Ian McClelland

[Sahtu Dene And Metis Land Claim Settlement Act, April 25th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member opposite would care to comment on the whole nature or the whole question of precedent. There are some very good things in this settlement and there are some things we are questioning.

While we recognize that these lands are exclusively under federal jurisdiction, I wonder if there is any notion of precedent. We will have further land claim settlements in provincial territory. There are pending land claim settlements in Albert with Metis, for instance. Would the member speak to the issue of precedence?

[Point Of Order, April 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, while I accept the heartfelt apology on behalf of members on this side of the House offended by the hon. member from Carleton-Gloucester, I wish to put on record that the Reform Party in no way opposes bilingualism in the federal service.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member for Portneuf who is always able to put his thoughts together and present them in such an engaging way.

Does the member for Portneuf think there is even a prayer of a chance that the French fact will be able to survive outside Quebec even to the degree that it does today if Quebec were to decide to separate. Why would the rest of Canada treat the French minority outside Quebec any differently from any other linguistic minority? Why should it treat it any differently in the absence of Quebec?

I would also ask the member for Portneuf to comment on the fact that we feel we have an obligation to represent and to be considerate of the French language minorities particularly in the west. The reality of the situation is that the French language minority in my city is the third, fourth or fifth language. It comes after Ukrainian and now Chinese. How should these minorities be treated vis-à-vis English and vis-à-vis French?

The hon. member also mentioned the disparity in incomes and that the income of French speaking Canadians in Quebec has gone up over the last few years relative to French speaking Canadians outside Quebec. I wonder if that could not be in part

because of the rise of the entrepreneurial class within Quebec and the outflow migration from Quebec of anglophones.

As a final parting shot, I would like to mention the irony of getting a lesson in minority language rights for the rest of Canada from the perception of the rest of Canada having been a witness to Quebec Bill 101 knowing the rancour and disbelief generated in the rest of Canada by Bill 101. There is some irony to now be getting this lesson in understanding.

[Non-Confidence Motions, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, when talking about freer votes in this debate it is important to keep in mind the fact that when the pendulum swings it does not always have to swing to either extreme.

What we are looking for in this Parliament and the single factor that would probably distinguish this Parliament thus far from the last Parliament, is that there is a great deal more balance. The government has gone out of its way to try to provide that balance and provide input in government from opposition and from the Liberal backbenches as well.

I am reminded particularly of the opening days of this session. So many of us were brand new to this House. We were very nervous about what we were doing, myself included. We had the opportunity to engage in a couple of very important debates over quite a few days. It gave us the sense of belonging and participating and an opportunity to actually do something.

Here we are with this notion of freer votes. Before we talk about the mechanics of exactly what free votes or freer votes are, we should look at a couple of things. One would be our party's history in this House.

As the hon. member who spoke to this motion just a moment ago so rightly pointed out, it is somewhat paradoxical that we are talking about the need for freer votes yet since we have been in this House all of us have voted together.

Basically all of us voted together from all parties. That has to be because we were all elected on the particular platforms with the particular ideology we were promoting. It is only reasonable to assume we would follow through as our ideology was presented in Parliament and vote according to however it was we said we would when we were elected.

It is interesting also, in conversation with others who have been in this House much longer than I, that very often a vote when in opposition is opposed. The role of opposition is to oppose the government, to be a check and balance to government to try and ensure that government thinks through all of its policies.

This government has a very substantial majority and that substantial majority flows through to the committees. The essence of this place is that we as members of Parliament have the ability to try, as others have said before, to influence the way

government would think about its agenda. However, the reality is that the government agenda is the agenda that will come through this House.

What we are talking about is not to change things 100 per cent, but merely to create the atmosphere in which members feel free to exercise their own independent best judgment, not just in the House but in committee. Even more important is before it gets to committee, when it is still a germ of an idea in someone's head, when the formulation of policy is put together, before we get all the political capital organized in a particular mode of action so that if that course of action is changed in any way it becomes a vote of confidence in the government or in the person who initiated the action.

That is what has us in this position today as a nation. It does not matter whether all of us are 100 per cent right all of the time, because we are not. That is the beauty of this place. There are 295 members here and the collective judgment and wisdom of all of us here today is infinitely better than the individual wisdom of the smartest and most intelligent among us.

We find ourselves in a situation in which in this Parliament or in business if the leader happens to come up with an idea or says something that seemed like a good idea at the time we all scurry about trying to justify whatever the leadership or the leader or a particular person might have said, even if it is a slip of the tongue. God help us, we cannot in any way endanger this person by saying that if this person is not 100 per cent right all the time then perhaps this person does not have the ability to lead.

I am not suggesting that is true of any particular party. That is just as true in our party. We have to be careful and we have to guard against that. This is human nature. It happens in business, it happens in politics and it happens everywhere.

The real job of all of us is to question and to say to the leadership: "Do you really think that is what we should be doing? I know we started out on this and perhaps the bill is in second reading already, but do you not think it might be a good idea if we changed it?". I guess that is what we want, the flexibility, the wisdom and the freedom to change and learn as we go along.

Our experience here has been kind of fun because we have been talking about freer votes and when the votes come up members opposite watch to see who among us is going to be the first not to vote along the party line. We are looking forward to being the first not to vote along the party line because we know that sooner or later we are going to have to otherwise certain members are never going to give us peace. We are going to do it sooner or later somehow.

However, the reality is that we have to follow the principles that got us elected in the first place. We gain from experience. I am gaining from experience as we go along. I am certainly not shy to admit the fact that many of the preconceived ideas that I had about how this place worked I have changed since I arrived here. I see how this place works and I am learning every day, as we all are.

I would like to conclude my comments by quoting someone I think is of particular value to this House and whom we might all keep in mind as we go into the future. There are two people whose names are brought up many times in this House. One is the famous Edmund Burke. In Edmund Burke's letter to the electors of Bristol he pretty much debunks the whole notion of representative democracy. He was in support of delegate democracy through which once every election the electors decide who they are going to vote for and they vote for that person and for better or worse that person ends up in Parliament and they get their next crack at him four years hence.

Members opposite would know that this famous letter to the electors of Bristol was written in 1776 or thereabouts and had to do with the treatment of the British patriots, the sailors who were called pirates. They were captured, taken to England and held there for three years, given a fair trial and hanged. He did not think that was a good idea and said so. His electors thought it was a good idea and they said so. He wrote the letter to the electors of Bristol saying: "You not only have my body, you have my mind. If you do not like what I am doing turf me at the end of my term".

Interestingly, they did turf him at the end of that term and he went on to be re-elected in a rotten borough.

The other person, a contemporary of his, was Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine was the adviser to Thomas Jefferson and helped to frame the famous Declaration of Independence. He wrote in his work The Rights of Man that the greatest tyranny of all is the tyranny of the presumption of ruling beyond the grave, and that each generation has the right and the responsibility to govern for its times and should not bind any future generation to its decisions any more than this generation should be bound by decisions made by past generations.

I would ask that as this debate unfolds we consider that our generation and this Parliament are setting the foundation upon which future parliaments will base decisions. If we can relax the rules of discipline it would be for the benefit of all Parliament and all parliamentarians and we need not be concerned about going all in one direction or another.

[Environmental Secretariat, April 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, given the fact that the decision to place the environmental secretariat in Montreal appears to have been made before the phoney competition began, will the minister tell the House if it is the intention of the government to buy the affection of the separatists in Quebec at the expense of federalists in the rest of the country?

[Environmental Secretariat, April 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question based on fact is for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Environment.

On January 24 the minister told the House that the decision to locate the NAFTA environmental secretariat would be public and transparent throughout and that the decision would be made free of politics based on an independent consultant's report of the competing bids.

The minister said that for the first time in the history of government the decision would be based on the environmental record of the competing cities. When the minister announced that Montreal was to be the site of the secretariat, the minister admitted the decision was political.

When the government made the political decision to locate the environmental secretariat in Montreal, was the minister aware that of the competing cities Montreal has about the worst environmental record? Therefore, based on the minister's own words will the minister reconsider her decision?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, if we may, let us go on without the hon. member being here.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words about the budget. In particular I would like to say that as this debate has unfolded in the last few days, time and time again hon. members of the Bloc have risen and talked about what a horrible deal Quebec gets at the hands of the rest of the country.

After the last such outpouring of emotion from the Bloc I thought it might be interesting to do an analysis, an investigation, and see how bad it really is. I would like to read it into the record and bring some edification to some of the members of the Bloc. Let me quote from the estimates of equalization for 1993-94 by revenue, source and province.

An hon. member of the Bloc recently talked about the transfer payments and equalization and the fact that: "We recognize we are the recipients of transfer payments, but we send a whole lot of money into Canada, into the national treasury by way of income and corporate taxes".

Let me set the record straight as far as personal income taxes are concerned. I will not go through all of the provinces, but I will if I may outline Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.

Transfer payments from the federal treasury to the province as a direct result of personal income taxes: Quebec is the net beneficiary of $1,529,700,000 a year; Ontario pays out $2,137,000,000; Alberta pays out $63 billion and B.C. $199 billion.

On business income revenues, Quebec pays out $78 million; Ontario $175 million; Alberta $245 million and B.C. is the recipient of $109 million.

Let us cut to the bottom line. There is a whole stream of statistics here and any of my hon. colleagues from the Bloc are quite welcome to ask the Department of Finance for the information. They can get it by phoning the Library or the Department of Finance.

Estimates for this year have Quebec being the net recipient of $3.730 billion from the federal treasury. Ontario will contribute $3.946 billion. Alberta with one-tenth of the population of Canada will contribute $4.218 billion and British Columbia, $1.294 billion.

I thought it would be worthwhile to put this on the record so my colleagues in the Bloc and the people of Quebec understand that there is a net benefit to Quebec to remain in Confederation. This is not a one-way street.

The other point I would like to raise in conjunction with the debate on the budget is the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act. I am speaking in support of the changes that the government has introduced and would ask it to consider extending them to some of the recommendations that were leaked in the press earlier.

The unemployment insurance program as it is today is not the program that was envisioned when it was first announced. Unemployment insurance today is a wealth transfer tax. It is a transfer of wealth from those who are working to those who are not working.

That is fine except let us call it what it is. Instead of calling it unemployment insurance, let us call it a wealth transfer tax. It transfers that wealth from one part of the country to other parts on a sliding scale of entitlements and requirements. It certainly cannot be considered unemployment insurance.

I ask members to consider the situation of an employee who earns $15,000 to $18,000 a year, has never been out of work, pays unemployment insurance on a weekly basis and has done so for 15 or 20 years. Contrast that with a seasonally employed person who might make twice as much money working six or eight months of the year. That person is then entitled to unemployment insurance for the remainder of the year. They already make twice as much money as the person who works all year long. Yet the person who is unemployed seasonally gets a ton of money from the unemployment insurance program at the expense of the person who works all year long and does not take any time off.

Is it fair? We have to change the unemployment insurance program to reflect reality. Just as individuals may take advantage of the unemployment insurance program that exists today, so do businesses take advantage of it.

If a business sees that it is going to have a slow time for a month, a month and a half, or two months it is very easy to lay people off and bring them back into the workforce. They can go on pogey. The employer has no fear of losing them as skilled employees because they are not going to find a job in a month and a half.

When laying off employees the employer can tell them: "Don't worry, we will bring you back in a month and a half". What happens? The unemployment program is subsidizing a business and their employee pool. That is not what it was designed to do. That is a business taking advantage of the unemployment insurance program just as some employees do.

How do we go about fixing that? If we were to make the unemployment insurance program a pure insurance program run

by the employees and paid for by the employees, there would be natural checks and balances built into the program that would prevent abuse. If premiums were abhorrently high because other people were abusing it, it would not take very long for all the people who found themselves being abused to get in there and change it.

Therefore, what do we do in order to ensure that those who do not have the resources or the employment are looked after? Canadians are caring and compassionate. We are not going to let people starve in the street. That is a basic understood fundamental Canadian value.

How do we go about ensuring that does not happen? I submit it is time that our country started dealing with situations and problems as they are, not as we wish them to be. If that means that because of the changing nature of work in our country and around the world people are going to be working fewer hours and getting more for it, having more leisure time, then we have to reflect the realities that exist.

If it means that we are going to have to look at a guaranteed annual income then let us look at it. Let us look at these things honestly so that when we have an area of the country with extremely high systemic unemployment, people can say: "I can choose to live here because I like living here. This is where my family has always lived. I am only going to simply survive. If I want to do well or if I want my children to do well I am going to have to do the same thing that my forefathers did. I am going to have to go where there are jobs and where the economy is stronger".

We have to deal with the reality of the economics in our country and around the world as it is and not as we would wish it to be. If we continue to look at this through the rose coloured, rose tinted glasses that we have been we will never start dealing with the fundamental problem we have in our country. The fundamental problem is that there are areas where the nature of work is changing.

We know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the unemployment in the maritimes is going to stay high for at least our lifetime. It is tragic but the reality exists that if people who live in the maritimes or in any other systemically disadvantaged part of our country want to do better they are going to have to move to another part of the country where their children are going to have opportunity just as our forefathers had to leave whatever their home country was and come here.

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to make these points. I wanted particularly to make these points about the value of Confederation to my hon. colleagues from Bloc from Quebec who are constantly reminding the House of how historically disadvantaged they are when the reality is they are not.

[Infrastructure Program, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, all across the country communities are determining their uses for their portion of the national infrastructure money.

Remember, this money, every cent, is borrowed from future generations of Canadians, future generations that will have no say in the way their money is spent today. Their standard of living will be reduced because they will be paying the bills our generation incurred.

Therefore it is vitally important that infrastructure money is spent exclusively on infrastructure such as roads and sewers. This is the use intended by the Canadian Federation of Municipalities. Not one cent should be spent on private enterprise, including hockey arenas.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do acknowledge the fact that the CBC is in a catch-22 position. In my comments I think I made it very clear that it is trying to be fish or fowl and cannot be both.

I have looked at the CBC, as we all have, for many years. The CBC is going to have to define its mandate and decide what its going to be and how its going to do it and then come to the government and say this is what it wants to be or this is what it can afford to be.

We cannot keep on going as we are going today. The hon. member is right, if I had a choice between the CBC as it is today, CBC television, and continuing to throw more money at it, I would say absolutely not, not another nickel. If we could have a CBC, a la CBC Radio, a la the hon. member's intention, then I say it is worth contributing to and it is worth supporting. In its present state I do not think it is worth supporting.