Steve Mahoney

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

Mr. Speaker, not representing a farming community obviously puts me at some disadvantage, but as national politicians we must address all these issues.

I thank the member for raising the issue. Our government must continue to support GRIP. We have to find a way to make the family farm stronger. That is part of the overall goal. One does not exclude one segment of society simply because there may not be a specific reference.

We are talking about tax cuts. I think they will help farmers. We are talking about new technology, investing in science, finding new ways to treat crops, new ways to cut costs for farmers and programs that are already in place.

I agree with the member's concern and I am confident the government will help farmers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the compliments. That is probably all I need to say. I know what his question was—

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

Maybe not all of us are quiet, I would agree, but we are hard working and industrious. It cannot possibly be the doom and gloom we hear opposite.

I give some credit to the member for Wild Rose for raising the very valid issue of the problems on our reserves. It puzzles me, when I hear a member from the opposite side talking about supporting the natives on our reserves and improving their quality of life, that they do not support the Nisga'a treaty. That treaty has wide support in British Columbia yet they do not support it.

I also heard them talk about people on the street. If there is one problem that is absolutely visible to people who come to this country from other parts of the world, it is the fact that we have a serious homelessness problem. We must do something about it.

It is mentioned in the throne speech, but let me add that a throne speech is a visionary document. It is not a document, unlike what the opposition would like, that simply lays out specifics about the size of a tax cut. Even though it does say there will be a multi-year tax cut based hopefully on a five year plan it cannot give the specifics. The work is yet to be done. Members opposite know full well that those specifics will appear in a budget in February, a budget for which I am quite sure they already have their negative remarks prepared. It will lay it out in detail.

The issues of homelessness and affordable housing are mentioned in the throne speech. Once again one would not or could not possibly put the specifics in a throne speech which deals with a vision of the government.

Turning to the issue of children, my close friend and brother-in-law from England once said to me that when babies start killing babies we have a serious problem. I do not want to overdramatize the issue but we have seen an explosion in the youth in all of North America. It has even occurred in western Canada. There is a reason for it and we must address the reason. It cannot be fixed overnight. There have to be stronger families, stronger opportunities for parental care and supervision, and strong leadership within families.

It is my view that a throne speech simply sets out the vision for that to occur. We want to do all these things and it is difficult to balance everything.

We believe in tax cuts. We absolutely believe in reducing the debt which is a burden for future children of the country. It is a top priority. We believe in our children and in our youth and that the plan laid out in the throne speech has very strong merits to make us the country of the next millennium.

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

Mr. Speaker, congratulations to you on the exalted position you have been returned to.

How does one follow the oratorical splendour of the previous speaker? He neglected to tell the House that the event he was talking about last evening was his 50th birthday party. We should say happy birthday to our friend from Pembroke. I was also interested to hear him tell the House that his mother and dad had 10 children, as did mine, interestingly enough. We have a few other things in common. We are brothers. It appears we must be related.

He talked about his father. The interesting thing about my situation is that my dad was a national labour leader. I often say that having 10 children, my mother and dad were the only couple I knew who were constantly in labour together.

I find it interesting, though, returning to the issue at hand, to listen to what clearly amounts to nothing more than a feeding frenzy by the opposition.

I thought about this place over the break this summer. I thought that it would be interesting to try to bring some civility into parliament. I must admit that sometimes I have contributed to the rising temperature in some members opposite. I was shocked this morning, when I got back on my elevator to go upstairs in my apartment building, to see the member for Wild Rose coming down. My God, he is in my building and there goes the neighbourhood. Property values are apparently in serious trouble. I will have to look for alternative accommodation.

The Reform Party spent the summer, as we all know, busily bashing one another. Infighting occurred. Expulsions into the back row or oblivion or right out of caucus appeared on the front page of every journal in the country on a regular basis. Then when Reformers got tired of that they bashed poor Joe Clark. It seems that Mr. Clark has rejected their amorous attempts to bring them together in bed. All this internal combustion that has been taking place appears to be exploding. Someone has lit a match under them, I guess, and it appears to be now exploding back into this place in parliament.

As much as I really want to try to deal with the issues, it would be interesting if the opposition parties could try to do the same thing. What they are doing now is just simply, mindlessly, without any kind of proper research other than perhaps the National Post , casting aspersions.

I talked to Canadians all summer. When they watch this stuff they get confused. They ask who is right and who they should believe. Should they believe the Reform Party? We are saying we will cut taxes. The Reform Party cannot take yes for an answer. Canadians look at it and wonder if they should believe these guys in the opposition or believe the government.

I heard one thing this morning from the opposition that I agree with. The critic for finance said that Canadians deserve credit for the financial turnaround of the country, and he is absolutely right. Unfortunately he then went off into a tirade of nonsensical nonsense, if there is such a thing, a double standard, and he lost a very good point. It is the people in Canada who indeed have worked hard, who have re-elected the government because they believed in the platform that we put forward.

We put our cards on the table. We said that we would eliminate that $42 billion deficit. We said that we would reduce taxes. We have done that, regardless of what the opposition continues to say, by some $16 billion in the last budget. We will reduce taxes again in spite of what members opposite say. Over 600,000 low income Canadians have been taken off the tax rolls altogether.

Have we done enough? I do not think so. Could we ever do enough to satisfy the appetite of members opposite? I do not think so. Canadians can ask themselves one question, which is the measure of whom to believe: Are we better off as individuals Canadians than we were in 1993?

Members opposite say we are worse off. The United Nations says this is the greatest country in the world in which to live. We know that. I find it interesting that one can say it is the greatest country in the world in which to live unless one lives here. People want to complain.

I had an experience this summer when I went to Strasbourg, France, to the Council of Europe. I listened to the issues that were being debated. There were 41 countries from Europe that got together in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe, a 50 year old institution. I listened to issues they dealt with. They dealt with war, death, destruction of communities, ethnic cleansing and annihilation of entire races of people.

I am not denigrating or putting down the problems we have in the country. Some of them are extremely serious but let us take a look around the world. This country is a marvellous place. Perhaps opposition members could at least concede that this country is a marvellous place and that Canadians are not boastful people as our Prime Minister said. We are quiet, industrious and hard working as a nation. We are known for that throughout the world.

[Youth Entrepreneurship, June 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, youth entrepreneurship is alive and thriving in Canada. As chair of the Prime Minister's task force on youth entrepreneurship, I have witnessed firsthand these past months just how widespread the determination to succeed and flourish is among large numbers of our young Canadians.

Today I am hosting three such young business people who epitomize successful young entrepreneurs. On Tuesday, May 25, Albert Lai, Michael Furdyk and Michael Hayman, ages 16, 18 and 20 respectively, sold their computer on-line company for more than one million dollars. What started out in 1996 as a hobby has become a thriving business which not only enabled them to gain experience in the competitive worlds of business and cyberspace, but which has also ensured a future full of innovative and creative opportunity.

My congratulations to Albert, Michael and Michael, who are with us in the House today.

[Supply, June 8th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I have made it very clear that I believe that benefits, in any particular situation, should be based on the premiums that are paid. If we can adopt a situation where we can register dependency, and perhaps establish a new level premium, then perhaps we could do that.

The red herring that the members opposite continue to bring up with regard to Bill C-78 is nothing more than that, and they know that. They also know that there are numerous government bills that will be brought onto the floor of this place that are going to involve the same kind of issue. That is why the government is looking at it and we believe it is necessary.

Having said that, in spite of the attempts by the members opposite to throw me off, I actually, for the first time in my two years-plus in this place, support an idea put forward by the Reform Party and it frightens the heck out of me.

[Supply, June 8th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, as I said during my speech, I do not believe that people should get rights or lose rights based on their sexuality.

What I have mentioned is that I like the balance that I see. I think our other deputy speaker, a member from Alberta, has put a paper out as well. The Alberta government is dealing with an issue that I believe we will be looking at it; that is, if they do declare dependency economically and pay a family premium. I do not think that two people can live together, declare that they want to share benefits and then continue to pay a single premium. There may be a requirement to adjust those premiums and create a third category which could be a declared an interdependency category for setting the premiums.

Clearly, pensions, survivor benefits and all of those things are based on the long range forecast by the economic professionals. They are not based on sexuality but on hard dollars and cents.

[Supply, June 8th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, as in many cases in this world of politics, there are issues and bills that have some difficulties.

The real value of Bill C-78 for this government was the fact that we were able access some $30 billion in capital funds that belonged to the taxpayers. The position of the Reform Party is that we should close our eyes, draw the wheels of government to a close and not get that money back into the hands of the taxpayer. That is why we did Bill C-78. I voted for Bill C-78 and would again.

[Supply, June 8th, 1999]

I voted against it. It was an extremely emotional, high strung atmosphere and a very unsatisfactory resolution to the particular problem.

The fact remains that time moves on and what people are really concerned about is the protection of the family. We do not lose rights based on our sexuality or who we are having sex with. We also, in my view, should not gain rights in that regard. It should not be a defining principle.

As Prime Minister Trudeau said, we have no business in the bedrooms of the nation, so why would we be using that as some kind of measuring stick to determine whether or not someone has access to some particular right? What I like about the Alberta solution, although I do not know the cost of it and I am sure that is being looked at, is that it de-sexualizes the whole issue.

I heard a gay rights lawyer say that if we simply adopt this without looking at the nuances and the difficulties, we could have a grandmother declare that a three year old grandson is now economically dependent and therefore subject to the survivor benefits. The three year old would then get the survivor benefit when the grandmother passes on. This would throw pension plans so dramatically out of whack that no one would be able to afford them. We would be unable to determine the level of premium we should set. I understand that there are some problems.

I believe we should recognize that this is not about homophobia. This is about recognizing the strength of what makes the country good and what makes the country strong. It is the family. I would doubt that there are very many people, even gay members of parliament, who would disagree that family is the key to the strength of the future of the nation. My colleague for Mississauga South used the term “a line in the sand”. I would use “thin edge of the wedge”. This is ultimately what the debate is all about.

I have a quote by David Corbett of the Foundation for Equal Families. He said:

Nobody has proposed a solution that would have marriage as an institution available to same sex couples. It is not constructive contribution to the debate and it is certainly premature.

What does that tell us? It tells me that we are not going to do it at this time because it will upset the apple cart. We will move along an inch at a time until we can make more ground. Let us call it for what it is. The gay rights activists absolutely want to have same sex marriages recognized. They may say they do not, but I honestly believe they do.

Does that mean we have to get homophobic and panicky? I do not think so. I think it means that in this country, the country over which we have the domain as parliamentarians, we will only recognize, as our common law states, that a marriage is two people of the opposite sex and excludes anyone else. This is common sense to me. I do not think we have to have a knee-jerk reaction to it.

I say to those in the gay community that I have no problem with their right to not be discriminated again in terms of housing, employment, education, equal opportunity, jobs within the government, procurement or whatever. We should not discriminate against them based on their sexuality. However, they have no right to claim that they have expanded rights based on their sexuality. As far as I am concerned, it cuts both ways.

One of the things I find most fascinating about being in this place, especially when many of my esteemed colleagues prior to arriving here made their living in pursuit of the law or defence of the law in one way or another, is when the debate indicates that we should let this particular issue go through the courts because they will adjudicate and make the decision. However, on this particular issue we cannot have the courts make that decision because we are parliament, we are the ultimate and we have the right to tell them what to do.

We have a judicial system that is one of the finest in the world and supported with a parliamentary democracy that is absolutely one of the finest in the world. What we need to do in all cases is to make sure that those two systems work in balance; where parliamentarians can say what it is they want to have happen in terms of the law, but that the judicial system must be available without interference from politicians to interpret that law, be it the charter of rights or any other individual law.

I support the family. I support men and women being married. I believe they are the only two who can be spouses. The government supports that and we will stand behind that regardless of any attempts to portray us in any other light.

[Supply, June 8th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this issue.

I should say to the member for Calgary Southeast that what he wrote out is generally a stamp that we reserve for all the Reform Party motions that come across the floor. Usually they would fit into that category. We were always writing it out in longhand and figured it was probably more appropriate that we just get a stamp to use. Today is an exception because the motion that is before us will find a lot of support on this side of the House. It will certainly find support from me, and I am sure that many of my colleagues who have already spoken and who will finish out this debate will also support it.

I take the opposite view. I do not regret or bemoan the fact that we are taking what amounts to an expensive legislative day in keeping the House going to debate this. I thank the Reform Party for giving us the opportunity to tell our constituents exactly how we feel about the issue of marriage, family and what makes the country strong. It is a great opportunity for us to do that and I truly do thank the members opposite.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia.

I want to add that the information is clear. While I believe that we have been given the opportunity to get our message across, the Reform Party knows that the government remains committed and has given no signal and no indication that there will be a change in its support of Canadian families. There are no plans to legislate a change in the definition of the term marriage.

Let us go back to where that comes from. The definition of marriage in federal law is not in a statute passed by parliament but is found in what is called the federal common law dating from an 1866 British case of Hyde and Hyde v Woodmansee, a case dealing with the legal invalidity of polygamy. This case has been applied consistently in Canada with the result that no marriage can exist between two persons of the same sex. It would be void ab initio, which means from the beginning. This is clear. No jurisdiction worldwide differs in that particular area, even though there may be some European or Scandinavian countries that do allow same sex partners to register their relationships.

I would be very interested to hear the position of the Reform Party when the province of Alberta, which seems to be leading the charge on this, comes out with a plan—and many of these members of course are from that province—that would allow same sex partners to register an interdependency on one another and thereby have access to certain benefit plans such as survivor rights or pension rights. It is actually an interesting solution to the problem for those of us who recognize marriage as a union between a man and a woman and no one else.

It is a solution because I was in the province of Ontario when we had the debate over whether or not we would extend rights to same sex couples for benefits. Many major corporations in the country have already done that and are way ahead of government. We had a very acrimonious debate on the floor of the legislature in Ontario. The galleries were filled with people who were extremely upset. When the debate was over and we voted against extending same sex benefits, the place was literally taken over by a mob.