Steve Mahoney

[Supply, November 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, let me say at the outset, which may come as no surprise to members, that I am not a farmer. I have spent some time on a farm like many Canadians. In fact, my wife's uncle has a 600 acre farm in a little community called Iron Bridge just about 80 kilometres this side of Sault Ste. Marie, which is my home town. It is a farm that grows mostly rocks and a bit of water. He also raises some cattle. Over the years he raised hogs and therefore has had to deal with commodity difficulties.

My family and I have actually spent a lot of time there over the years, mostly in the summer months, some of it bringing in the hay and working on the farm. My boys spent many of their years as youngsters working for their Uncle Ted.

That does not necessarily give me credentials as a farmer. I do not pretend to have them. However, I think is important that all Canadians understand what the position being put forward today represents.

Let us be clear. An opposition day is an opportunity for the opposition party in question to put forward a motion that somehow in some way might embarrass the government. It is not about serious policy. It is not about putting forward arguments and debate to the farmers of western Canada or southwestern Ontario. It is not about putting forward policies that make sense. It is about ranting, raving and railing on about how awful it is that this dastardly government is ignoring farmers.

The Reform Party has principles. If we do not like them it has others, which is exactly what we are seeing here. One part of the motion states:

—to provide tax relief, lower input costs, reduce user fees and address the inadequacies of the farm safety net program.

Yet we can see it is the Reform Party's position. It is quite interesting. Members of the Reform Party, in their own document referred to as the blue book, call for a self-reliant and economically viable agricultural industry which will use market mechanisms, including the free operation of comparative advantage between regions and commodities, free entry into all sectors of production, and marketing and global free trade to meet the needs of consumers. If their policies were adopted they would create a trade war which they know full well would not benefit farmers or consumers.

All of us in this place, whether we represent farm communities or urban communities, represent people who need a successful farming industry.

On the one hand they would do all these miraculous things. They consider themselves to be primarily free traders and on the other hand they would create a trade war that would see farmers across the country penalized.

Let us talk about some contradictions because hypocrisy sometimes is amazing. It is amazing to see some of the differences. They also support “the phased reduction and elimination of all subsidies, support programs, trade restrictions and non-tariff barriers in conjunction with other countries and domestic sectors”.

They go on to say that they will vigorously use federal safety net programs to support Canadian food producers that are struggling. Which is it? Are we to use programs like NISA to support farmers who are struggling food producers, or are we to phase out and eliminate all subsidy support programs? What is NISA? Is that not a support program? On one hand they want to eliminate it. On the other hand they want to use it to support farmers.

This takes me back to the election campaign when the leader of the Reform Party would say one thing when talking in eastern Canada, perhaps about Quebec or whatever, and another thing when talking in western Canada. There seemed to be two messages or more. I cannot explain it.

I am reading from their document. This is not Liberal propaganda. They will support the phased reduction and elimination of all subsidies and support programs. However they will vigorously use federal safety net programs to support Canadian food producers. It is pretty clear to me. They cannot have it both ways.

Here are some other interesting statistics out of the blue book. In their supposed taxpayers' budget of 1995 they called for $640 million to be saved by downsizing guess what department?

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the bill establishes a procedure. It is not a short term proposition. Like national parks the areas we are talking about are intended to be created in perpetuity.

It is absolutely a puzzle to me why Reformers would object to perpetuating and perpetually protection of the environment through the bill. They are using it for their own political purpose to grandstand because they only know how to be against an initiative of the government instead of trying to understand it and support it for all Canadians.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting response, the issue of my father is stronger than your father. I am paraphrasing. Perhaps it is close to what was said.

We on this side of the House are saying that our Canada is stronger with Quebec as part of it than the hon. member's country separated. That is very simple. If that is school yard bully tactics then so be it, but I do not think it is. We understand that my Canada, the Canada of people on this side of the House, is stronger with British Columbia as part of it and is stronger with Quebec as part of it.

The member opposite continues to chirp. I guess he did not have enough time to ask his question. Perhaps he has a particular amendment that he wants to make to the bill. Is he saying he does not? He is asking why it cannot be like the agreement in the Saguenay.

Why not bring it to committee? This is second reading. It will go to committee. Why not bring it to committee and take a look at some amendments? The hon. member might be surprised. If there is a way of improving the bill, who knows? We could discuss it. It could be possible.

The hon. member wants to stand in this place and use it as nothing more than a political soapbox for the absolute display of unity between the Reform and the Bloc Quebecois that are both in their own inimitable way determined to destroy the country. The Liberal Party of Canada, the government of the country, will not allow that to happen.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

He is not one of them. He is a Reformer. The Conservatives should be a little nervous. I hear that the venerable Bill Davis recently attended a unite the right cocktail party. I wonder if they were serving arsenic or whatever. I understand there is a move to have the Reform Party leap-frog over the Bloc to join the Tories in the unite the right, but I am delighted to hear members say that it will not happen.

We have some federal legislation. Should we turn it over to the provinces? The Fisheries Act, the Oceans Act, the Canada Shipping Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the Migratory Birds Act, all these statutes are relevant to the conservation of marine resources. They are relevant to this place. It is our responsibility and the responsibility of Reformers to stand and defend the nation. They should stand and say that they will vote with the government if it means protecting the national environment on behalf of all Canadians, even though they only represent a few in a few small areas of the country.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

A member of the Reform Party says the system does not work. He would simply build a bridge right through the heart of the Rockies and separate the province of British Columbia. That is the message.

The member wants all the regulatory power to be put in the hands of Premier Clark. That is what we are hearing those members say. They know what is best.

My colleague from Wentworth—Burlington pointed out that he has a mother, a brother and a sister living there. I have many dear friends in Victoria. Most of them are Liberals, he might appreciate, but dear friends nonetheless.

We have a former long time mayor who now represents his community in this place. When someone is elected on a federal agenda they are elected, it seems to me, regardless of their parochialism, regardless of their tunnel vision, regardless of their inability to understand that from sea to sea to sea there are issues of significance to all Canadians. The treatment of the environment in the province of British Columbia I believe in my heart is important to the people of Newfoundland and vice versa. The treatment of the Great Lakes, the treatment of our fisheries, the treatment of pollution, of dealing with water purification, is important to all Canadians.

The proof of that came when recently there was an announcement that water would be sold out of the Great Lakes basin to the United States. The uproar, believe me, was from sea to sea to sea.

Should we turn that decision over to the province of Ontario? Should we abdicate our national responsibility? Members in the Reform Party would probably suggest we should turn it over to the state of Michigan, given their track record and their background and where many of their policies come from.

Do a survey in virtually any part of this country and simply ask should the federal government, the national government, the Parliament of Canada, have input into the protection of the environment in this country or should we simply wash our hands and abdicate that responsibility to the provincial governments.

I heard one member talk about Tweedledee and Tweedledum. I am not sure who but I heard somebody, Bloc or Reform, say that perhaps the municipalities should be given control over this. Would that not be interesting?

I also served 10 years as a municipal councillor. I understand the role and I appreciate the role. My wife currently serves as a councillor. It is a incredibly important service to the community, but with all due respect to my dear wife, my mayor and all municipal politicians, I do not feel I would stand here and abdicate my responsibility for national programs to the municipalities.

How would members like to see Mel Lastman and Hazel McCallion in a two out of three mud fall, fighting over the environment? I do not think I want to see that. I do not think the national parliament wants to give up that kind of authority to the municipal level. The member opposite is shaking her head, but it was one of her own members who suggested it.

If the official opposition wants to criticize the federal government that is fine. That is its job. I understand that; been there and done that. If it wants to dismantle it, it should have the courage. At least the Bloc says it like it is from its perspective. It wants to dismantle the country.

Do Reformers expect that we should wrap up federal responsibilities with a great big bow, things Canadians hold dear to their hearts, and turn them over to provincial politicians? If that is what Reformers want to do, they should say that.

It would not surprise me terribly, considering that they only represent two provinces and considering they do not have a seat east of the Manitoba border, that their interests might lie in the fact that Ralph Klein is the latest champion of the Reform Party and the unite the right. It would not surprise me at all. It would not surprise me considering the fact that the hon. Tony Clement, minister of transportation for the province of Ontario, sings the praises of the Reform Party. I wonder why. He might like to avoid a provincial Reform Party starting up in the province of Ontario. Maybe that is the motive. I do not know.

If there is a Reform Party in the province of Ontario running on the same side of the agenda as Mike Harris, it seems to me a lot of people would be tripping over one another because Mike Harris is already fundamentally a Reform Party member.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

Unite the right apparently is in some difficulty. There appear to be some good reasons we are hearing about today.

I was a provincial politician for eight years in the Ontario legislature. I fully understand the constitutional relationship between the federal government and provincial governments. I fully understand the responsibility of a provincial government to deliver services to its citizens.

We provide transfer grants. Those grants go for health care. We do not interfere in the actual delivery of health care or in the running of the hospitals. That is the responsibility of provincial governments.

There are some people in my province who might like us to interfere in education when they see the kinds of cuts taking place by Mr. Harris and company, particularly in the area of health care. They might like us to interfere but that is not the way the system works. We understand that.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

In a minute. That is the message, and the member would actually unite with these guys.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Wentworth—Burlington.

I did not intend to speak to this bill but some of the things that have been said must be challenged. I think the Canadian people should hear what is in the bill. That would be a very unusual approach to take in a debate.

I heard the hon. parliamentary secretary to the minister of heritage ask a question a moment ago to a member of the Bloc. The member asked if he felt he was a member of federal parliament. It occurred to me that Reform and Bloc members are provincial members of the federal parliament. There is quite a distinction.

It is fascinating to hear Reform Party members stand and defend the rights of the British Columbia government to take care of the national environmental responsibility. I understand the Bloc doing it, as I said before, because its members would separate Quebec from the rest of Canada. Are Reform members now telling us they would separate British Columbia?

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is astounding. I said I respected the fact that Bloc members were being honest. We know what their agenda is.

I ask the member who just spoke from the Bloc whether or not he feels a slight twinge of discomfort when he hears members from the Reform Party support regionalism, provincialism and anything that would allow them to oppose the government, even though the Reform Party is saying that it agrees with the Bloc.

They are in bed with the Bloc and think the environment should be left in the hands of provincial governments that have parochial interests of their own and, as my colleague pointed out, may be driven by a need to gather votes. They would hand over the environment of the country to provincial parochial politicians. I would suggest the Bloc at least has an agenda.

Does the member who just spoke not feel slightly uncomfortable finding himself in bed with the Reform Party on this issue?

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, when we listen to members of the Bloc on an issue that should be of national significance It should come as no surprise to anyone in this place that they would oppose it.

Their very existence or their very being is one of opposing anything that might in some way unite all of Canada over an issue as vital as the environment. I am not at all surprised. In fact I am prepared to acknowledge at least their honesty in saying that they want to break the country apart.

I ask the member—