Roy H. Bailey

[Veterans Affairs, May 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, veterans' organizations across Canada are about to receive another slap in the face from the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

The heritage department controls all national museums but has for years ignored the Canadian War Museum.

After the battle with the department over the Holocaust display, a war museum advisory committee made up of veterans' groups was set up to make sure that veterans' wishes would never again be ignored.

However, once again the veterans were not consulted and the minister in charge has decided that the new war museum will not be built on the preferred location at Rockcliffe. Instead, she has unilaterally chosen a much smaller site at LeBreton Flats.

Why has the government shown such disdain in moving the site without consultation and with an increase in expenditures of tens of millions of dollars?

[Petitions, April 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the petition I wish to present has 25 pages of signatures from Canadian across Saskatchewan. I note there are some from Big Beaver and some from Big River, which take in the far south and the far north.

The petition contains the signatures of farmers and ranchers who are pleading with the government to come through with a poison that can be used to kill Richardson ground squirrels or gophers. These squirrels have cost farmers and ranchers millions of dollars.

The government has ignored previous petitions. Let us hope it will finally listen to the requests of these farmers and ranchers.

[Hockey, April 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, today I want to congratulate the Weyburn Red Wings hockey team who won the Anavet Cup Saturday night with a score of 3-2 in double overtime against the Manitoba OCN Blizzards. The Red Wings won the series in a hard fought six games. I applaud both teams for their great effort.

The Weyburn Red Wings have won the Anavet Cup five times, three times in the last five seasons. Now they advance to the national championships, which this year will be held in Flin Flon, Manitoba.

The Canadian championship series will be a round robin affair with teams from Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Flin Flon, Manitoba, Camrose, Alberta, Saint-Jérôme, Quebec and Thornhill, Ontario.

I want to inform the House that this member will be pulling for the Weyburn Red Wings to win the national championship.

[Farm Credit Corporation Act, April 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will direct a question to the hon. member from the Conservative Party. It concerns the flooding that occurred in the southwest of his constituency and in the southeast of my constituency. About 100,000 acres in my constituency are under water at the present time.

I will go back to those years as they relate to the Farm Credit Corporation because the people in that corner of my constituency and in the corner of the hon. member's constituency have never financially recovered from the flood. I wonder if the new regulations of the Farm Credit Corporation will venture into that broke and devastated area and see fit to help those people get back into the farming economy. With pictures like the one I have right now, we can see those people are finished.

In order to get crop insurance farmers had to put a crop in. They also had to take it off, so they took off barley that weighed about 38 pounds and oats that weighed under 30 pounds and they still have it in their bins. They cannot sell it or give it away, and yet when they applied for the AIDA program they had to list it as a saleable commodity.

Does the member think the new bill we are debating will help people in Gainsborough, Saskatchewan, or Melita, Manitoba?

[Unknown Soldier, April 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to complete for you and the hon. members what my hon. colleague for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar said and read the poem

Who is the Unknown Soldier?

He is the one who led the way So the general could make it home; She is the one who saved the child And was left to die alone.

His dreams were cut off by his untimely death; Her innocence shattered by her last shallow breath.

He is the voice that echoes our pride; She is the eyes, that for our freedom, cried.

He is the rain that waters our souls; She is the river holding secrets untold.

He's in the wave crashing Normandy's shore; She's on the wind over Dieppe once more.

He's in the song that Passchendaele sang; She's in the bell from which freedom rang.

His death was a pledge prayers cannot suffice; Her life, a gift, at the ultimate price.

[The Constitution, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this morning in the House there was an interesting debate on Canadian elections, with reference to the current unelected Senate of Canada as laid out in the constitution.

For the most part, Canadians are totally unaware that our constitution is virtually impossible to amend. The support for successful change can only come from the central provinces. An amendment requires the support of two-thirds of the provinces and 50% of Canadians.

How long will Canadians tolerate such centralized power? Will one province, which is smaller than my province, continue to have four MPs and four senators? Will another province continue to have 75 members of parliament guaranteed, regardless of size?

The Canadian constitution was originally written to protect the political power of central Canada. Regionalism is a direct result of this central power. Constitutional change is long overdue.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, every professional organization I know of in Canada formulates its own code of ethics. Lawyers, doctors, teachers and every local government board that I served on formulate their own code of ethics. They have a living document in their possession. We in the House do not have a living document as to what constitutes a code of ethics.

Would the hon. member who has just spoken not agree that the House and the most senior government in Canada should have a living document that spells out a code of ethics? Should we not have a part in what formulates it so it can be shown to all Canadians that we adhere to one policy on both sides of the House and not the way it is right now? Should we as a parliamentary group not select, much as we do the Speaker, the ethics counsellor?

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to get to my hon. colleague's remarks, but I just want to say that I have lived at least 21 years of my professional career under some pretty severe rules of conduct and professional behaviour. As a young man I was a principal. I could have put my wife on staff, but I did not because I could see that and we had a code of ethics as board members. I had a code of ethics before me, all written out, as a member of the legislative assembly. If anyone on the board had phoned a bank to guarantee that a contractor would get a job, bingo, he would have been off the board.

The Prime Minister admittedly phoned the Business Development Bank. It was a total conflict of interest. That fact cannot be successfully denied by anybody in Canada.

I would like to ask the hon. member this: cannot your constituents see that it is a total conflict of interest and the Prime Minister should admit that guilt now and come clean on defending what is supposed to be a code of ethics for all members of parliament?

[National War Museum, March 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, veterans and friends of the war museum from across Canada have raised millions of dollars toward the building of the new national war museum. They were told that it would be built in Rockcliffe to complement the aviation museum and the new military cemetery.

In 1998 when the federal government announced a new $70 million war museum there was great joy. Today it appears the location will be changed to LeBreton Flats. The original joy has now turned to bitter disappointment.

Why does the government feel that it has a right to change the original location without any consultation whatsoever with those who have donated so generously?

If this move takes place without total agreement from the loyal supporters of the war museum, it will be a national betrayal. Who will benefit from the property that was originally reserved for the war museum? Certainly not the vets.

[Supply, March 20th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I might say, without telling my age, that I have been directly or indirectly involved with this industry probably longer than anyone in the House, but I have never seen people so absolutely at a dead end as they are now. This is no longer a question about agriculture. It is now a question of human tragedy.

I would like to direct a question to the hon. member. Would he not agree that there is a lack of funding right now to see that the crops in my area and his area get into the ground? If the money is not there, is the government saying that it will let this human tragedy play its full course and maybe it will die out and go away?

I believe that if the government had the will it would come to the rescue. Obviously it does not have the will so it cannot find a way.