Fred Mifflin

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise to speak on second reading of Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act and refer it to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

I do not want to engage myself in a certain tone of debate which talks about issues that are not really pertinent to the act or to the substance of the issue because of the limited time and because it is not my style to engage in that kind of debate.

I want to have a look at why I am supporting the bill. I am going to restrict it to my riding of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception to try to give all sides of the House an indication of how it is viewed by my constituents. I have received many phone calls, and quite frankly the constituents who have called me are dumbfounded. That is the best word to describe them. They are dumbfounded by what is going on.

Let us look at the chronology from their viewpoint. There was a comment made in the House that I will correct. The last change did not take place in 1980. It took place in 1988. As I was entering politics the change was made, and let me say what it did to my riding. The name of the riding of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception has been around for a long time. It describes and rightly so the three bays on the east coast of Newfoundland: Bonavista Bay, Trinity Bay and Conception Bay. Before the present boundaries were set the southern part of my riding took in the northern half of Conception Bay, almost a straight line down through the bay. The previous boundary took in the northern part of Conception Bay and all of Trinity Bay but only the southern part of Bonavista Bay, not including the well-known Terra Nova Park.

After the last census and the study of the commission that we are now trying to put on hold it was argued, and rightly so, that the riding of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception should include all of Bonavista Bay because there was a similarity with communities with respect to issuing fishing licences and the consideration of the community of interest, geographical reasons and similarly aligned issues.

It was argued that all of Bonavista Bay should be included. It was also argued that for the southern part of the previous boundary certain communities-I think there were seven of them including Brigus, Collier's, Whitbourne, Georgetown and Markland-should not be included because they were closely related to St. John's and had more of an urban interest. Their community of alignment was with the riding of St. John's East.

The third major reason was that Bonavista-Trinity-Conception as it was then comprised pre-1988 only had a population of around 75,000 or 76,000 whereas Gander-Grand Falls or Gander-Twillingate as it was then called had more than Bonavista-Trinity-Conception. It was felt that including the upper half of the northern half of Bonavista Bay would balance it more reasonably with other ridings in Newfoundland.

Considerable debate took place and the changes were eventually made. My constituents understood all the rationale that was used. After only one election the same rationale that was used to result in the present boundaries is being applied to revert to the old boundaries, except the rationale is used in reverse. It is said that the alignment of the northern part of Bonavista Bay is not in with the southern part of Bonavista Bay and the five or six communities that had an alignment more with the urban thinking of St. John's East really should belong to the district of Port de Grave because that really should belong to Bonavista-Trinity-Conception.

This is very difficult to understand for constituents who are only now getting used to a change that was made six years ago. Now they are being told that within two months they have to appear in four different locations in the riding either to agree or disagree, and the ones who disagree have to give some rationale why they disagree. That is very hard to understand.

What is also very hard to understand is that the population of Newfoundland from 1981 to 1991 had an increase of 793 people in 10 years. For this we are to realign what was realigned before, just take the rationale and use it in reverse. We will have 36 hearings in Atlantic Canada for 32 seats. That is about one per seat, except in Newfoundland where we have seven seats and there we will be 15 hearings. I am not sure what rationale was used there. I would not want to speculate for the members of the House.

The point I am making is that the changes that were made in 1987-88 were quite acceptable. The total population of the riding has not changed. The population of centres in the riding has not changed. People have not realigned themselves to my knowledge, so that has not changed. Why all of a sudden do three commissioners draw lines and find some rationale for those lines? I do not understand it.

What is more important is my constituents. Not only do they not understand it and have difficulties with it, but they are saying to me: "You are going up to preach restraint, you are going up to lower the deficit, you are going up to balance the budget. How can you possibly, apart from the ridiculousness and the timing of this measure, support it from the viewpoint of expenditure?"

I come up failing, Mr. Speaker. I cannot answer their questions.

Not an old but a wise mentor of mine once told me: "You know, Fred, being in politics is very simple; if you can't explain it, you really should not be doing it."

Well, I cannot explain this, Mr. Speaker, and therefore I am not so sure we should be doing it. Because of that, I am a very strong supporter of this bill to delay this ludicrous action that is taking place, so we can refer it to a committee, study it and come up with some reasonable recommendations.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Your Honour is well known for leniency on relevancy, but what do the points the hon. member is raising-he is covering the waterfront-have to do with the item being discussed?

[Party Fundraising, March 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great intensity to the debate, both in the lobby when I had some phone business to do and in the House as much as I could.

I am here today because I am very interested in the motion of the hon. member for Richelieu. It affects all of us in the House. There is not a member sitting here who is not affected by the issue. If there is any issue that affects us all, it is this one.

I come here with an open mind. I have listened attentively and objectively to the arguments that have been put forth on both sides of the House. Quite frankly I take a certain comfort in my view of democracy. We have already studied the issue. We have looked at the issue. We have looked at other alternatives. To analyse it properly, as I understand the motion of the hon. member for Richelieu there are two aspects to it. One is that the donation should be made by an individual. The second is that the donation should be not more than $5,000.

The Lortie commission looked at the whole business of contribution to parties. In the last Parliament it was studied with great seriousness and was the focus of an awful lot of discussion both in committee and in the House.

In the hon. member's opinion his view of the world and democracy would improve the situation. The only reason for putting forward his private member's bill is to provide another form of control of the business of electioneering in Canada. As I say, we have already looked at this item and it has been studied.

There are existing controls on contributions and spending with respect to federal elections. Probably the greatest one is the very clear and explicit directions to members of Parliament and candidates on (a) how much they can spend, (b) how they can spend it, (c) the maximum limit that they can use to the cent and (d) how that has to be accounted for. If we are looking for

control, how money is spent in an election is very clearly defined.

There is another aspect which does not necessarily pertain only to the responsibility of the candidate, that is that a donation has to be reported. Any donation over $100 to a federal political organization has to be reported publicly. I feel fairly confident that with those two measures in place, if the hon. member's intent was to be concerned about control, there is excellent control. I do not think we need any more control. I have already raised the point that this has been studied democratically, debated democratically and decided on democratically.

There are other aspects as well. If we are to agree with and to approve what the hon. member is suggesting, there are other aspects we must look at. We cannot take the bill in its singularity and in isolation of other aspects.

The following aspects have been looked at. I am referring now to the source of donations, the amount of donations and other contributions to parties and their candidates, the definition of election expenses, limits on third party expenditures and tax deductions. If we open the door again we have to open it fully.

The underlying current I have heard alluded to a couple of times is very disturbing. The concern, somewhat obliquely stressed, is that there is a return other than the participation in democracy. I find that quite antagonizing. I find it disruptive. I do not find it democratic. I have not seen in my time in politics a return in any form other than the election of a member to represent people.

As one of the 295 members of the House I find it quite offensive for one of my hon. colleagues to suggest that those people who give freely of their time, their money and their resources do so for any other reason than to contribute to the democracy of this great country.

To summarize, I have taken into consideration the points made by the other side of the House, some of which are good points. However I come down on the side of saying that I do not see any compelling argument for me to support the bill as it stands or if it were considered in the larger context.

[National Defence, March 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I think it is a good question.

The Canada 21 report the hon. member refers to was the result of a blue ribbon panel that looked at the overall security of Canada. I tell the hon. member the department has reviewed the recommendations at first blush and is still looking at them in detail. Some of the recommendations are not necessarily conducive to the Department of National Defence because they refer to security in the overall sense.

We are looking at all the recommendations. While I would not want to comment on this one specifically, I would take this opportunity to say that one of the strong recommendations with respect to defence is that a defence policy review be conducted. I am pleased to report to the House that it is well under way.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Health I welcome the opportunity to respond to the question raised by the hon. member about our anti-smoking campaign.

I know how much he is committed to it. I can assure my hon. colleague that his government's determination to reduce and eventually eliminate tobacco use particularly among Canadian youth is very much in force. We will not stand idly by allowing young people to be exploited and to become addicted. The unnecessary tragedy of premature death and the burden of disease caused by smoking with which he is very familiar must not be inflicted on another generation.

We are well aware that smoking is already responsible for approximately 40,000 preventable deaths in Canada each year. We realize that with lower tobacco prices additional work very seriously needs to be done now.

I am pleased to report on behalf of the minister that much of this work is in progress. As the member may be aware, stronger more visible messages will be appearing on cigarette packaging by September 1994. The Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act came into force in early February 1994. It is now unlawful to sell tobacco products to persons under 18 years of age. If we go into local stores we should be able to see federal signs to this effect.

In addition, legislation has been introduced to ban the sale of kiddy packs. As well the Minister of Health recently announced the tobacco reduction strategy, an $185 million dollar initiative over three years with which innovative legislation is combined. That is to say targeted health activities will develop appropriate prevention and smoking cessation efforts. This will be combined with media campaigns aimed at younger people.

The Minister of Health has had preliminary discussions with her provincial and territorial counterparts as well as the National Health Organization. Within weeks she will meet again to discuss joint approaches on this very serious subject. There can be no doubt about the need to convince people to stop smoking, not because it is politically correct, environmentally friendly or fiscally prudent, but because it will be healthier.

We will save our limited health resources and more important, as my hon. colleague is well aware as a physician, it will save lives. I know my hon. colleague will offer his support to further ensure the success of these efforts.

[Defence Policy, February 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I will be very fast with this. The hon. member for Fredericton-York-Sunbury spoke about the training program at Gagetown with the government of New Brunswick.

Could he elaborate for a couple of minutes on that because that is a very interesting program.

[Defence Policy, February 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to what my colleague had to say. Although I was not in the House all the time because I had to take a telephone call, I was listening in the lobby. I agree with a lot of things he had to say; he made some very good points.

Looking at the aspect of the defence policy review to which he made reference, I am assuming he would be interested in the conversion policy. One thing the defence policy review will more than likely look at is the subject of conversion because it is an ongoing matter at the end of the cold war. The U.K. is doing it. The United States is doing it. No matter what happens we have to look at that opinion. The policy review is an excellent time to do it with expert witnesses.

If the hon. member's party is so big on conversion surely it would not want to stand in the way of a policy review taking place purely because of the mechanism of the standing committee. That is almost a technicality in a way. Surely he would look at the bigger subject and have a policy review so that policies that would be beneficial to his constituency could be looked at in a very positive sense.

[Defence Policy, February 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to what the hon. member for Beauharnois-Salaberry had to say. He actually said a lot that I agree with. He gave us some good figures on conversion.

This is a legitimate question, it is not posturing but I am not precisely sure whether he meant that the defence review should look at conversion or whether he felt we had precluded conversion from being considered. I can assure him that is not the case. Nothing is being left out of the review. Nothing is sacred and nothing is to be left untouched with respect to considerations.

Also, I gather more from the tone than the statement of what the hon. member said about the decision on the EH-101 helicopters, and of course I am making an oblique reference to the decision of the government to cancel the project, but my understanding was that his party was in favour of cancelling the project as well.

If the hon. member could clarify these two points I would be delighted.

[Defence Policy, February 17th, 1994]

Sir Edward Cornwallis.

[Defence Policy, February 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, by way of comment on that subject, the hon. member is right. The purpose of the cadet organization is not to induce young Canadians to join the Canadian forces.

Having said that, there is a natural affiliation. I regret I do not have the numbers, but several times in the last 10 years I have looked at military colleges, military units and officer corps. Without question if we go to one of these units, particularly the military colleges, and ask "how many of you have had cadet experience", we would be absolutely astounded by the number of hands that would go up.

I seldom get personal in the House, but my introduction to the navy really came directly as a result of being involved in my local sea cadet corps, RCSCC Matthew, where I was the chief petty officer. As a result of one of the annual inspections the inspecting officer had literature and discussed what we planned to do for the future. It was a direct result of my association with the cadet organization; it certainly helped me make a decision

to have a career in the military. It is important to make that correlation.

As a final comment, even if a cadet never goes anywhere near the recruiting office, the cadet organization in the country is one of the finest, if not the finest, youth organizations and one of the most unsung and unpublicized. Whether or not it is intentional most Canadians do not know about this tremendous program that is so responsible for making our young Canadian men and women much better citizens.