Roy H. Bailey

[Petitions, June 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to read into the record the concerns of people from my constituency and beyond. They are concerned that the creation and use of child pornography is being condemned by the clear majority of Canadians. Yet the government is not taking proper action.

The petitioners call upon parliament to protect our children and take all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote and glorify pedophilia do now cease.

[Species at Risk Act, June 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if we look out on the street we will see vehicles designed for different purposes: boats, aircraft. This bill is designed for confrontation, not co-operation. Those words are important. The key players, the cabinet, cannot even agree among themselves.

Bill C-5 would give the federal government the power to impose its laws on provincial lands. Will the minister guarantee to the House, to his department and to other departments that co-operation will be the key between the provinces and the property owners rather than creating an atmosphere that is built into the bill of distrust and uncertainty that would deter Canadians from ensuring species at risk receive the protection that is needed?

[World War II, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it was on June 6, 1944, that the long awaited invasion of Nazi controlled Europe began. It was the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany.

Military historians have named this day the longest day in history. Canadians went ashore at Juno Beach and fought a battle that is as comparable in memory to that of Vimy Ridge during World War I. Approximately 14,000 Canadians landed on the shores of Normandy and suffered 1,074 casualties of which 359 were fatal. VE Day was still 11 months away.

Today, we have veterans across Canada, some of whom received their injuries on June 6, 1944, whose names appear on long waiting lists to get into promised long term care at veterans' hospitals.

Canadian vets deserve better than this.

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Yes, I did give it back. I had no choice but to give it back for a number of reasons because I was still working for them at that time.

This is a very serious problem. It goes back to 1972. How much was a dollar worth in 1972 compared to 2002? I do not think anyone has brought that point up so far. If we translate a dollar that was overpaid in 1972 into a dollar today, it would be closer to $4. That would be absolutely wrong.

The hon. gentleman who answered a question from one of my colleagues talked about sharing and equalization. I am from the west, from Saskatchewan. I can proudly stand and say I know what I am talking about when it comes to sharing equally such things as heritage grants, foundation money and cultural grants. It is not there. We can prove it year in and year out. There is no sharing.

I will use the province closest to mine, Manitoba, to explain what would happen. An actuary showed me how to work this out. He used the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. He took their populations, which are relatively the same and their demographics and moved them up the scale. He took the spiraling cost of drugs and moved that up the scale. He took the cost of health care and moved it up the scale, but he left the federal grant of 12% to hospitals the same. Within a generation under the same conditions that exist right now, 100% of Manitoba's and Saskatchewan's budgets would go to health care.

If Manitoba was asked to return the $408 million accumulated since 1972, in a health care system like the one in my province which is foundering, all that would do is make a bad situation worse. We should never forget that health care delivery in Canada was based on the fact that the federal government would always contribute 50%, not 12%. The amounts of money that have been overpaid are far less than if the government was living up to its agreement of 50% toward health care. When we look at it in that way, the old adage is, a promise made is a debt unpaid.

There are two incidents which happened with AIDA. AIDA was a program designed to help the farmers who were destitute. I could cite 100 cases where farmers finally got relief, sometimes up to $50,000 and sometimes only $500 or $600, and then three weeks later they received a letter saying “We have calculated this incorrectly. Please return the money”.

One case that will always be in my mind as long as I live involved a lady who drove daily to Regina where her husband was dying from cancer. I worked on the case for her. Although she lived 200 miles away, I knew her. She received a total of $1,800 from AIDA. Two weeks later the phone rang in my office and she was in tears. A lot of the AIDA accounts had been miscalculated and she had been asked to repay $1,800.

To ask Manitoba to return $408 million to the federal coffers right now is asking it to make very severe cuts. The one place it would have to cut is health care and it is at a bare minimum right now.

The auditor general has told us that something like $7.1 billion or $7.2 billion has been set aside for foundations. Maybe the government could be human and instead of doing what it has previously done with foundation grants it could look at what is owing and remedy the situation. Even though the government may not ask for it all back, maybe it could say that in view of the programming and in view of the time when it started in 1972, it will give the provinces some consideration. That is what a government with a heart, a government that really cared about people would do.

If someone who owed me money was destitute, I would tell the person that I would take another look at the situation. That is what we on this side of the House are asking the government to do. We are asking the government to take another look at its own budget for this year. We are asking it to take another look at its foundation grants and all of the other grants it hands out across Canada.

I ask government members to ask themselves if they are doing the right thing. Is this the time for the government to say to the provinces “We made the mistake so now pay up”? I know some of the people opposite very well and I do not think the majority of them have that kind of heart. Intrinsically, I do not think they really want to do this. Let us give this some consideration.

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to join in the debate. I think most people have experienced what it is like to get a cheque and then be told “Sorry, we paid you too much”. We know how that hurts. I recall the first time that happened to me. I was a teenager working on a snowplow gang. I was overpaid $18.

[Canada Post Corporation Act, June 5th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I do want to get into a discussion on the bill sponsored by the member for Chambly. I would like to give a little history lesson first because people see the bill differently in different parts of Canada.

My constituency has 87 post offices. Approximately 12 of them are located in houses, in small rooms with separate entrances, providing a service to a small community. There is no question in my mind that if we were to make those facilities compliant with the bill I am afraid that would cause Canada Post to close these small centres.

I have never talked to any individuals who operate these small post offices who had ever indicated in any way that they wanted to do anything else but place a tender and operate out of a small room. There is no demand out there, as the hon. member from the government side has just said, to make changes to that. None whatsoever.

We still have contracts for those people who would carry the mail in these remote areas. When these contracts go out people bid on them and the lowest bid is not always accepted. The Bloc member said that somehow they are told that they would have to lower their bid in the bidding for Canada Post contracts. That is absolutely false. I know it as I have helped many of these people prepare their bids.

The conditions of the bid include the mileage, the route, the time and everything else. They know how long the contract will be and when the contract will come to an end. They can either reapply and re-tender it. The idea that was raised in this House that somehow the tenders are looked at first and then negotiated to take the lowest tender after the tender process is absolutely not true.

The hon. member who just spoke from the government side did raise an interesting point. He said that we get the mail in reasonable time. I would like his definition of reasonable. I used to get mail from Ottawa delivered to my home more quickly when the CPR carried it than at the present time, so let us not say it is reasonable.

I have great fears that if we were to take all of Canada Post and put it so that all employees, even for only a few hours a day, came under a contractual arrangement we would ruin service to the rural areas. I am sure that would happen. Instead of having a daily mail service, it would perhaps be cut down to two days a week.

While the idea of the bill may have some merit, speaking from rural area Saskatchewan and speaking on behalf of the smaller post offices, I am afraid we could not support the bill even though it was votable.

The people who render the service in rural Saskatchewan do a tremendous job. The poolrooms are no longer the social centres. The post offices in rural Saskatchewan are the social centres of the community. For that reason, to destroy the operation of the post offices that now exist, at least in my area, under different contractual operations, would be a blow to the communities.

For that reason of course I cannot support a change in the present arrangements that Canada Post has with the smaller areas.

In the larger areas, I am not disputing, in any way, CUPW's operation. I am not disputing the arrangements that it has for mail contracting. I am not disputing the arrangements that Canada Post has with airmail or having the trucks deliver to central points.

What I am disputing is the government, or Canada Post as a corporation, trying to put something in these smaller areas that simply will not work in rural Canada. I know it will not work because I live in rural Canada and smaller areas are not asking for it. I have lived in a rural area for years. We have 24 truck deliveries and about 80 post offices. No one has ever asked for a change in what we now enjoy.

For rural Saskatchewan, those places outside the city, and for smaller places from coast to coast to coast, all the bill would do, if it were a votable bill and it came into effect, is cause Canada Post to bring poorer service to rural Canada, including Saskatchewan. Therefore I cannot support the bill.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, June 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I know some may expect that I will be talking again about gophers but I will not do that. I only want to congratulate the two winners of the gopher derby across the west. The two young lads live in Assiniboia, about 50 miles over from where I am. They received a lot of praise and thanks for trying to eliminate these pests.

Being a little bit older, I have seen a lot of cruelty to animals, such as horses in the field and so on. I am all for heavy penalties for mistreating animals. Having said that, I want to assure the government that the people from lobby groups who have lobbied the government are not giving the straight facts.

One only has to listen carefully to some of the slogans being used by members of the PETA organization. These are people who have lobbied the government. Their definition for rodeo is “cruelty for a buck”. These people will not stop. They will tell us that their ultimate goal is to shut down the Calgary stampede. These are the same people who have influenced this legislation. Dog racing is “death in the fast lane”. All zoos, such as Vancouver and Toronto, are to be shut down. These are called “pitiful prisons”.

I just had a circus in my constituency and every year I give it $50 and sometimes more. That money pays for a whole bunch of kids to see animals which they normally would never see. PETA calls circuses “three rings of abuse”. Its ultimate goal is to shut them down. We are even getting into royalty. PETA has labelled horse racing as “a losing bet”. Travelling animal acts are “shameful shows”. Marine mammal parks, and we have some of those in Canada, are “chlorinated prisons”.

People in those lobby groups who do not own animals and who have never worked with animals are the ones who have pushed and pushed for this legislation. However it is even more serious than that. PETA has even gone so far as to bring God into this argument. PETA goes so far as to say that Jesus was a vegetarian and that if we want to be good Christians, we must be vegetarians too, therefore, we must not have Kentucky fried chicken or anything else. That is who the government has been listening to.

We have a lot of humane societies around the country but some of its volunteers, including those in Vancouver, are challenging the animal care practices. They are now lobbying Burger King, McDonalds and others because of inhumane farm and slaughter methods practised by the suppliers of meat to these institutions. They get away with this.

By the way, when a rodeo event was held in conjunction with the Salt Lake City Olympics, the lobby group again pointed out that to have a calf roping event was “an international outrage that animal abuse would be associated with the Olympics”. That was not enough. The same group has asked that we stop manipulating the appearance of dogs. It does not want anyone in our country to breed purebred dogs. The owners of sheep and cattle would really be excited to hear they could no longer buy purebred border collies.

Animal rights groups are lobbying governments to prohibit any animals in circuses. They consider a circus to be for profit. I hope people who run circuses make a profit. I do not know why the country gets all excited if someone makes a profit. It is so ridiculous.

Is it any wonder why we on this side of the House are concerned about the potential and sure abuses? As sure as I am standing here, as my hon. colleague has just said, the bill will be tested to the limit by the lobby groups. The number of people now engaged in farming and agricultural practices is in the single digits, and I am sure there are almost that many in the lobby groups, to which the government pays close attention.

I want to talk a little bit about rodeos. If someone were to go to my daughter's ranch, that individual would see little horns on the wall and a kid trying to lasso them. It has been part of our culture. What an evil practice. This all originated with the cowboys on the open range trying to tame a wild horse or, indeed, trying bull roping or calf roping for sport. All of this was necessary. Now we breed bucking horses and we have a purebred professional rodeo association.

If you want to see an association, Mr. Speaker, that works with horses and cattle and lends all kinds of support to their well-being, it is a professional rodeo. Anyone who attempts to inflict any cruelty whatsoever on one of these animals has to meet the severe reprimand and fines of the professional association. We are not going to shut down the Calgary stampede or stop doing those things that farmers and ranchers have been doing for the last 150 years.

Let me say this. If the person who is judging is the one who determines what is cruel to animals and if it is left to someone who does not know the north end of a cow going south, then that person would has to go to court would indeed have to spend his or her money to justify themselves in court to some loony-brained lobbyist group that wants to destroy all animals on all farms. I just cannot believe how the government would pass the buck and send the bill over to the Senate to provide the amendments that it thinks it wants.

The bill should never pass. Whether one runs a ranch or a rodeo, let me say that the cowboys and ranchers know how to look after their animals and they do so with tender, loving care. Coming from a rural area with huge ranches, I am not about to stand here and not tell the people on that side of the House that the bill is wrong. People do not trust the government.

On Saturday I was at the official opening of a new veterinary clinic. The young vet is worried. I told him that all he has to do when some of these lobbyists come in is to get the biggest needle going and ask them to leave. I told him that this is all he has to do.

People are afraid. The rodeos are afraid. The zoos are afraid. All the people who bring these things to our society are afraid of the bill. It is wrong.

I know that after this session of parliament ends and a new one begins these organizations that I have just mentioned will try this bill to the limit and the public will be on their side, because all we have to do is get the press or the media or someone opposite to lend a voice about the cruelty of a certain activity and people will be charged. What can they do about it? Nothing except fight it in the courts, but they probably do not have the money.

I am very proud to stand before the House to represent my constituency and say that the bill is dead wrong and should not be passed. I do not care what the majority was over there. Someone will pay for this bill down the line and I hope it is the government. I hope someone over there gets stung with the results of the bill. I do not trust the letter that I saw come around which stated that the bill will be sent to the Senate, the Senate will fix it all up and everything is going to be rosy.

They should tell that to the zoos, the rodeo people, the ranchers, the feedlot operators, the cattle rings and the stockyard houses. They do not believe one word of the bill. The people who should be most concerned would be 90% plus against the bill, yet we in the House have the audacity to support it.

[Petitions, June 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, following September 11, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration ceased the use of what is called a CANPASS. This was a card allowing selected people to move back and forth across the border at any time.

I have in my hand a petition signed by individuals from the port of Coronach, Saskatchewan, the first such port in my constituency to have such cards. The petitioners are asking for the reinstatement of these cards. If that is not possible, they are asking that the port be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. so that they can properly move back and forth, as they did prior to September 11.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, June 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, animal rights groups were recently quite busy in my constituency, once at a circus sponsored by a service group and also at an auction ring, where auctions are held every week. The animal rights people warned the people who sponsored the circus and the manager of the auction ring that their practices were considered to be cruel and that if they were to continue they would be reported.

My question to the minister is this: To whom will these people report and who will be the judge of what constitutes animal cruelty?

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, also I would like the member to list at least three different things whereby we on both sides of the Chamber could agree to make certain changes that would prove to the people we represent that we were improving the area of accountability. I know he can do this.