Lee Morrison

[Multiple Sclerosis, April 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on April 29, Dan Dillon of Medicine Hat, Alberta, will launch his canoe into the Bow River west of Calgary to begin a journey to Lake Winnipeg.

This in itself would not be particularly noteworthy except that Mr. Dillon suffers from multiple sclerosis. He plans to do the trip with minimal assistance and he will, in fact, be doing most of his own portaging. He is doing this not only for personal satisfaction, but to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Donations can be directed to the Multiple Sclerosis River Run in care of Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, Royal Bank, 2901-13th Avenue S.E., Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Please join me in a show of appreciation for this gutsy individual.

[Petitions, April 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have yet another petition from residents of Swift Current with respect to Bill C-23. Unfortunately it is after the fact due to the indecent haste of the government to bulldoze the bill through parliament.

The petitioners give several reasons for their opinions. The final one is that it would be an inappropriate intrusion and discriminatory for the federal government to extend benefits based on a person's private sexual activity.

Although it is too late, they have petitioned parliament to withdraw Bill C-23 and that the opposite sex definition of marriage be affirmed in legislation so that marriage is recognized as a unique institution.

[Modernization Of Benefits And Obligations Act, April 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. That is a little over the top. Is this a debate or a barroom brawl?

[Modernization Of Benefits And Obligations Act, April 10th, 2000]

Over there.

[Modernization Of Benefits And Obligations Act, April 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, prior to question period I was making the point that the effects of Bill C-23 are not necessarily benign, although members opposite would lead us to believe that they are. I would like to point out that for hundreds of generations and in almost every society I am aware of there have been social proscriptions against homosexual unions.

Now we are more civilized. We do not attempt, as Mr. Trudeau would say, to interfere in the bedrooms of the nation. That is fair enough. But we should remember that all through history, heterosexual unions have been recognized as having a social purpose. They have never been considered to be purely recreational or even sentimental arrangements.

Marriage is the foundation on which civil society rests. Society extends certain benefits to strengthen and support the institution. To extend those same benefits to homosexual couples for no good reason inferentially diminishes the institution.

I frankly do not care how homosexuals choose to organize their lives, but to treat their unions as de facto marriages is downright silly. That is not just my personal opinion. In June 1994 the present government House leader wrote in a letter to a constituent, “I do not believe that homosexuals should be treated as families. My wife and I do not claim we are homosexuals. Why should homosexuals pretend that they form a family?” What happened? In six years there seems to have been a slight change of opinion over there, at least on the part of the House leader.

In 1996 when we were debating Bill C-33, we were repetitiously informed that the bill was not a Trojan horse, that it was purely a matter of protecting homosexuals in the workplace and in securing accommodation, that there was absolutely no future intent of bringing in same sex benefits.

Here we are four years later and where is that promise of the Liberals now? I guess what we have is just another indication that a Liberal's word does not count for much, because this is what they told us. They told it to us over and over and over again. Now times have changed and four years have passed. What is next? How many more years will it be before this government or another one with the same stripes decides that it wants again to do some social engineering and starts to redefine the entire institution of marriage.

This is incremental. This is the Liberal way. The Liberals have been doing it not only in the field of marriage and family, but in several other areas as well. The camel's nose goes into the tent and little by little he edges his way in and knocks the tent down.

This has got to stop. There is no sound basis, no social reason, no fiscal reason and no political reason for changing the status quo with respect to benefits. Why the government has decided to take this leap I have no idea. I am sure that Mr. Trudeau is appalled but he is no longer here. I am appalled. A lot of people are appalled.

It is not a question of moralizing. It is a question of common sense.

Not too many years ago, if anyone had suggested that homosexual couples living together under the same roof should be awarded the same social benefits as married people, they would have been laughed out of town. It would have been considered hilarious. Yet here we are. Is this progress? I doubt it.

I do wish that the government would reconsider and take another look at this hasty legislation. A lot of amendments are coming up that, although they will not fix it, could certainly improve it.

I challenge the government in the interest of common sense, if nothing else, to give very serious consideration to some of the amendments my party has laid on the table. It should look at the bill again, remember what country we live in, and think about the people in Canada who are by and large terribly offended by the legislation.

I have received more correspondence, more phone calls and more e-mails about the bill than I have ever in my seven years in parliament received about any other legislation. This tells me something and it should tell the government something.

[Division No. 1265, April 10th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am a bit concerned about the arguments I have been hearing from time to time from our friends across the aisle. Government members seem to be always presenting arguments that concentrate on their attempts to refute the arguments presented by my colleagues.

In other words what we have are negative arguments in opposition to the opposition. What I am waiting to hear are arguments explaining the civil and social purposes of the bill. What are its objectives? How can it possibly benefit society?

It is not good enough for the government to argue that the bill will do no harm. Although that premise in itself is questionable I do see some potential for harm there, but there must be, if this is to be reasonable legislation, a premise that it will somehow benefit the country. What is the advantage of devaluing the unique position of marriage with respect to social benefits? What is the government trying to prove?

Our society has lived for hundreds of generations without this type of recognition for homosexual relationships. These relationships have been essentially prescribed—

[Petitions, April 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by 125 of my constituents, primarily residents of the city of Swift Current.

The petitioners call upon parliament to withdraw Bill C-23, affirm the opposite sex definition of marriage in legislation and ensure that marriage is recognized as a unique institution.

[David Suzuki Foundation, April 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the rules governing registered charities strictly limit the percentage of funds raised that may be used for partisan indoctrination.

A begging letter which I recently received from the David Suzuki Foundation describes its mission to initiate “profound changes in our economic systems, in government structure and priorities, in the organization of our communities and in the way we live”. That sounds pretty political to me.

There are far too many registered charities whose principal activities are raising lots of money and distributing propaganda.

If Dr. Suzuki wants to change the system, he should stop abusing it and run for parliament instead.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I will be dividing my time. I would like to begin my remarks with a brief reference to the propensity of the government to pass laws without due regard for the law of unintended consequences. Government members rush out and put together huge omnibus bills like the Canada Transportation Act, and then a few years down the line they say this is not what we really intended at all. By that time it is too late.

When the Canada Transportation Act was passed in 1996 it was actually the death knell for the primary grain collection system in western Canada, for dozens of rural communities, and for a service oriented grain transportation system which is now in the process of being replaced with a grain transportation system designed for the convenience of railways and grain companies. With the new regime under the new CTA the abandonment process was certainly simplified as it was supposed to be. However, it was supposed to encourage the development of short line railways, and the outcome has been quite the opposite.

The problem, as pointed out by Mr. Justice Estey in his report on grain transportation, is that there is absolutely nothing to prevent a class one railway from serving notice of abandonment of part of a branch line while retaining profitable sections, which destroys the economic cohesion and potential viability of the entire unit. Estey called this sort of activity a breach of the spirit of the law. I submit that the CTA must be amended in the public interest to close that loophole.

In this regard I have submitted a private member's bill to prohibit a railway company from actually physically dismantling an abandoned line until three years after its discontinuance. This would thwart the “death by a thousand cuts” principle of abandonment by ensuring the short term preservation of the infrastructure while giving potential operators adequate time to negotiate purchase terms with owners and to arrange for financing.

Unfortunately, although I introduced this bill in the House on September 21, 1998, the chance that it will be debated in this parliament are slim. Meanwhile, the piecemeal abandonment can proceed as the railway companies see fit.

It has to be understood that allowing a shortline railway to operate might not always be in a class one railway's best interest. They are faced with the inconvenience of liaison with the shortline railway coming up to their service, and also there is this big problem that continued movement of grain on a branch line would hamper the plans of grain companies to consolidate their facilities on the main lines.

Rail companies and grain companies have no vested interest in providing customer service because their customers have no choice except to take whatever is presented to them. They are captives.

The original grain collection system on the prairies worked very well. It was designed by practical people and it was used to provide real service to the people who used it. With the appearance on the scene of small farm trucks in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by the appearance of all-weather market roads in the 1960s, the grain companies began to consolidate their operations, so that by the 1980s about half of the grain delivery points in western Canada had been abandoned.

This did not cause great hardship to the producers because they were still generally within 20 or 30 kilometres of a delivery point. It did, however, create problems for other people. Scores of villages disappeared. The village where I attended school used to have a couple of general stores, a couple of restaurants, a couple of service stations and a hotel. Now it is a ghost town. There is not even a 7-Eleven, even though the surrounding land is now more productive than it ever has been. Farmers routinely have to drive 100 kilometres or more for their supplies, and now the pressure is on to shut down the elevators so that they will have to actually deliver their product to anything from 80 to 100 kilometres away.

There is intense pressure to remove these remaining elevators from almost all of the branch lines and tear up the tracks. I would not say that the grain companies and railway companies collude, but they certainly share a common interest.

New high throughput concrete elevators are springing up all along the main lines and both the railways and the grain companies will benefit if the branch line system is shut down and farmers are forced to deliver their grain to distant central points.

Even where local delivery points are still operating, some producers are already taking their product by long haul truck to the main lines, to the big delivery points, because the small country elevators are often plugged for weeks on end and producers who have to have income are forced to bypass them.

The reason for this is fairly clear. If a grain company has already decided to eliminate an elevator, it makes no serious effort to get hopper grain cars. Meanwhile, elevators in neighbouring villages may have cars loaded, but if there are not enough loaded cars available on a subdivision to justify the assembly of a train, nothing moves.

The final result is that less and less grain moves off of the affected branch lines, railway companies lose progressively more money on the service and then this is used to justify line abandonment.

I expect that if branch lines disappear the freight incentives at the large elevators which are now being offered will also disappear. The direct cost to farmers, nevertheless, may remain below the cost of shipping on the branch lines because the trucking industry, unlike railways, is intensely competitive. However, the producers will pay in other ways.

First, they will see their taxes rise to build and maintain market roads able to accommodate a steady stream of 36 to 55 tonne loads. Second, farmers and villages along abandoned rail lines will also see their property taxes increase because the railways and the grain companies will no longer contribute to the tax base. Some small villages will lose up to 30% of their revenue.

Because the government lacks the vision to relate increased road requirements to the deterioration of the railway system, it contributes virtually nothing to roads and highways. For example, in the period 1987 to 1997 the average federal contribution in the province of Saskatchewan to roads was $4.7 million. It is now $30 million from the strategic highways improvement program and the grain transportation adjustment fund, but annual federal taxes suck out of that province $125 million on fuel tax.

Canada urgently needs a program similar to that which is in the United States of America where dedicated fuel revenues are put into a federal fund that cannot be used for anything except road construction. It amounts to $26 billion a year, which on a per capita basis works out to $970 a year. An equivalent annual expenditure would be $2.9 billion in this country. That is far less than the more than $4.3 billion which is siphoned out of the provinces in annual fuel excise taxes.

I see that I have used up my time. This is a subject which I generally speak to for at least an hour and I thank you, Madam Speaker, for your consideration.

[Supply, March 20th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Mississauga South gave a rather impassioned defence of HRDC. I can readily understand his sensitivity with regard to that particular department. However, the motion, if he would look at it, has nothing to do with HRDC. It is a general motion and it deals with grants and contributions from all departments. It concerns a $13.5 billion pot of pork. It is not all pork. There are probably some useful programs. However, too much of it is for friends of the party opposite: SNC-Lavalin, Bombardier, all of the old friends. By the way, I am not speaking of EDC; I am talking about outright subsidies. I know the hon. member is well aware of them and could probably reel them off as fast as I could.

These are parties which over the last eight years have given some rather substantial amounts of money to the Liberal Party. I have the numbers here. SNC-Lavalin during the seven years from 1992-99 contributed $295,817. Bombardier during that period contributed $447,615 to the Liberal Party of Canada.

We do not believe it is fitting or proper that the $13.5 billion grants pot be further augmented by the $1.5 billion that is listed in the current budget document to build up the slush. We say take back that $1.5 billion which has not actually been allocated for any particular program yet. It is just a big sum of money which the government wants to give for grants and contributions. Take that back and give it to health care where it is really needed and where the people of Canada really want it. Be a little less generous with this pork-barrelling stuff at least for a year or two. That is all we are asking. It is a pretty straightforward motion.