David Dingwall

[Tobacco Products, June 4th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we are all aware on this side of the House of the personal interest of the hon. member opposite with regard to the regulations I have put in place under the federal drug act.

With respect to the issue of tobacco, let me be clear. Tobacco is a very serious health issue. We have a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada with which we must contend. We are presently in the process of completing our consultations. We hope to come back to Parliament fairly soon with a comprehensive package which will address many of the concerns expressed by the hon. member and by a variety of interest groups across the country.

[Raw Milk Cheese, June 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have much admiration for the hon. member but let it be clear that the information was provided through the auspices of gazetting on March 30. The purpose of gazetting it was for individuals not only in the industry, but also for experts to examine very thoroughly all of that information.

We have yet to receive the report of the group in the province of Quebec who are examining this particular issue. As the minister in the province of Quebec has said on public record, there are some difficulties as it relates to various special interest groups in that province and elsewhere.

I think it is only prudent that we examine all of the information, both favourable and unfavourable. Then we will be in a position to make our final determination.

[Raw Milk Cheese, June 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will know that the regulation was published some time ago, before I assumed the responsibilities as Minister of Health. In the interim a number of consultations are taking place not only in the province of Quebec but across the country.

Also a group of experts met in late May and will meet again in early July to examine all of the evidence and information which comes forward. We will be in a position to move one way, positively or negatively, with regard to the regulation.

Let it be clear that there is no banning of any raw milk cheese products in the province of Quebec or elsewhere in the country. This is a regulation which has been gazetted. Meaningful consultations are taking place and they will continue to take place until such time as they are complete.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to give the House the impression that I am attempting to be meanspirited toward my colleague. Obviously he missed the first part of my intervention.

I said the motion before us is not very focused and is very widespread. I was able to indicate to the House some of the words being used in the motion, such as the word integrity, which seems to be a synonym for all of the things the bankrupt leader of the third party was using before the election in 1993, during the election and thereafter. Therefore I am speaking to the motion. It is members of the third party who are attacking us as a national government, saying we have not fulfilled our commitments.

I say to the hon. member opposite that our mandate is not complete. We still have a number of months and maybe even years. God, it might be even decades before we complete our mandate.

The hon. member talked a bit about overlap and duplication. I have worked very closely with provincial governments not only in this portfolio but in other portfolios to rid ourselves of overlap and duplication. In most instances it was a clear road ahead in terms of ridding ourselves of overlap and duplication. We will continue to work with governments.

However, the phrase overlap and duplication should be put in context. Where there is overlap and duplication one has to vet out the respective responsibilities of the different parties and come to some sort of consensus in terms of which level of government, if that is the case, or a third party might be able to do the service or produce the product in question.

With regard to UI reform, the hon. member comes from a great province, la belle province du Québec, where there is high unemployment. There is also high unemployment in my region. However, if the hon. member is suggesting we should not have modernized the unemployment insurance, I think he is wrong. I think the vast majority of Canadians wanted to see the modernization of the unemployment insurance.

The hon. member can debate a provision of the UI changes which have been brought in by my distinguished colleague, the Minister for Human Resources Development, who members opposite support wholeheartedly, as I look across. Those reforms have been predicated on the sense of fairness and what is right.

In terms of political contributions and amendments to the elections act, all of those matters can be discussed at a more appropriate time in terms of committee or other institutions which may be reviewing them from time to time. I do not really think this is the place for me to debate today.

We on this side of the House have attempted to fulfil the commitments we announced in the red book to the best of our ability. We have a period of time remaining in our mandate and we will endeavour over the months or years that are left to achieve all of those things we believe to be important. However, we need the co-operation of people in all parts of the country, including the province of Quebec, the western provinces, the Atlantic region and Ontario.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his two questions. I want to be very clear with the hon. member because I think he has asked serious questions with regard to the policies of the Reform Party and those members who allegedly make up the Reform Party and who have allegedly participated in the development of the policies. I have great respect for individuals who involve themselves in the political process.

I want the member opposite to understand and accept that. I do not accept the leader of the Reform Party espousing one day a policy on health and the next day reversing himself and saying something different. To me that is not integrity. To me that is not good social policy. To me that is not good policy for the nation.

This is the leader who says one thing on Monday and then the following Monday something else. It is evident as it relates to the health policy of the Reform Party, or the lack of health care policy of the Reform Party. I am sure most Canadians, as the polls indicate quite clearly, and wherever I travel and with my caucus colleagues, have overwhelming support for medicare. In excess of 70 per cent do not want a two tier system of medicine. They want a one tier system and they want one taxpayer to fund that system.

The hon. member has gone out on a limb here. I hope I will have an opportunity to visit him in his constituency and to talk with municipal councillors. I hope I have the opportunity to go into the kitchens, as I do in my own constituency, and have tea and biscuits and tell senior citizens and various organizations they do not need a new water system, a new sewage system or an environmental clean-up of a particular problem in their community. I will be glad to discuss that with residents of his constituency.

The Reform Party, in particular the bankrupt leader of the Reform Party, are very envious of our national infrastructure program. It came from the municipalities and we, as a national government, thereafter supported it. They are envious that we as a national political party supported and have implemented that program. It has been overwhelmingly successful all across the country.

Have there been examples in a program of $6 billion where we probably would have had a different view on a project at any given point in time? I say to the hon. member he is correct in that intervention. However, the overwhelming success of the national infrastructure program has meant jobs for Canadians. It has built up the infrastructure in the country, which has been in great need. The hon. member knows it has been successful. We as a national political party have had that success. The hon. member's bankrupt leader is now having to suffer the consequences for opposing the national infrastructure program.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member opposite said it is a boondoggle and a $6 billion waste of taxpayer money. Municipalities all across the country, from the urban centres of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver to villages and towns, have all benefited from the national infrastructure program. It put in communities infrastructure that in most instances would never have been done.

I am ashamed and appalled the hon. member opposite would say to the residents of Goose Bay, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Sudbury or Sault Ste. Marie or Saskatoon that money to give them quality water for children, mothers and fathers is somehow a bad policy for the Government of Canada. I say to the hon. member that it shows the leader of the Reform Party is bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt of programs and bankrupt of knowing what Canada and Canadians are all about. That is very clear.

We announced funding of $315 million over three years to help young Canadians get their first job, $60 million of which will go to increasing summer student employment in 1996. The only person opposed to that is the leader of the Reform Party. He says to middle class Canadians who work hard to put food on the table and to educate their kids "no, we do not want the state to help your son or daughter get a summer job". That is the party of the rich. That is not the party that supports the working middle class of the country. I say to the hon. member with his computer on his desk and his colleagues beside him that the leader of the Reform Party should clearly examine the definition of the word integrity and should do the honourable thing and find another vocation.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

No, I am not happy about that. I will tell the hon. member opposite that I am not happy with the leader of the Reform Party, who tries to play on fears of those Canadians who are unemployed by offering, not in the House of Commons but while he is on the stump, whether in Newfoundland, in Hamilton or in western Canada, all the answers in relation to job creation. No substantive program has come forward from the leader of the Reform Party. I suggest to the hon. member he ought to be ashamed of his party and particularly of the leader of that party.

There are other initiatives we have taken as a national government. We created the Canada Lands Corporation to dispose of surplus federal properties. We introduced the direct deposit program which saves Canadians over $28 million. We restored the court challenges program and we created and implemented the national infrastructure program.

The hon. member laughs, but I recall with great clarity a day in the House, and I stand to be corrected by the hon. Speaker, when the hon. member with eloquence and fervour told the minister responsible: "I am not in favour of the national infrastructure program". The minister then stood in his place and read a letter from the hon. member which said: "Would you please support these projects in my constituency".

Let us go back the word integrity. I ask the hon. member is that integrity? Is that the Reform Party's idea of the definition of the word integrity? One thing is said in the House and then hopefully the minister would be slipped a little note which will not come up in his briefing book and then their constituents can be told: "I had to say that. I do not support the national infrastucture program because the leader does not support it. I had to ask if he would mind putting those projects in my riding". Is that Reform Party's definition of integrity? I think it is; say one thing but do the exact opposite.

I am sure the House would want to give me extra time to complete my remarks. Let us come back to the national infrastructure program. What was the national infrastucture program?

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I want to participate in this opposition motion which has been put forward by my colleagues who represent the third party.

Unaccustomed as I am to participating in debates in this Chamber, I thought I would go back and review for members, as well as for those who might be viewing the proceedings on television, the fact that at another time I was responsible for putting forward opposition motions. One of the things we learned while in opposition was that it was very valuable to the debate if the motion being put before our colleagues was very focused. Unfortunately today is not that kind of a day.

The motion put forward by my colleagues representing the Reform Party is very long. It is a whining, snivelling bunch of lines which really does not come to any substantive focus in what it is supposed to do.

One of the things that struck me while I was sitting in my place and listening to the member opposite wax, somewhat eloquently I might add, his flippant use of the word "integrity". We heard that from the leader of the third party well before the election in 1993. We heard him during the campaign and we have heard him since he became member of Parliament and leader of the third party in the House. Without qualification, on every issue that hon. member refers to he likes to use the word integrity.

I am not as well read as all those members opposite, therefore I need the guidance of a dictionary. I have looked at page 616 of The Concise Oxford Dictionary where I found the definition of the word integrity. This is what it states: ``moral uprightness; honesty, wholeness; soundness''. That is what integrity means.

This was the party and these were the representatives who, before the election, during the election campaign and since that time, have used that particular word. Now they have to confront their own rhetoric.

Here is what the leader, or as some in Nova Scotia would refer to him, the extinguished leader of the third party, but that would be rather unkind, so I will just refer to him as the leader of the third party, said on October 24, 1993. I think these words are rather telling: "We want to position ourselves in that Parliament not just as a whining, sniffling opposition group but as a constructive alternative to the government itself".

What has happened since October 24, 1993? Have we seen constructive policies come forward from the Reform Party as it relates to health care? Have we seen a proposal with regard to senior citizens? Have we seen a proposal as it relates to a two-tier system of medicare and their opposition to it?

The answer to all of those questions is that unfortunately the Reform Party, and I want members to recognize that in particular it is the leader of the Reform Party who has been bankrupt of the

word that he used prior to his election to the House, during the campaign and since that time of his own word which is integrity.

I say that about the leader of the Reform Party. Mr. Speaker, you know it is not in my character to say those kinds of things about the hon. member opposite. However, we all know that the leader of the Reform Party is going down.

He is going down in the polls and he is going down as the leader of the Reform Party. They will make it so difficult within the Reform Party itself to sustain a bankrupt leader in the leader of the Reform Party.

Let us come back to integrity. Let us come back to what the leader said on October 24, 1993. Let us compare not a year and a half ago but to October 1995 and ask ourselves what have the members of that party been saying about the position the leader took in 1993.

Here is what we find by the member for Macleod: "I will do anything I have to do in the House of Commons, even stand on my head on the bench and hold my breath if it is necessary. That, I guess, is an indictment of my original approach, which was to come here and to be dignified".

This is the word the leader of the Reform Party talked about before he was elected during the campaign and since that time, integrity. His own colleagues have abdicated their support of the leader of the Reform Party. They are now in the gutter where all of their policies seem to be formulated.

I only have great regret and disappointment for the hon. members of the Reform Party. There are some who would like to put forward constructive alternatives but they do not get that opportunity. There are those in the Reform Party who would like to make meaningful suggestions. Because a large group of individuals within that party and are so inconsistent they cannot get a cohesive policy to come forward.

I do not take exception to any of the hon. members in the Reform Party, none at all. This is their Parliament too. They have the right to stand in this place and echo their sentiments and their views in any way they wish.

If they wish to make fools of themselves, as they have done consistently since October 1993, so be it. I take great exception, strong exception to the leader of the Reform Party. He is the person I wish to direct my comments to, not those members who fall at his feet.

I want to go to the source of the Reform Party, the raison d'être of the Reform Party, the leader. I make the prediction that this hon. member as the leader of the Reform Party will not be here after the next election for two reasons. I ask the co-operation of the House so I can demonstrate that my thesis about his absence after the next election is based on not only sound information but on probably the best political evidence anyone could ever gather.

That is and that will be the downfall of the leader of the Reform Party. As we have seen in recent weeks, members want him out. Wait for the big show on June 6 and June 7. They will have a

convention. They will have flags. They will wear sweaters. They will say "we love Preston, he is so wonderful, he is our leader, he is the best thing that has ever happened to us". Reformers have gone down in the polls ever since they came to Parliament in October 1993.

For these members opposite, but more important for the leader opposite, the greatest opposition he must face is his own political party. I respectfully suggest the other reason he will not be here after the next election, as hon. members know, is his bankrupt substantive policy alternatives.

This is a person who has assumed a high office as the leader of a third party. No leader in Canadian history has demonstrated such a lack of understanding of the nation, of its people, of its resources and of its history as the leader of the Reform Party.

Any time, anywhere, on any occasion, on any issue members on this side of the House, members on that side of the House and even members of the Bloc Quebecois would be happy to debate any substantive issue the hon. member raises.

However, we have seen in the last two and a half years, for example on issues of health care, how he tries to duck them. If they are issues concerning aboriginals, he ducks them. If they are issues of safe streets, he ducks them. On economic policy he will submit a budget one year and not submit a budget the next. In terms of job creation they have a plan but nobody knows where it is at. It is one of these: "We will put it this way here".

It is amazing to think that Canadians will be gullible enough to be sold on the bankruptcies of the policies of the leader of the third party. We on this side of the House and on that side of the House will not take an aggressive position in relation to the Reform Party; we will take a position to the Canadian people. We will demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the bankruptcy other members may label Reform with is not only there rhetorically but is there in reality.

I find it passing strange that hon. members opposite would stand in their places today and have the unmitigated gall to suggest this government, which has not completed its mandate, has not fulfilled a good number of the commitments we made in the red book. To be clear, I provide a few examples.

We promised to cancel the EH-101 helicopter. We did that. We said we would privatize Petro-Canada. We did that. We reduced government subsidies to business, transportation and agriculture, the Western Grain Transportation Act, the Atlantic region freight assistance and the maritime region freight assistance.

We have wound up over 70 agencies and done away with 600 governor in council appointments. We reviewed all government programs and agencies to reduce the waste and have done so not only in government departments but in each and every agency of the Government of Canada. That is what we have done.

We met our economic targets set by the Minister of Finance not once, not twice but three times, which is very significant in terms of meeting our economic targets.

Unemployment is staggering in my region. In terms of the national levels it has been reduced from 11.2 per cent to 9.3 per cent.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Please do, Mr. Speaker.

[The Late Carl Gillis, May 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of a young man, a constituent, a colleague and a friend in the person of Carl Gillis. Carl Gillis passed away last evening at the age of 26. His untimely death reminds us all of the fragility of life.

It is appropriate that we honour Carl's memory here in the House of Commons for it was here that he served as a page while he attended Carleton University. He was at home in this Chamber and he has left behind many friends from various political parties.

Carl was born in East Bay, Nova Scotia on March 27, 1970. He came to Ottawa to pursue his post-secondary studies in political science but his education in politics did not only come from books. He was active in student government and served as chair of the Canadian Federation of Students. He was holding that position when this government came to power. I know that some of my colleagues here on the front benches and indeed members of the opposition will remember him in that capacity. I know all of us will remember him fondly.

Carl came to my office from the Canadian Federation of Students in the spring of 1994. He shared the constant pressures and the occasional joys of the Hill with many members of Parliament, their assistants and his many friends.

For those of us who knew him, he was a great student of American presidential politics. Carl was a great admirer of the late John. F. Kennedy and I am sure he was familiar with the following quote:

For of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date that high court of history sits in judgment on each of us, recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibility to the state, our success or failure in whatever office we hold will be measured by the answers to four questions: First, were we truly men of courage? Second, were we truly men of judgment? Third, were we truly men of integrity? Finally, were we truly men of dedication?

Much was given to Carl Gillis and now much has been taken away. We are left with the answers to those four questions. Yes, he was a young man, but he was a young man of courage. He was a man of judgment, of integrity, of dedication.

The qualities he possessed in abundance are too seldom seen; now they are too soon gone. We must now find comfort in Carl's memory and in the knowledge that he enriched the lives of those who knew him. The generosity and compassion which characterized his life have also defined his death.

Our thoughts and our prayers are with Carl's family at this very sad time, to his mother Peggy and his father and nine brothers, to the extended family and to his many friends, some of whom are here.

Your death, my friend, has come far too early but your memory will never die.