John Solomon

[Petitions, March 6th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of my constituents as well as those from Assiniboia, Regina Beach, Pilot Butte, Riceton, Fort Qu'Appelle and Saskatoon, all in Saskatchewan. The petitioners are very concerned about the price of gas. They are very concerned because the increases have not been justified.

They are asking the House of Commons and the government to set up an energy price review commission to keep gasoline pricing and other energy products in check.

My second petition is also from many constituents in Regina-Lumsden. It pertains to the tax increases on gasoline. Fifty-two per cent of the cost of gas is taxes.

The petitioners are asking the House of Commons and the Government of Canada not to increase the taxes on gasoline in the upcoming federal budget.

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

As usual, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from Saskatoon does not have his facts right. Saskatchewan has seen an offloading by this federal government of $600 million over three

years. Six hundred million dollars amounts to $600 for every man, woman and child in Saskatchewan. On top of that we have seen the elimination of the Crow benefit by the government opposite which amounts to another $350 per man, woman and child per year. Almost $1,000 per person per year is now lost out of the economy in terms of revenue sharing and equalization with respect to social programs.

The government has not done what Alberta has done or what the Liberal government opposite has done, simply hacking and slashing. What we have done is we have taken a balanced approach to the problem. The balanced approach is that they are making up some revenues in terms of trying to minimize the impact of that cut. As well, they are going through a process of attrition, early retirement and other procedures where people have some dignity in terms of what they are doing after they leave certain positions.

The member talks about devastating health care. This government promises in its red book and in the speech from the throne to improve health care and make it better. How can the government make it better when it is cutting $7 billion from the health care plan without looking first at efficiencies?

For example, if the Liberal government repealed Bill C-91, the drug patent legislation, we would save the governments, the drug plans and the health care plans in this country over $2 billion a year right off the top. That is the increased cost this bill has allowed prescription drugs to increase by as a result of the government's supporting the large pharmaceutical companies that give substantial contributions to the Liberal Party to get re-elected, which is no surprise to the member from Saskatoon.

The government allows little things like this to proceed while it costs our health care system and devastates it from another perspective. I think it should be looking at that issue very closely and addressing it.

I thank the member for his question. Now that he has the facts he will be able to go back to his riding and share them with his constituents.

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

My colleague from Manitoba across the floor asks how much is enough.

There is an attitude in the corporate world and it is supported and nurtured by the Liberal government which says: "You can have as much profit as you want. We do not care as long as you keep giving us money and political contributions".

I want to mention a couple of things about Mr. Conrad Black. Toronto's establishment Upper Canada College expelled him for stealing and selling examination papers. This comes from a 1992 Maclean's article. I quote from the article: ``Black has frequently expressed a distaste for reporters, calling them a very degenerative group with a terrible incidence of alcoholism and drug abuse, who are often ignorant, lazy, opinionated, intellectually dishonest and inadequately supervised''.

This is Conrad Black who is now given tax breaks by the Liberal government to take over all of the daily newspapers in Saskatchewan and then lay off 25 per cent of their employees. We are going to give him a tax break because his company is going to buy a printing press in Saskatoon and who is going to subsidize this? The Liberal government policies. This is absolutely outrageous. I think Canadians are sick and tired of this, particularly those in Saskatchewan.

I also quote Thomas d'Aquino of the Business Council on National Issues: "The Prime Minister left the impression that we were not creating jobs but frankly we are a bit disturbed by that because over the last three years the private sector has created about 600,000 new jobs". The private sector may have done that but while the small and medium size businesses in the private sector have done that, the large corporations are taking all of the tax subsidies allowed by this government. They are laying off people and the smaller businesses are starting up and creating their own jobs, many of them very low paying.

Mr. d'Aquino said as well: "We have not been asleep at the switch. We have not been creating as many new jobs as we would like, but to suggest or leave the impression with Canadians that chief executives are out there just downsizing and throwing people out on the streets without any sense that you know in fact it is going the other way, it was a mistake".

The evidence we have seen in this country in the last six months is exactly contrary to what Thomas D'Aquino of the Business Council on National Issues is saying. It is entirely the opposite to what the speech from the throne is saying in terms of creating jobs. I believe many of the Liberal backbenchers are ashamed of the throne speech because of the things that are happening with respect to the lack of commitment to the Liberal Party's jobs strategy.

New Democrats are calling for the government to implement a Canadian code of corporate citizenship. This is a very important code. It would say to the business community and to Canadian citizens that if they are making a profit that they are operating in this country, that they are committed to building their communities, to maintaining jobs in various occupations and as well, they are making a profit and will share the money through a fair taxation system and also will give their employees a decent increase from time to time.

I am absolutely opposed to the speech from the throne and I will be voting against it when it comes before this House.

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the speech from the throne indicates the Liberals have not delivered on one promise they made in the last election campaign so they are making these promises one more time.

The Liberals have talked about creating jobs. Let us go over the list of jobs they have created. Bell Canada made profits of $502 million last year and laid off 3,100 employees. Petro-Canada made a profit of $196 million and laid off 564 employees. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce made over $1 billion in net profits and laid off 1,289 employees. General Motors made a profit of $1.39 billion yet laid off 2,500 employees.

Shell Oil made profits of $523 million, an increase of 63 per cent over last year, and laid off 471 employees. Imperial Oil made $514 million, which was an increase of 43 per cent over the previous year, and laid off 452 employees. The Bank of Montreal made a $986 million profit, an increase of 20 per cent over 1994, yet laid off 1,428 employees. This is the job creation program of the federal government.

We have seen the government in every field give contributions in terms of tax breaks to these corporations which have a corporate responsibility, a community responsibility to use the profits they make to reinvest in Canada either through capital, through job sustenance or through job creation. This has not been done by the corporations because the Liberal government has allowed it to go unattended. As a matter of fact, the government is encouraging it.

How is the government encouraging it? The corporations I have mentioned have made substantial financial contributions to the Liberal Party. They are large political contributors and what do we get in return? We get the Liberal government turning a blind eye to these very policies which are not job creation policies but job elimination policies.

The speech from the throne, which somebody has more appropriately referred to as the speech from the toilet, is exactly that. It does not seem to address the real problems of Canadians.

On Saturday we saw another disaster with respect to this government policy. On Thursday the Prime Minister in the speech from the throne challenged business to create jobs in Canada. He

pleaded by saying to the business community: "I challenge you to create jobs".

On Friday Conrad Black, a multibillionaire in Canada whose company Hollinger Inc. took possession of the Regina Leader-Post , the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix and the Yorkton Enterprise in Saskatchewan. The next day 25 per cent of the employees of all three newspapers were laid off. According to Mr. Black as quoted from the newspaper, the reason was: ``These newspapers made a profit but they didn't make enough profit''.

I am challenging the government, I am challenging the Prime Minister today to define for Canadians how much profit is enough before corporations have to stop laying people off when they are making profits.

[Corporate Downsizing, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen in Saskatchewan and across the country a number of jobs that have been terminated by large corporations receiving corporate tax breaks from the national government.

Will the government give its assurance today that these corporate tax breaks are not provided to corporations that lay off employees, even though they are profitable? Will the government launch an investigation into the question of concentration of ownership and the lack of competition in the media?

[Corporate Downsizing, March 5th, 1996]

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

On Thursday the Prime Minister challenged business to create jobs. On Friday Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. took ownership of the Regina Leader-Post , the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix and the Yorkton Enterprise . The next day 25 per cent of the employees of these newspapers, 182 jobs in all, were terminated because Conrad Black said: ``These newspapers made profits but not enough profits''.

In view of this latest corporate job massacre which is clearly a slap in the face to the Prime Minister's challenge, how long will the government tolerate this lack of corporate responsibility before taking any action?

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

We hear the member for St. Boniface chirping from his seat. He is anxious to get into the debate. He wants to get in here and talk about this issue, and I hope he will.

The Liberals promised they would create jobs. They promised they would reform social programs and unite Canada. Of course they have failed. There is talk about job creation and social reform in the speech but that is not what Canadians are getting.

The federal government is actually doing less about jobs now than it was a year ago. Instead of a hand up for Canadians there is a handout which is shrinking on a daily basis. There is deficit reduction but it is neither balanced nor fair. National programs and national standards, which have been the glue that has held Canada together, are being wiped out rather than being improved.

The Liberal members sit in their seats and say that what I have just said is nonsense. Let us talk about some of the things they have encouraged in terms of a situation-

[Speech From The Throne, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia for allowing me to share his time and the House leader of the Reform Party who helped to make that arrangement.

We have seen the speech from the throne. Most people in the House have indicated that the speech from the throne from this government is not worth the paper it has been written on. It talks about promises the Liberals have made in the past. It talks about the promises very clearly and about the Liberals breaking those very same promises. The promises from their 1993 red book were so good that they have offered them up one more time in the speech from the throne. They did not carry out the promises in the first place.

The Liberals promised jobs, jobs, jobs and they delivered talk, talk, talk. There was no action with respect to the jobs they said they would create. They promised to build up Canada. They promised to strengthen our country. Instead, they have ripped apart this country from sea to sea with respect to the national unity issue.

We have also seen a total abandonment of the government's responsibility to clearly hold as a priority the rights and interests of the citizens of this country in terms of their right to employment and other matters.

[Energy Price Commission, March 4th, 1996]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-220, an act respecting the Energy Price Commission.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to introduce the bill respecting the energy price commission. The bill responds to the concerns and complaints of millions of Canadians about unfair gas pricing, unjustifiable price increases for gasoline and government tax hikes on gasoline.

The bill establishes an energy price commission to regulate wholesale and retail prices of gasoline. The purpose of price regulation is to avoid unreasonable increases that affect the cost of living, agricultural production costs and depressed business activity.

The bill will facilitate reasonable consistency in prices from province to province, allowing for production and distribution costs. The regulation further minimizes the risk of collusion in pricing and prevents dominant suppliers from setting unreasonable prices.

The bill also links the issue of price control to competition. Any investigation of an alleged offence under the Competition Act that is related to gasoline pricing is remitted by the Competition Tribunal to the commission for investigation and a report to the tribunal before it makes a determination or order on the matter.

Every one penny increase in gasoline takes about $375 million out of the economy. This commission will make sure the money is either justified or not.

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

[Supply, December 5th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party vote no on this motion.