House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 1997, with 49% of the vote.
Transport December 3rd, 1997
Mr. Speaker, there are millions of Canadians who cannot afford to travel by Challenger jet at Christmas or any other time.
They are understandably outraged that a group of busy little bureaucrats is sitting there poised to kill the discount and charter air businesses in this country, the only way that travel is affordable to average folks.
Yesterday the transport minister brushed my question aside, and so I will ask him again will he make his bureaucrats back off and tell them—
Transport December 2nd, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. minister that I do not get my information only from the newspapers. He can expect at least one lump of coal in his stocking come Christmas.
Last minute discount bookings on charter flights have become big business because they respond to consumer demand. Now the Liberals with their pathological hatred for the free market want to kill it.
Why does the minister want to restrict overseas travel to well heeled Canadians?
Transport December 2nd, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I have a Christmas inspired question for the grinches over there.
Why is the Minister of Transport letting his bureaucrats run amok with reregulation of the air charter industry so that thousands of Canadians planning Christmas travel will have to pay hundreds of dollars more for their flights or stay home?
People's Tax Form Act November 27th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I think the problem that we are encountering here with endeavouring to get serious consideration for this bill was actually spelled out by the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville in his address when he stated that if this bill were to become law, there would be less public apathy in government.
The last thing that the Liberal government wants is less public apathy. The more apathy the better. The government says “Keep them out of it. Keep them asleep. Do not consult them. Tell them, `Pay your taxes folks and then shut up and leave us alone'.”
The reason I am rising is really more than to speak to the estimable merits of the bill. I want to comment on the presentation by the hon. member for Lotbinière. He appeared to think that this was not a bad idea, but he was distressed because he felt that if this did become law, the people of Yorkton—Melville might oppose the expenditure of federal funds to promote official bilingualism. I would submit that if this became law, it would also be the law in the province of Quebec. The people of Quebec likewise would vote massively to avoid spending federal funds to promote federal bilingualism.
The hon. member also commented on the fact that we did not elect any Reformers in Quebec. I would like to point out that the Bloc did not elect very many members in western Canada. So what pray tell is the point of his argument?
Finally, he mentioned the fact that Reform said in the last election that perhaps provinces other than Quebec should begin to have some small voice at the top level of government. But do the separatists not say the same thing? They not only want to reduce the overwhelming influence and power of Quebec in Ottawa, they want to eliminate it altogether. They want to leave Quebec as this pitiful and powerless little fish in a vast anglophone sea.
This is one of the most interesting bills I have seen presented in Parliament in Private Members' Business to date. It is a great shame and a pity that it is not being sent to committee. It is a bill that would not require any great expenditure of public funds. It is pin money to this government. It is a bill that would give the people of Canada a sense of ownership, a sense of being a part of the process of governing this great country, a sense that they are losing by leaps and bounds. There is a vast distaste, a vast distrust out there of government.
All of us as politicians hear this all the time: “It does not matter anymore. It does not matter who we elect, who we send to Ottawa, it is all nonsense. Go on down there and play your games. We will work and pay our taxes but we know in our hearts that it is just a charade”.
I was just getting warmed up, but I see you are giving me the finger, Mr. Speaker.
The Environment November 26th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I wish I had a couple of hours for a one on one debate with the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis. Since that is not possible I would like to address some of the misrepresentations, or perhaps I should say the omissions in his presentation wherein he was so selective about his choice of science and scientists.
I would commend him to Frederick Selz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University, chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute and a member of the IPCC who said, “I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer review process than the events that led to the IPCC report”. Of course he was referring to the 1966 report.
He and a group of fellow scientists went through line by line the original version of the IPCC report before it was butchered for political purposes. I would like to quote a few select lines from the report. Now these are not quoted in context and I am open to attack because of that. However, these are actual quotes from the report: “None of the studies cited has shown clear evidence that we can attribute changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases”. That is a direct contradiction to the paragraph which appeared in the summary, which has been quoted by hon. members opposite at great length today.
The report continued: “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate change to anthropogenic causes”. The report continued: “Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total variability of the climate system are reduced”.
That does not give anybody great credit or anybody great discredit. What it does do is establish the fact which our leader mentioned earlier in the evening that there is not universal acclaim within the scientific community for the theory of human induced global warming. It is a theory. It is an interesting theory. I find it very interesting, but I do not swallow it holus-bolus. I want to see more evidence.
The Environment November 26th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the minister stated very properly that we should try not to be too partisan when discussing this issue.
I wonder what he thinks of the stridently anti-intellectual comments of the leader of the fifth party when he was ridiculing other people's take on science. I suspect the only physics that man ever took was Ex-lax.
The Environment November 26th, 1997
What do you know about science, Jean?
The Environment November 26th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, science is not determined by a show of hands. I would answer the hon. member's question with an analogy. If he can recall Copernicus and Galileo, they were thought to be out of their minds. The whole scientific community, the whole bureaucratic community, the whole ecclesiastic community, said these people were mad because they believed that the earth was not the centre of the universe, that in fact the earth and the planets rotated around the sun. They received much the same treatment that some of your eminent climatologists today are receiving from the herd when they speak out against a theory which they say, in their opinion, is not proven.
I am not a scientific scholar but I did work in a scientific discipline for 30 years and I am capable of reading and understanding a scientific paper. Unfortunately the majority of the people who have entered into this debate are not and cannot. I hope that does not sound to egotistical. Maybe it does but it is an unfortunate truth. Unless one studies and learns how can one stand up and say “my god, I am an expert, I know it all”?
The Environment November 26th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, that is typical of the level of debate which we have heard from members opposite tonight. We try to discuss something rationally on a scientific basis and we get smart mouthed. That is all we get.
If they want to debate something, debate it, do not enter into this silly ad hominem stuff. We are adults here, at least some of us.
The Environment November 26th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I am afraid the hon. member lost me. I do not know what she was talking about with her conspiracy theory. If stating there are different schools of thought among scientists is a conspiracy theory, then I guess I believe in conspiracy theories.
As far as the warming of northern China, I imagine it would welcome that rather heartily at this point, but that is not the subject for discussion tonight.
The northern parts of China may be warming. The world is warming. We have already said that most people will agree on that. What we do not agree on is that this is man induced. This is something that I will not accept until somebody shows me some real empirical data, which to this point do not exist.