House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was quebec.

Last in Parliament May 2004, as Liberal MP for Ottawa—Orléans (Ontario)

Won his last election, in 2000, with 51% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Cigarette Smuggling February 14th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, the premier of Ontario refuses to co-operate with the federal government to try to resolve the cigarette smuggling problem. He states that the Prime Minister is catering to Quebec.

I wish to remind him that 35 per cent of Ontario cigarettes are contraband, that Cornwall residents who live in fear of being shot at night are still part of Ontario, that according to the OPP two Oka crisis veterans, Lasagna and Noriega, helped set up a smuggling network in Sault Ste. Marie.

The Canadian coast guard advised pleasure craft owners not to navigate near Walpole Island at the Michigan border due to violence caused by cigarette smuggling.

Has the premier looked at a map of Ontario lately? Wake up, Bob, and smell the cancer-causing cigarette smoke, the Ontario contraband kind.

supply February 11th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Industry for his presentation on the development of aboriginal businesses. I think he explained well enough that the program is worthwhile and that we should maintain and even expand it.

I would like to comment on the motion of the Reform Party. I will read the French version if the members of that party will allow me. It says that the government should study the report of the Auditor General, make recommendations and report, I quote:

-no later than the first week of June each year, what measures have been taken by the government to address unresolved problems identified by the Auditor General in his report-

I have been a member of the committee for the last five years and I can say it is totally impossible to implement the proposal of the Reform Party. The report was just presented in January and I know the members of the steering committee of the Public

Accounts Committee must meet in order to determine the agenda for the study sessions they will hold. The report of the Auditor General is not final; the committee must do its work and make recommendations.

Many recommendations have been made during the last five years. The Reform Party and the rest of Parliament should focus on the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee, they should make representations and have debates here in the House.

Supply February 11th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the President of the Treasury Board for the list he just gave us of projects the Liberal government has launched since last October 26. What he told the Reform Party member for St. Albert is that the government of the present Prime Minister is setting the pace, that we will be doing things the correct and honest way.

The accountability of the Liberal government will soon be recognized as an example showing that our government knows how to make fair and reasonable cuts and knows also how to govern in a honest and proper fashion. The minister set the tone, gave us examples like the Toronto airport and the helicopter project which represented considerable waste.

While I am on that subject, let me say that I was a member of the public accounts committee for five years under the Tory government and I think our chairman, the member for Ottawa-Vanier, is perfectly right in asking that the reports and recommendations of the accounts committee be debated here in the House. The Auditor General does a fantastic job in protecting our tax money, expenditures and projects, yes projects; the Reform Party would like to implement only cuts and no projects, not even reasonable ones, but the objective is also to develop projects.

The Canadian government is there to initiate projects designed to improve the quality of life for everybody. The government does not exist only to cut, cut, cut; it should cut in areas where there is waste. The Auditor General presents annual reports. The member for Ottawa-Vanier is right. When I was on the public accounts committee, we recommended that the Auditor General report his findings not every year but maybe every month. When the report is published annually, it has the effect of a bombshell; the media jump on it and report on the main points without digging into it. That is only a show and we should stop making a show of things and start doing some management. We should bring the reports of the Auditor General here to the House, through public accounts committee recommendations so that we may discuss them and improve government operations.

Judicial Appointments February 8th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the Minister of Justice for appointing 19 new judges, including five in Ontario, in January and February. Even with these appointments, there are not enough judges able to hear cases in both official languages used in Ontario courts. In Ottawa, for example, over 1,400 civil cases are still waiting to be heard, many since 1988.

Does the minister intend to appoint more bilingual judges in Ontario, especially in Eastern Ontario, to improve access to the courts in both official languages?

Pre-Budget Consultations February 1st, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Member for Calgary Southwest on his speech. I would like to ask him a question about RRSPs.

I personally feel that RRSPs allow us to prepare for our old age, and the better we are prepared for our old age, the less we will be a burden on Canadian society, when the time comes to pay annuities to senior citizens.

It is a program that I really like and that is really close to my heart, which I have not yet had the chance to use, however, but I

encourage Canadians to take advantage of it. I hope that the government will continue along this road, and I am not saying that I know any of the Finance Minister's secrets. We are allowed to use the RRSP program to purchase a home. I feel that, at our age, we should also be able to use our RRSPs to help our children buy a home.

I would like to hear the views of the hon. member for Calgary Southwest on this plan, which is called the RRSP Home Buyer's Plan. Do you think there is something positive in this idea, and do you think it should be renewed in the next budget?

Point Of Order January 27th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I understand your reading from former Debates . When you mentioned that preference would be given to MPs of other parties and so on, I did not hear the word exclusive or must. I heard what I interpret as words like may and good practice and good custom.

I appreciate very much your diligence in checking to see what the proper practice should be. I also say that I do respect that you are new on the job, as it were, and I respect your position.

However you have just informed me, Mr. Speaker, that I was right but too bad, member of Parliament for Carleton-Gloucester, you could have had your day in court; you were right but sit down and we are going to go on with whatever we are supposed to go on with today.

Since I have not been hanged, as capital punishment does not exist any more, and I am still alive and standing, perhaps the Chair, as a gesture of penance or whatever it might be called, would allow me to have 60 seconds to comment on whatever I would like to say to the minister.

I think it would be fair to allow me as a backbench member of Parliament to make comments that would affect my riding after a minister has spoken.

Point Of Order January 27th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was extremely disappointed a short while ago when you did not recognize me after the Minister of Canadian Heritage spoke. It has been my experience in the House and my observation of years before that when someone spoke in the House the Speaker would recognize people from different parties.

I understand full well that if someone from the government makes a speech, especially a minister, it would be good parliamentary manners to accept comments or questions immediately from opposition members of Parliament.

However, when members of the government wanted to make a comment or question to the minister I believe in the past they have always been recognized. A member may agree or disagree with his own minister. A member like myself may want to make a comment. I may want to make a comment about something that affects my riding. I may want to question the minister.

Are we changing the way we have been operating in the House whereby after someone's speech there is an alternance between parties so that backbenchers, members of Parliament, can have their say in the highest court of the land?

I beg you, Mr. Speaker, not to change that good practice. There should be an alternance among the five parties. We on the government side should not be muzzled as ordinary members of Parliament because of possibly a new practice of which I have not been made aware to date.

Speech From The Throne January 27th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, agreed. I give notice that I would like to raise a point of order as soon as questions and comments are over.

I wish to go back to our comedian from Sherbrooke and tell him that the difference between the new government and the old governement he was part of is that: there are glib talkers and then there are people of little action. The member for Sherbrooke has become one of those glib talkers.

The member for Sherbrooke for whom I have much affection and admiration, has made great progress. I would like to have heard him use the same tone to defend the public good over the course of the last five years. I must then congratulate him on his speech. He has finally seen the light. At long last, he is talking about people from Sherbrooke, from Chicoutimi. He has not mentioned the citizens of the national capital region but he has spoken of the westerners and the Reform Party. He referred to the Bloc Quebecois and to Canadians in general. He did forget to ask for absolution for the great sin he committed while in "another world" during nine years; that is, being spokesperson for big business rather than for Canadian citizens.

Speech From The Throne January 27th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the stand-up comic from Sherbrooke on such an entertaining presentation. Members of the Progressive Conservative Party really missed out last June by electing someone else as their leader. They certainly made the most monumental mistake of their lives because history has proven that our gentleman from Sherbrooke is now a leader in opposition, a leader of the former Progressive Conservative Party.

I said "opposition" because he sees himself as the official opposition. The hon. member should recognize in his usual jovial manner that he is leader of absolutely nothing, but he is obviously a very good entertainer.

He talks of Canadian citizens. For five years straight I have heard the member for Sherbrooke, previously minister of this and that, talking about Canadian big business without ever mentioning Canadians. Today he remembers them.

I know the member is a grassroots politician. All of a sudden, he is forced to start all over again, to go from door to door. I congratulate him on his door-to-door campaign. It is a good start. Maybe, 25 or 30 years from now, the Progressive Conservative Party will become the official opposition.

I am not particularly attempting to reply to the member for Sherbrooke who seems suddenly to have taken it upon himself to change the rules of the game. I have always thought, during the five years that I was here, that one was not to address other members directly in the House, that one had to address the Speaker. The rules seem to have changed. I would like to comment on the House rules. Following the speech by the minister for Heritage Canada, opposition members were allowed to speak.

Student Loans January 24th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, I wish to make colleagues in the House of Commons aware of a serious situation developing with student loans.

The former Tory government abolished the initial six months of free interest on student loans.

Many Canadian graduates now find themselves without jobs, without money and with student loans of $30,000 or more. How can we ask these young people to pay back their loans right away when they are unemployed?

Jobless graduates have become discouraged, even desperate. I urge my colleagues to support youth employment programs and a fair repayment plan of student loans.