Steve Mahoney

[Small Business, October 29th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.

People in my riding of Mississauga West, and indeed in all of Canada, are well aware of the importance of small business as an integral part of the Canadian economy.

Can the minister tell us specifically what the government is doing to ensure that Canada's small businesses are supported and indeed recognized for their important contribution to our economy?

[Supply, October 28th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, constituents in my riding find it insulting every time a Bloc member talks about taking a major part of the country out of confederation. I do not apologize for a single thing I said in this or any other speech in regard to that.

Let me answer the question. The member talks about servicing small communities. I can tell him that my province of Ontario has many small communities as he would well know, as does the province of Quebec. I can tell him that the government is concerned that those communities continue to be serviced by air.

The airline industry is part of nation building. We cannot leave the people of Nunavut without that kind of service. We cannot leave northern Quebec and remote regions in Labrador or western Canada without some kind of access to affordable quality service. The minister has laid that out in his program which he presented to the committee. Pricing is absolutely a concern. Service to small communities is a concern. Jobs are a concern, not only for Air Canada employees, but for Canadian employees.

I believe that through debate in parliament, through discussion in committee, through submissions that will be made by many people who will be appearing before the transport committee, all of those issues need to be addressed. I agree with the member that they are extremely important. The government is committed to that.

Above all, the government is committed to ensuring that we continue to have one of the finest, safest airline industries in the world, which we do. We have terrific people who work in them and we have two quality airlines. We just have one that is in serious financial trouble and that issue must be addressed.

[Supply, October 28th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I will be delighted to share my time with my hon. colleague and good friend from Mississauga Centre.

I was interested to hear the debate, particularly from the Bloc members when they talked about the various issues surrounding the 10%. What I have not heard them talk about, and I am a little puzzled by this, is the real motivation behind them putting this issue before the House.

Before I talk about that I want to thank them for bringing this forward. Frankly, I think it is a good opportunity for many of us. I have many, many employees of Air Canada and some of Canadian Airlines living in my riding who have been calling me. This gives me an opportunity to put my views on the record and discuss the issue here in parliament.

Members opposite say that there is no debate. What are we doing today? Everyone is being given an opportunity to express their views. In fact, what the Bloc has done is exactly what the Minister of Transport asked parliamentarians to do; to give their views to him, to give our best advice to him, and obviously to reflect the feelings and opinions of our constituents so that he indeed can deal with a number of the issues involving this potential merger.

The minister has not changed the rules. For members opposite to say so is nothing more than misleading. Maybe it is intentional, perhaps to get around the real underlying issue.

I suggest that the problem the Bloc has, which I think I understand, is that the head office of Air Canada is in the great city of Montreal. We all know that in recent history there have been dozens of major corporations move out of the city of Montreal, which I think is a tragedy. Why have they done so? They have done so because of policies put in place by the current provincial government, and other provincial governments before it, led by separatists. They have done so because of the separatist policies of the Bloc. They cannot do business with the uncertainty that exists in the province of Quebec. I think that is a shame.

In fact, one member opposite made a remark that Bloc members are working hard at committee and that they participate in debate in the House. Let me tell the House that he is right. I have been quite impressed with the number of members of the Bloc who have come to the citizenship and immigration committee and to the public accounts committee to make good quality contributions to the committee and to the democratic process. It is because they do not discuss the issue of separation. The one flame that continues to burn in the heart of that party is to separate the province of Quebec from the rest of Canada. We know that.

If we could leave that issue aside and take it out of the body politic of the Bloc, we would find some very decent, hard-working men and women who can contribute to this place. However, as long as that is there, I submit that it clouds virtually every issue which they address. It also leads to hidden agendas, which is, frankly, what we are seeing here today.

Having said that, I believe the Bloc has done us a favour in at least bringing it forward. The Bloc members know the government is not going to support them but that does not matter. What matters is that as parliamentarians we have the opportunity to stand here and to tell our constituents exactly what is going on. If we simply want to read the newspapers, as the hon. member earlier did, we can get any kind of distorted view we wish to and we can put it forward as having some sort of credibility.

If the minister had changed the rule unilaterally without discussion in this place, I too would be upset. That is not what he has done. I sat at the committee meeting. I am not a member of the transport committee but I wanted to hear firsthand what the minister's plan was. He said that he wanted our views, that he wanted some consultation, that he wanted to hear from members of all parties in the House of Commons. Imagine opposition members complaining about that. It is really quite remarkable. They must get up in the morning and ask “What has the government done that we can twist and turn around so we can oppose it?”

I want to give some credit to a couple of members and they might go into apoplectic shock. I heard speeches earlier today from two members of the Reform Party, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca and the member for Souris—Moose Mountain. Both gentlemen gave thoughtful, reasoned, intelligent remarks, something I am not used to hearing from the Reform Party. I was quite amazed. I will give credit where credit is due.

However, the comments do not seem to match other comments made by the leader of the Reform Party at a fundraiser in Calgary. Let me share those with the House because they are somewhat confusing and somewhat contradictory to the remarks made by the two members I just referred to.

The leader of the Reform Party said: “We want to wait until all the final offers are on the table. Our aim is to get the best deal for the air travelling public”. I would have thought the Minister of Transport had said that. I would not have thought the Leader of the Opposition actually came up with something that seems to be a rational policy. He said: “Whichever deal is accepted we want a free enterprise market to deal with this. That could involve the government encouraging greater foreign and regional competition”. What does he mean?

I would suggest that he wants the skies of Canada to be opened up to the extent that foreign airlines, be it American, be it United, be it whatever, can come into Canada and transport passengers between Winnipeg and Toronto, between Montreal and Vancouver, while ignoring all of the very difficult routes. They would simply cherry pick the best routes so those foreign carriers can make a profit on the best, easiest, most economical and efficient routes in Canada. They would be sucking the lifeblood out of whatever airline becomes the dominant Canadian airline. Let me stress clearly that is what is going to happen in my view.

Whether the shareholders vote to accept either the Onex deal that is on the table now or some other deal that is put forward, and I guess it has to happen soon, or whether they decide to accept the offer put on the table for Air Canada, there are pros and cons to both sides of those issues. But in my view there will only be one major airline by this time next year. It will be running the major routes in this country.

Are we going to do what the Leader of the Opposition has suggested and allow foreign airlines to come in and destroy that company? That could happen.

The minister has stood in his place and has said he will not change the foreign content issue. Foreign ownership of Air Canada will not increase beyond 25%. He has said that.

I could not believe it so I had to verify it in Hansard but I heard the Reform Party critic ask the minister why he would not even consider allowing foreign ownership content to increase to 49%.

Just as there is a hidden agenda by the Bloc, members of the Reform Party seem to be driven and motivated by a need to Americanize this country. They do it all the time. They stand and say “Do it the way they do it in the United States. They do it better”. They confuse issues.

The minister is consulting. He wants to hear the views of all parliamentarians and all Canadians. I have great confidence that he will make the right decision.

[Copyright Act, October 28th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-280, an act to amend the Copyright Act.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce this bill. Currently in our education system when a teacher wants to use a document to teach his or her students and they need to photocopy it they are in violation of the Copyright Act.

This would not infringe upon an author's ability to have his material in the classroom. In fact, I believe it would enhance it. It would indeed support our education system at a time when it needs all the help it can get with its limited resources.

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

[Youth Employment, October 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for Children and Youth. As chair of the Prime Minister's task force on youth entrepreneurship I had the opportunity to travel across the country to speak with young Canadians on business opportunities and employment opportunities.

Could the minister tell us what the business and employment prospects are for Canada's youth?

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

I might be more effective, I do not know. I will leave that for others to judge. I certainly would find more opportunities to raise issues. I do not see that.

I put a proposal forward back in the Ontario legislature in 1992. In fact, I stood for the leadership of our party. One of my proposals was that a bill should not be referred to committee; an idea or a problem should be referred to committee and that a committee should be convened in an attempt to write a bill and to put forward a solution that could go in the bill rather than having the bureaucrats draft something, put it on our desk and it appears too many times to be a fait accompli.

This is about as close as I have seen any government get to that particular principle. This is taking the bill reforming the Elections Act into committee before second reading. If I were in opposition I would have my staff working overtime going through the bill. I would see this as an open and accountable government giving opposition members the opportunity to make comments at committee, to repair anything they thought needed repairing, to change parts of the bill and to have input into the process.

What do we get? We get, I am afraid, the somewhat typical response, “If they are doing it, we must disagree with it”. That really is unfortunate. It is somewhat myopic and narrow-minded. It does not do credit to the constituents who sent these people here, who expect them to roll up their sleeves and get into committee and work with government members and other members of the opposition to make this bill a better bill. Why would anyone opposed it?

My next election will be my tenth at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. I have had some experience. In fact, my wife has had three elections. She sits on the Mississauga council. I guess one could say we are a bit of a political family. We care about the process that is in place. We care about the rules. I, along with my family and the government, believe very much that the rules need to be fair for everyone.

Frankly, I would go a little further with this reform. If I have an opportunity at committee, I might even float an idea that members may accept or reject. I believe there should be a penalty for someone who does not vote. I know it is a very controversial idea, but there are places in the world where they actually do that. The penalty in Australia is a fine. It could show up on one's income tax reporting.

I find it disgraceful that municipally we only get a 30% voter turnout. It is the one level of government, in my view, that impacts more directly on people's lives than any other level of government and less than 30% of the people vote. In fact, if there is not a high profile contest for mayor, quite often less than 20% of the people vote. However, they are quick to pick up the phone to call their elected representative to solve a particular problem in the community, for example, if the garbage is not picked up or they have other difficulties. They just do not accept the responsibility to cast a ballet.

Provincially, that percentage goes up to between 50% and 60% depending on, I guess, the nature of the election. In the 1995 Ontario provincial election I think there was a higher voter turnout because the public generally wanted to dismiss the government of Mr. Rae that was in office. However, we have now slipped back down again. Federally, it again increases into the 65% to 75% range.

We live in a country with democratic freedom and we see other places in the world experiencing difficulties, in particular, the problems we see in Pakistan today.

I had the privilege of being part of a parliamentary group visiting Croatia during the first free election since the second world war. I saw men and women lining up down the street, with tears in their eyes, having the first opportunity to actually cast a ballot.

Let me tell members what that experience was like. When I walked into the polling booth there were Yugoslav soldiers with rifles on their shoulders standing on either side of the ballot box. Behind the ballot box was a life-sized picture of General Tito. It was only just a little bit intimidating to those people casting their ballot. I tried to lighten it up by pinning Canadian flags on the lapels of the soldiers but I do not think they were particularly amused by it.

When one sees that kind of thing, when one sees people fighting and dying for freedom and democracy all around the world as we have seen in our generation, one realizes that a Canadian who does not cast a ballot unless there is a legitimate reason, although I cannot think of one other than being dead, is not living up to the responsibility that goes along with the freedom of living in such a great and democratic society.

I would go even further, but the bill at least sets a level playing field, makes it fair for everybody involved and cleans up the election procedure in Canada.

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is not my fault if the room empties when I stand up to speak. I try to do my best. I do appreciate the assistance to bring in some of my colleagues whom I know are working hard at their desks on behalf of the people of Canada and their constituents.

People often wonder why the Chamber is so sparsely populated when members of parliament speak. It is because we have so many things to do and committees are just one example. Even though the official committees are not up and running yet, although I understand they will be in a day or two, we, in particular, have caucus committees. We have interparliamentary committees of Canada and Europe that are meeting and, as we speak, the Canada-Taiwan interparliamentary committee is meeting.

Last evening I had the privilege of having dinner with the parliamentary group from Barbados who are here on official business and will be here for question period. There is a lot of work to do. I recently attended a meeting of AECL where it gave us an update of its work around the world. To denigrate the work of members really is not fair. It is not something that I would do on that side of the House and would not expect it to be done here.

I would say that the committee system is very clear in this government. In this place, in Ottawa, there is a role for opposition members. Sometimes I am quite surprised, actually. Were I in opposition, I think I would be substantially more aggressive in going after—

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to Bill C-2.

I was particularly interested in the analysis and comments by the previous speaker with regard to the work of committees. In the last two years I have served on the public accounts committee which is chaired by one of the Reform opposition members who, I would add, does a very good job, is very impartial and fair and really runs an excellent committee. We have a process in place here where the official opposition automatically gets the opportunity, if it so chooses, to chair the public accounts committee.

I also served on the citizenship and immigration committee and filled in on a number of different committees. The committee system that is in place is not dysfunctional and is not what the member has said, a sham. In fact, it is representative of the make-up of this place. Why would that be? Interestingly enough, the majority of Canadians voted for this government in two elections in a row.

Should we abdicate our responsibility? We have been told by the Canadian people that they want the Liberal Party and this Prime Minister to run the government. We understand that the opposition is not happy with that. I served in opposition myself to a labour party, to Bob Rae and—I will be nice—his group of colleagues. It was somewhat frustrating, to say the least, to see a majority government of New Democrats in the great province of Ontario.

[Right Hon. Pierre Elliot Trudeau, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great privilege and honour that I pass on 80th birthday wishes to Canada's 15th prime minister, the Right Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

First elected as a member in 1965, Mr. Trudeau served as minister of justice under the leadership of Prime Minister Pearson. A dashing, charismatic politician, he was elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1968 and in April sworn in as Canada's 15th prime minister.

During 16 years of Trudeaumania, he reformed Canada. The government passed the Official Languages Act, fought the separatist terrorists in Quebec during the October crisis and introduced the metric system in Canada. He was devoted to national unity in opposition to the separatist goals of the Parti Quebecois.

On behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish to extend birthday greetings to a truly remarkable man and wish him many, many more.

[Speech From The Throne, October 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I do not consider child poverty to be a very funny issue at all. Our government has announced that we have already increased the national child credit and that we are committed to doing more in that area.

The most important thing we can do for the country is to ensure that all families, all Canadians, have equal access to opportunity; that children go to school with full bellies in the morning; and that they have proper supervision and someone to come home to at the end of the day. I have raised three boys and I have some understanding of where milk comes from, regardless of the member's denigrating remarks.

We must and we will do something about child poverty. It will be action, not words, and not the negativity I hear coming from members opposite.