Roger Simmons

[Supply, March 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as always I thank my friend from Richelieu for his spirited participation in the debate. I am in English for two reasons. My French is lousy and I want to reach for a metaphor that I cannot translate yet.

We in Newfoundland talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I seem to remember that there used to be a person with the same surname representing the same riding of Richelieu who sat in this House for the Tory Party between 1984 and 1990. As a matter of fact he had somewhat the same features as the gentleman who just spoke. If I may just-

[Supply, March 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on the member's suggestion about the fiscal monitor, if he wants to bring in a motion that will call for a simplified fiscal monitor, I will second the resolution for him. I am with him on that issue.

However, listening to the last bit of juicy stuff toward the end, he lunched too long today. The subsidized food is getting to him. He talks about a fraud and this kind of thing. Does he not understand or have enough charity to accept that even if people on this side of the House did not do exactly what he would want us to do at least we have the goodwill to do our best?

To suggest it is fraudulent is an insult to well intended members of this House. I do not think he meant that for a second. It was one of those throw away phrases in the heat of debate which he regrets already. I can tell by the remorse on his face.

[Supply, March 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure in time you will have the charity to allow my friend from North Vancouver to say his few words. When he does rise I hope he will realize that something which is blatantly false cannot be be embodied in a resolution. It is blatantly false.

He changes his tune now. He says, yes it is there but they cannot understand it. Well, that is a different issue. Had his friend from Lethbridge said to produce something that is understandable, but that is not what he said. By implication he gave the impression to the people of Canada and particularly to this House that the progress report is not happening. I say to him it is happening on a regular basis in a document called "The Fiscal Monitor".

I am glad for this resolution and glad for this opportunity. It puts into focus two fundamentally differing views on the role of government.

On the one hand there is this punitive philosophy underlying the opposition motion. It says that government has little to offer the economy, that government by its very nature cannot help the jobless. That is not a perspective I subscribe to. It is a perspective I can understand. I do not endorse it but I can respect it. I can respect the gentleman from Lethbridge for having that point of view. That perspective mixes the worst aspects of do nothing corporatism with the slash and trash public posturing of which my friend from Ottawa West talked about a few moments ago.

More to the point, the philosophy which underlies this resolution is the very philosophy the people of Canada rejected outright last fall. It is the philosophy the Tories paraded in this Chamber for a decade and you know what happened to them. If you are not sure, have you heard about the Dodo bird? They both went the same way and for the same reason: They were out of tune with the times. This slash and burn philosophy has been rejected outright by Canadians.

The member for North Vancouver is seized with the importance of having a fiscal monitor that is understood by people who do not have doctorate degrees in economics. I must say, somewhat sheepishly, that several of my constituents do not have doctorate degrees in economics but they know what it is to buy groceries. Let me put it very explicitly for the member for North Vancouver in terms of buying the groceries.

This is what the resolution of the gentleman from Lethbridge says in effect in its simplest terms. I will use a little parable.

A family of four has to buy some groceries. I did some checking and found that a family of four on an income of about $30,000 a year spends about $7,000 a year on groceries. If they are a fairly typical Canadian family they spend maybe $600 to $700 on a mortgage and about $200 to $300 on a car.

One day the breadwinner in that family has a bright idea. The light goes on and he calls the family together. He or she, whoever the breadwinner is, calls in the spouse and the two children and says: "I have a bright idea. Do you know what is killing us and why we can never get ahead? We are paying $600 a month on our mortgage and another couple of hundred dollars on the car loan. But do you know what is really killing us? We are spending $7,000 a year on groceries. I have a bright idea. We will pay twice as much on the mortgage and not buy any groceries for a whole year. No groceries for a whole year".

We all agree that would bring down the mortgage a lot faster. It certainly would. Just buy no groceries for a whole year and there is an extra $7,000 to put toward the mortgage or to pay the car loan off.

I see some of the brighter members of the Chamber have twigged to the problem. They are actually asking: "What are those people going to eat for a year?" There is the rub. That is what my friend from North Vancouver had not thought about, what they are going to eat for a year.

As Marie Antoinette said, let them eat cake, but even cake costs money these days. What are they going to eat for that whole year while they are rushing madly to pay down their deficit, their accumulated debt, their mortgage? I think I have made my point that whether it is a family or a nation these things have to be done in balance. Those people who say that all we have to be preoccupied with is deficit elimination to the exclusion of everything else are not just preaching a very naive doctrine, they are misleading a lot of people.

Let us go back to section (a) of the resolution of the gentleman from Lethbridge. Here is his solution. It is the grocery analogy I mentioned a moment ago. It is the same idea under different terms: cut out the groceries, do not buy any groceries for a year.

The hon. member says to place a moratorium on all new spending programs, such as youth service corps which represents 17,500 new jobs. The infrastructure program represents 65,000 new jobs. Residential rehabilitation assistance program represents several thousands of more new jobs.

Let the word go out. At least one member of the Reform Party, the gentleman from Lethbridge says in writing so we have to take the man at his word, would immediately move to aggravate the job situation in this country by another 100,000 jobs.

This budget is about several things.

Yes, it is about deficit reduction but it can never be about that alone. Yes, it is about job creation. The gentleman in his motion has identified three or four particular programs but he identifies them for the purpose of asking us as a House to wipe them out, to wipe out those 100 jobs, and to drive up the unemployment rate another point or two.

As I said before, I respect the other point of view. I have difficulty understanding why it is being advanced. It makes no sense. It is a one-track mind approach. We all know about the mother whose son enlisted in the military. Being a proud mother, she went down to the parade square to watch him on parade the first day. Being an insightful mother, she noticed something in particular. She noticed that when the drums started and the drummer beat out the left, right, left, right, left, right and the several hundreds of men and women went down the parade square, Johnny was the only one in step. Johnny was the only one in step.

We see in editorials across this country such as in Calgary "Martin is headed in the right direction" and in Edmonton "It is solemn and thoughtful and full of well worked out details. There are real spending cuts in this budget". This is what the editorialist says in the Edmonton Journal.

From the Canadian Chamber of Commerce we have this: "I think it is a doable budget". I could go to other parts but I have run out of time. I appeal to my friend from Lethbridge not to be Johnny on this one. Get in step with what the people said last fall. Get in step with what the editorialists are saying. Get in step with what the people are saying.

The people are saying that we should bring down the deficit but we should give them some jobs.

[Supply, March 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to say a few words on what is at the very least a fairly interesting motion. The motion says in part that the budget plan of the government is not the solution to Canada's debt and deficit problem.

I will come back to that in a few moments but I would like to go to some other parts of the motion. I would have thought the gentleman from Lethbridge with his long experience would have known better than to incorporate things in a motion which are already in effect or have been done.

The member for North Vancouver can laugh. Let me refer him to section (c) of the resolution and let us see if he will laugh. I mention him for the very particular reason that his constituents will know he is identifying with the blatant falsehood contained in section (c).

The falsehood is it calls on the House and the government to produce quarterly reports on the progress being made on deficit reduction. I ask the laughing, much amused member for North Vancouver: As a member of this House and as a Canadian who, if we listen to his rhetoric, is very concerned about the deficit, does he not know there is a document produced regularly? It is "The Fiscal Monitor" put out by the Department of Finance. It reports not just quarterly as called for by the motion, but monthly.

[Defence Policy, February 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Had the bells not stopped prematurely I would have had the triple luxury of voting for my government, voting with the Reform, and having a free vote.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Timiskaming-French River makes the very important point that if one governs and makes decisions, and if members are elected on the basis of one issue, the conundrum arises when one has, for example, a healthy majority for capital punishment in the member's riding but on another issue many of that healthy majority are on the other side, and on a third issue it is on a different side. If he pleases the 65 per cent or 85 per cent on that issue, what does he do on the next issue and the next when they are in different camps? That is why the member is elected, I submit, not so much on the basis of his positions on each of 1,015 items, but rather on the basis of his ability to make the right judgment when the time arrives.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Mississauga South. The fact that it is complicated does not rule it out. Most things we do here are confusing and complicated.

If members would look at the Order Paper and the motion put down by my friend from Edmonton Southwest, the one we are now debating, the answer to his question and the question put previously by the gentleman from North Vancouver is answered.

They are both answered in the convention we are using here right now. On opposition days, for example, even if we had a big bad government, members can put down for debate whatever they want to. I would suspect that if the Reform Party, or any other party in this Chamber, received a petition from a million people it would be awfully stupid not to make it the subject of an opposition day motion.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

The member for North Vancouver, as is the case most of the time, is in a fairly feisty mood. But in the process he should not attribute motives about people who are scared. The degree of scare or fear is not measured by the side of the aisle on which you sit. I sat on that side of the aisle a fair number of years as well.

Actually I will check it out because that is the one my good friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster has as a matter of fact. His question gets lost in the rhetoric which implies that all the people over here somehow are bad guys and bad girls because they sit over here and they are all scared of everything.

No is the answer to his question. Bring in the petition with the million signatures and I will be glad to debate it any day at all. The issue I was talking about was a bit more than that. I was getting concerned because if I am hearing too much on this issue, the member for North Vancouver can correct me. I am hearing that if we had all the petitions debated here and we had referendums on what to put on our toast every morning, the world would be hunky dory. Everything would be happy, happy.

I say to him and to other members of the House that until we change the system, the government is elected to govern. When it governs badly, as the last one did, it reaps its reward during elections.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

I would like to thank the hon. member for Crowfoot. He mentions the status quo. No, I am not very big on the status quo, not very big on change either. If something is worth changing, let us change it. Let us not change it for the sake of changing it.

The hon. member might be surprised to hear this, but I liked most of what he said. I thought his example of Mr. Trudeau was a bit outdated, but that is beside the point. But at the end, the member for Crowfoot particularly talks about checks and balances.

In 1992 in 52 weeks I travelled 49 times from Ottawa to Burin-St. George's. Two weekends ago I was absent from this Chamber on Friday and Monday and between Friday and Monday I flew to Newfoundland and back, which means eight hours on the plane, four hours each way. I spent 26 hours in a car, and I attended 29 meetings of fishermen's committees, town councils, et cetera.

I say to my good friend from Crowfoot there is the check and balance he is looking for. If the member stays in touch with his constituents he cannot really come back here and ignore the advice he has heard. I have to say to you, sir, as faithfully as I can that I reflect the wishes of my constituents here.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

What was I doing when I was out beating my gums for the last aeons of years about the fishery problems on the south coast of Newfoundland? What was that?

How about the times I got up here and talked about the need for better student aid programs? How about the times I got up here and talked about some fairness, some balance in the way that we have transfer payments to the various provinces? How about the time I got up here and asked for tougher laws in terms of gun control?

Was I just pushing my own agenda at those times? Was I maybe representing somebody once in a while? Or, in her words, was it just a minuscule number of times-I was doing it by accident, I came here to push my own agenda. I do not think she believes that for a moment. I do not know her well but what I know of her tells me that she does not believe that kind of nonsense. That is absolute, unadulterated nonsense, I have to say to her.

She might want to retract it because if she does not retract it she has insulted not just me. I have had a few insults. I can take them. There are a few other members of Parliament around here. Even if we exclude all the members of her party who have just come here, let us go back and put them in a special category that they would not dare to do anything but represent. Let us buy that line for the moment. It is the same for my friends in the Bloc who, with the exception of six or seven of them, are here for the first time. It is the same for a number on this side and those who would like to be on this side, those over in the Siberian section over there. We plan to have those numbers for a long time to come.

A lot of us have been here before and a lot of members of other parties have come here. I just had the feeling, perhaps I was completely duped by all this, when I watched them when they got up and presented petitions and raised issues that they were actually representing people. Now I have to accept that all the time they were here they were just flogging their own words, just doing their own thing.

I do not want to make light of the member's comment because she also used an example that I wanted to use so I will use it as well. She used the example of the GST in the last Parliament. There was a clear case in which despite the petitions, the objections of 85 per cent of the Canadian people, the government rammed it through. There is a case in which the system broke down. It broke down temporarily. People dealt with it in spades when the election came. The party that did that has only two members in this House right now.

The system broke down temporarily but it is basically the exception. I can give another example. Around 1983 the government of then Prime Minister Trudeau was contemplating some changes in old age pensions. Then petitions came in. Then the will of the people was heard. We very quickly abandoned any plans we had on old age pension reform at that particular time.

We cannot have an election every day. Is four years not enough? Let us make it three years. If the time between elections is the issue, if we cannot be trusted to come down here for four years at a time, let us haul us back as they do in Congress in the United States every two years or whatever. Let us change the time period.

Let us not dupe the people into thinking that all will be happy and hunky dory if they can mail in their decision on today's problem, push the button today, send in the petition tomorrow morning.

The problem, as I illustrated in my opening example, with petitions and with the will of the people is that it is not always black and white. Sometimes 30 per cent want one thing and 35 per cent want another and the other 35 want something else. What do we do, have three policies?

We cannot beg the essential question that a government is elected to govern. If it does it in accordance with its mandate it can face the people squarely next time around. If it betrays that

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mandate, we have a very recent example of what happens to that kind of a government.

There is a notion that somehow we can undermine the electorate all the time. I mentioned 25,000 voted for me, others can quote even more impressive figures. My friend from North York could tell us, I suppose, that over 100,000 people voted for him. Were all those people a bunch of dupes? Were they all absolutely stupid? Every member sitting in this House had either a majority or a plurality. They came here with the direct blessings of many thousands of people in each case.

Now I am being told today that these people did not mean that. What they would rather do instead of all those x s is have a lot of petitions. God bless them. Send us the petitions, lots of them. Send us all the petitions they want. If some of the people in Burin-St. George's are signing those petitions I have to say to them, each one of those 25,000 darlings who voted for me, that I will respect their petition, I will hear their grievance but I will not let it cancel out my basic mandate here which is to represent all the people of Burin-St. George's, not just the people who can hustle petitions best. That is my mandate here. That is a mandate I intend to serve to the very best of my ability.