so if the member thinks that I have a problem, maybe that explains why.

However, I want to get back to the issue of a national transportation strategy, because the reform party, or the Alliance Party, pardon me—

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Oh, I would not say that. This is a family show so I cannot use that.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

It was New Brunswick. I thought it was. Premier Lord closed the toll road. The problem is that it is fine to do that, because I am not particularly a fan of toll roads, but what was it replaced with? It drove up the debt.

The federal party has decided to endorse that. I guess that is not a great shock when we consider the fact that the Conservatives left a $42 billion deficit when they were in government. They shout over there because they hate for us to remind them of that, but it is the truth and it needs to be told. It needs to be spoken about because the obvious solution to their spending plans is to somehow take us back into the era of deficit financing.

I am really surprised at that. I would have thought that the Progressive Conservative Party had learned its lesson and had realized that the running of deficits every year is like running an overdraft. I have said it many times. When they run an overdraft, how do they pay it off? They pay it off by piling it on top of the national debt. If we equate it to a family, it would run an overdraft and pay it off by putting it on top of the mortgage on the family home. We all know we can only do that for so long. At some point in time something has got to give.

We do not have the answers. It is so easy to stand and pontificate, as the Conservatives have done in their motion, that we need to address the serious transportation problems facing the Canadian people. They do not have any specifics. They do not have any answers. They do not have any solutions they are prepared to put forward. They simply want to say that someone has to fix this problem.

Let us address the problem. I have already spoken about what would appear not to be a problem. Look at the shipping which comes into Halifax harbour. Are they going to tell us that there is not an infrastructure in the harbour in Halifax to accommodate international ocean-going vessels that come there on a regular basis? Are they going to tell us that the airport in Halifax is not capable of handling the traffic that comes into that province? Are they going to sit there and tell us that their province is full of congested roads with potholes when we know that it is not true?

I would suggest that the crisis they are talking about is a fabrication in their own minds. It is all because of one issue. It has to do with the so-called merger, although it is more of a takeover, of Canadian Airlines by Air Canada. Let us analyze that. Certainly there have been and will continue to be some route justifications in parts of the country, but the government realizes the importance of providing good quality service in the air. Look at the size of the country. We cannot expect that people are going to be able to get around without some kind of a national airline system.

The cry is that we need more competition. I hear the official opposition—I can never remember the new name, I am going to have to sit down and write it out 100 times or something, but whatever it is, the reform alliance conservative progressive whatever—

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I was particularly interested in the comment made by the member of the Conservative Party who said that his party put the motion not to deal with specifics but rather to deal with the big picture. I am not surprised. I do not think the Conservatives would want to deal with specifics when we consider that at their recent policy conference they approved $23 billion a year to be spent in debt reduction and over $100 billion over five years for tax relief.

Just about everybody who knows anything about what is going on around here knows that the total surplus that has been announced as available is about $95 billion. Both private sector and government figures have confirmed that. I would not want to get into specifics too much about a transportation policy if my party's policy called for spending in the area of tax relief and debt reduction $123 billion out of a surplus of $95 billion. That would not leave a lot for specifics or spending on transportation. That was just a side point with regard to the member's comment.

When talking about national transportation in this country, it is most helpful if there has been an opportunity to travel in Canada and see exactly what our transportation networks are about. I recently had the distinct privilege of spending four days with my wife travelling through Nova Scotia up into Cape Breton and around the Cabot Trail. I would also point out that it is a province which is represented by many Progressive Conservatives.

We had the pleasure of landing in Halifax, renting a vehicle and travelling to Digby. Members will know that Digby scallops are the finest in the world. We enjoyed the wonderful friendship of the people, the seafood, the ambience. Interestingly, we enjoyed some incredible highways. Having travelled in every province in this country, the transportation network in Nova Scotia is second to none. It is quite remarkable.

We drove almost 2,000 kilometres exactly. When we got the rental car back to the airport, we had done 2,000 kilometres around Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. I do not intend to give a travelogue, but I was so impressed with the quality of the roads, the lack of congestion, the monitoring, the safety and everything that I saw. Of course to do that kind of mileage we were in the vehicle eight and nine hours a day travelling from point to point.

We left Digby and went up through Mahone Bay. My wife did a bit of shopping. This was a vacation opportunity for us to see that part of Canada. We went into Lunenburg and from there up to Truro where we spent the night. Once again I was immensely impressed with the quality of the roads. Even the roads that were off the beaten path seemed to be very well maintained.

From there we travelled across the Canso Causeway into Cape Breton and the home of Al MacInnis, a terrific hockey player in the NHL. We went up what I believe is the north coast of Cape Breton Island along the Cabot Trail. It was spectacular scenery but I must say quite spectacular roadways. The Cabot Trail of course is historic and known throughout the world. There is a transportation system that is truly a marvel. We went right into Sydney, then on the last day from Sydney down the south coast and back through the heartland to the Trans-Canada Highway at Antigonish and from Antigonish back into Halifax. We flew home the next day.

My point is that the quality of the roads was superb. The traffic management systems were superb. It is interesting to have the party that represents most of the ridings in that province, unfortunately for us at the moment, telling us that we need some kind of transportation strategy. I think Nova Scotia has obviously done very well.

On other occasions I have had the privilege of driving from Halifax through New Brunswick and across the bridge into Prince Edward Island. The fixed link is truly a wonder of the world. It finally brings P.E.I. into the world of modern transportation. I am not 100% sold that the islanders necessarily want to be brought into that world. I think they quite enjoy their beautiful island and are happy to be left alone in some instances. But in all seriousness, they understand the importance not only for tourism, but also for moving goods to and from their island for export. They are very successful in exporting a number of their products, in addition to potatoes.

On the east coast we see a situation where transportation on the roads is second to none. I did not hear members opposite representing the Conservative Party say that. If I lived in that province I would be shouting about the successes that exist in that spectacular part of Canada. I would be telling Canadians to come and enjoy Nova Scotia, Halifax, the Cabot Trail, Sydney, Rita MacNeil's beautiful tearoom in Big Pond and all of the spectacular things that are there, and to admit that there is a physical infrastructure in place in that province that is second to none.

It brings me to the concept of a national policy. Let us look at Ontario. People would recognize in my case at least, I come from the city of Mississauga where one of the great strengths is the transportation available to us on the Great Lakes, on the roads, on the rail system and certainly in the air with Pearson International Airport.

There has been some concern about toll roads. The province has sold Highway 407 to a private sector consortium which in turn will be increasing the tolls to replace the income that was lost in the share that goes to the government.

There is a double sided edge with toll roads. Was it Nova Scotia that eliminated the toll road? The member opposite would know.

[Young Entrepreneur Award, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, May 25, at the Mississauga Board of Trade's 2000 Outstanding Business Awards, Ms. Kate Bird, president of Career Essentials Inc., received the young entrepreneur of the year award.

Career Essentials, with outlets in nine Ontario cities, provides a variety of assessment, training, tutoring and job search services through the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, primarily to assist injured workers with reintegration into the workplace. It also offers a certificate course entitled, “Teaching English as a Second Language”, as well as one on one student tutoring, training options for the corporate market and a variety of career services to people searching for employment.

This is not the first award for Ms. Bird. She has previously received the young entrepreneur of the year award and the business startup award, both from the Scarborough Chamber of Commerce.

Congratulations to Kate Bird. Way to go.