Hugh Hanrahan

[Sports Canada, February 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Sports Canada receives $64 million a year to help Canada's athletes. Unfortunately a paltry 8 per cent or approximately $5 million of that $64 million actually reaches Canadian athletes. Over $42 million is being spent to administer a huge, cumbersome sports bureaucracy.

My question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Is Sports Canada there to benefit the athlete or the bureaucracy?

[Electronic Town Hall Meeting, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Reformers have done it again. Last night marked our third cross-Canada live interactive electronic town hall meeting which generated more than 10,000 calls.

Ninety-four per cent of all callers favoured spending cuts over tax increases. Ninety-six per cent favoured legislation to cap federal tax levels. Ninety-five per cent stated unequivocally that taxes are too high.

This echoes what the Reform Party has been saying in this House for more than a year and we have been continuously ignored by this government.

I hope, as do all Canadians, that the Prime Minister and the finance minister take their heads out of the sand and start paying

attention to what real Canadians want. Canadians are fed up with taxes and with government mismanagement.

I challenge the finance minister to-

[Department Of Canadian Heritage Act, December 15th, 1994]

Whether I am standing or not does not matter; they are still wasting the money.

It is for these reasons I am opposed to Bill C-53. It does nothing to reduce government spending or waste, government mismanagement or incompetence, government overlap or duplication. Bill C-53 does not set an example for other ministries. Nor does it have the direction needed to lead the country out of the financial crisis we are presently facing.

It is for these reasons that we as parliamentarians should reject Bill C-53. We should send a message to Canadians that we are truly serious about parliamentary reform, deficit reduction, government streamlining and government efficiency.

[Department Of Canadian Heritage Act, December 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, once again it gives me great pleasure to discuss Bill C-53, an act to establish the Department of Canadian Heritage.

It would be useful to state unequivocally that the Reform Party does not support the bill. The reasons for this are numerous. Since I have spoken on the bill during first and second readings and have participated in committee and report stages, I feel most of what I have to offer has already been stated. Therefore I will not deliberate at great length on the issue.

However I would like to summarize the key aspects of the bill. First let us look at multiculturalism. As I mentioned yesterday in the House, as a member of the Standing Committee on Heritage I had the opportunity to listen to witnesses describe multicultural federal funded programs as divisive and that they focus on our differences rather than on our similarities. This is ultimately the opposite outcome to that which the government had intended for the program.

I truly believe the intention was noble enough when the multiculturalism legislation was passed by the Trudeau government. However it was an experimental program that has failed its goals. The program does little to unify and seemingly everything to separate. The government must stop the waste.

Multiculturalism is creating an entire generation of hyphenated Canadians by focusing on differences, not on similarities. The majority of Canadians believe there is nothing wrong with multiculturalism. Yet they believe it should not be funded by the government but by multicultural organizations. This is the position of the Reform Party we have been defending since the late 1980s. According to Neil Bissoondath, author of Selling Illusions-The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada :

Anyone critical of the multicultural policy-is immediately branded a racist.

Moreover it is my perception that this type of attitude is present today and is carried by the media, as anyone who speaks critically of funding for multiculturalism programs are labelled meanspirited or ignorant and intolerant. This is not an answer to the problem we are encountering today in Canada. I can unequivocally say that the Reform Party is not racist nor is it intolerant. However it is fiscally responsible.

Multiculturalism programs cost Canadians over $30 million annually. This funding could be better spent on health or education. I am sure everyone knows that education and not cash is the true way to break down barriers between cultures and individuals. Therefore I think it would be wise for the government to rethink its multicultural policy.

Next, overlap and duplication is a theme in which this Parliament will hopefully be remembered for decreasing, although for this to happen the Liberals must re-evaluate Bill C-53 as it is riddled with inconsistencies and duplications between departments, such as overlap and duplication between the Department of Canadian Heritage and the departments of industry, environment and transportation. Yet the Liberals seem quite content to allow the overlap to continue, which will only lead to confusion of responsibility and mismanagement.

To illustrate the point I will use national parks. They were in environment but have since moved to heritage. I am still wondering why. Recently one witness, David Day, managing director of the Association for Mountain Parks Protection and Enjoyment, was before the standing committee discussing this issue. It is important to illustrate what he said because he made a great deal of sense.

He spoke of the difficulty governments face in administering and managing our national parks because of the diversity of expectations. I could not agree more.

What is it that we as a society would like to see from our national parks? Specifically talking about national parks, Mr. Day said:

Many Canadians have questioned why the government moved Parks Canada from the Department of the Environment to a new and seemingly unfocused Department of Heritage. Over the previous 14 years Parks Canada has established a firm position within the Department of the Environment as a leader and innovator in matters affecting the environment.

With the increase in tourism in Canada national parks are more closely linked to industry and environment than they are to heritage. The question remains: Why are parks in heritage? Streamlining government activities not only makes financial sense but also creates accountability. Government should be held accountable for department mismanagement and project failures.

Bill C-53 simply reinforces the perception of the process of government that needs reform as well as Reformers more so now than at any time before. Perhaps one of the most important changes or reforms the House needs is true free votes, free from party discipline. The Reform Party suggests changes to parliamentary rules to allow for more free votes and to ensure that the defeat of a government does not automatically mean the government must resign.

Bill C-53 is a prime example of a bill that should be defeated because it is fundamentally flawed. However its passage is a foregone conclusion as we will see later this afternoon. What we are doing here is nothing more than an illusion. We have been constructively criticizing and proposing positive changes, yet our suggestions fall on deaf ears.

What the Liberals have to understand is that less government will ultimately mean more freedom and more prosperity, not just for a certain few or a certain region but all Canadians. We as parliamentarians have an obligation not only to our constituents but to Canadians as a whole. We must start to make decisions that will enable the country to lower our deficit and ultimately our debt. Since the beginning of my speech Canada's national debt has increased $1,443 per second which equates to approximately $1,776,000.

[Department Of Canadian Heritage Act, December 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand before the House and discuss the report stage of Bill C-53.

Bill C-53, as I mentioned during the first and second reading, is riddled with problems which are quite evident if we look at the number of motions that have been put forward by the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois. Because of time constraints, I will attempt to keep my comments extremely brief and focus solely on the motions before us.

Motion No. 2 deals with the removal of clause 4 in section 2(a). While I am in no way against "the promotion of the greater understanding of human rights, fundamental freedoms and related values". I am against the idea of having more than one minister responsible for these issues. In fact I wholeheartedly believe that the Department of Justice is better suited to ensure the noble intentions of this clause.

Passage of Motion No. 3 would result in the elimination of multiculturalism from the bill. I believe that the continued funding of programs like this will ensure a Liberal defeat in the next election. Canadians want less government, not more. They want to see the government manage its allocation of revenues and stop running up astronomical debts and deficits.

In short, what they are looking for is a government to priorize its spending programs to ensure that everyone is maximizing the benefits from his or her tax dollars.

Government funded multiculturalism programs do nothing to address this fundamental attitude toward government spending and programs. In fact, the Liberals seem more content to raise Canadian taxes than they are to control spending. We have a spending problem in Canada, not a revenue problem. Therefore not only is multiculturalism financially unsound but in fact it is politically unsound as well.

As a member of the standing committee on heritage I have had the pleasure of listening to witnesses describe the multicultural funded programs as a poor way to promote culture. Moreover, I have heard and talked to many Canadians who believe that multiculturalism does nothing but make us all hyphenated Canadians focusing on what separates and not what binds us together. Its day has come and gone and it is time that the Liberals face up to this fact.

Motions 5 and 21 deal with an issue that is also of great concern to the Reform Party. I am speaking of overlap and duplication. Why should one department oversee areas which should be under another portfolio such as national parks and marine conservation areas, or even historical canals. It should be our goal as parliamentarians to do everything in our power to decrease the amount of bureaucracy and administer services in each department by themselves.

Motions 5 and 21 will be a step in the right direction. They will allow parks and conservation to go back to the Department of the Environment and historic canals to return to transportation.

Historical canals belong to the department of transportation for the simple reason that they are administered by and are subject to the regulations of the department of transportation. A perfect example would be the Ottawa canal. It is a historical canal yet it is still in use and therefore subject to the rules and regulations of the department of transportation. Therefore why is it in the department of heritage?

Motion No. 6 has been clearly stated and illustrated in the Reform Party's blue book policies. Essentially we believe that there is no need for the official bilingualism policy. We feel there should be a policy based on territorial bilingualism where bilingual services will be maintained and supported where numbers warrant. That is the reason we have recognized the need for bilingualism especially in key federal institutions such

as Parliament and the Supreme Court which are explicitly outlined in Motion No. 6.

Clause 7(a) of Bill C-53 is of extreme concern to me as it allows the ministers to facilitate the implementation of any program and the minister also to provide financial assistance in the form of grants, contributions and endowments to any person. The concern arises from the idea that the minister may at his or her discretion provide financial assistance in the form of grants, contributions and endowments. Where are the checks and balances? Where is the accountability? Where is the financial control? Where is the openness and transparency?

Another concern relates to the fact that the minister could be allowed to implement other programs, such as multicultural programs, unilaterally. This would not only be unacceptable to me, to the Reform Party, my constituents, but also to a majority of Canadians.

Motion No. 12 would alleviate this concern as far as it relates to clause 7. Directly related to clause 7(a), clause 8 should be eliminated. Clause 8 deals directly with the notion that the minister can fix fees and charges which the minister considers appropriate. Again, what happened to accountability and openness or checks and balances?

Prior to the bill the minister was responsible and subject to any regulations that Treasury Board made. After Bill C-53, the minister may or may not be subject to these regulations as set out by Treasury Board. It is unclear and therefore it should be removed.

Although for the most part Treasury Board is no more than a rubber stamp in terms of approval for rate increases or fees or changes, there is still an institutional check on the powers of the ministry.

Motions Nos. 14, 15, 16, 18 and 19 alleviate the concerns which the Reform Party has outlined in clause 8 regarding the accountability and powers of a minister.

The last motion I would like to discuss briefly is Motion No. 20. It deals with the inclusion of an annual report which would be brought before Parliament outlining the expenditures and revenues of the department of heritage. I speak in support of this motion because I believe in accountability, openness and fairness.

An annual report would help not only parliamentarians but also Canadians to understand where, why and how much funding was allocated to ensure the best accountability possible. Although I have heard that part III of the estimates will be improved to accommodate the lack of an annual report, I believe it is still in the best interests of Canadians to have an annual report simply because it would be more accessible and clearer than the estimates.

I appreciate this opportunity and I hope that all members of the House listened carefully to why these motions should be supported. I look for them to support these motions when the time comes for a vote.

[Gun Control, December 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, when we telephoned the organization in question it said it was never consulted. It also suggested that because this particular gun is used by many people in the Olympics and in the PanAm games this puts the PanAm games in jeopardy because a full length of programs cannot be offered.

Could the minister comment on the validity of those statements?

[Gun Control, December 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have stood in this House and repeatedly stated that after an intense and lengthy consultation process they have compiled a list of handguns, the primary use of which could only be in the form of criminal activity.

My question is for the Minister of Justice. How is it possible that the Shooting Federation of Canada that facilitates the rules and regulations of this type of firearm to be utilized in shooting competitions like the PanAm games and the Olympics was never consulted by anyone from this Liberal government over the practicality of banning these types of firearms?

[Unemployment Insurance Act, December 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I stand before my hon. colleagues and my constituents today to discuss Bill C-216, a private member's bill that changes the rules of the unemployment insurance program to allow unemployment insurance claimants to collect unemployment insurance benefits while they are serving on a jury.

Essentially, Bill C-216 if passed would change only six words in the Unemployment Insurance Act. These changes include the removal of the word "or" in section 14 and include the words "or engaged in jury service" in the same section.

The question that needs to be addressed is why are we spending all this time discussing these six words. The answer to this question is simple. If these six words were changed, the initial intention of the Unemployment Insurance Act would have been pushed even farther from its original purpose.

Section 14 of the Unemployment Insurance Act states clearly: "A claimant is not entitled to receive benefits for any working day for which he or she is unable to prove capability to work and availability for work or is unable to prove incapability because of prescribed illness, injury, or quarantine. A claimant engaged in jury duty is considered unavailable under section 14 of the act and is therefore disentitled from benefits".

This statement makes it indisputably clear that the framers of the original unemployment act saw that the UI system was not to include those individuals who were called to do their civic duty and perform jury duty.

The Reform Party unequivocally supports the return of the Unemployment Insurance Act to its original function, an employer/employee funded and administered program to provide temporary income in the event of unexpected job loss.

This has been our policy since the late 1980s. Canadians are tired of supporting habitual and seasonal abusers of unemployment insurance. Many people would say that Bill C-216 would become another case of abuse of the great Canadian social security system as it could lead to employers laying off employees who must serve jury duty so that these individuals would be able to collect otherwise uncollectable unemployment insurance.

The potential for abuse is alarmingly clear. When the unemployment insurance system is not used as it was initially designed, Canadians suffer because the present inequities in the UI system which have developed permanently lower disposable income of those who hold full time jobs in regions of some economic strength.

It permanently depresses the rate of job creation among all the firms whose costs are increased by the UI payroll tax. It subsidizes the immobility of labour in ways that seriously hurt the younger generations as parents do not face the incentives they should to move to regions where private sector job opportunities are much more numerous and diverse.

According to the figures provided by my hon. colleague for Restigouche-Chaleur, the implementation of this amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act, the changing of only six words, would add in the neighbourhood of $2 million to $3 million to the unemployment insurance claims. A $2 million to $3 million tab would be absorbed by employers and employees

across the country. They are already losing nearly 40 per cent of their pay cheques through one type of taxation or another.

I truly question the willingness of Canadians to absorb this sum of money, especially when considering our fiscal situation where we as a nation are nearly $535 billion in debt and are paying nearly $40 billion in interest payments annually to service this astronomical debt.

It is for this reason that if employers and employees who pay for the UI program had a say in how their money was being spent, I do not think they would agree to provide benefits to claimants while they are serving on a jury.

The law is simple, clear and concise. If a UI claimant is serving on a jury they are not available for work and therefore not entitled to unemployment insurance benefits. For too long now the fundamental insurance principles have been compromised so that unemployment insurance is seen more like a form of welfare than a form of insurance.

In the words of Tommy Douglas: "We are not interested in paying able bodied people merely because they were not able to find work. We proposed social aid for those who are unable to work because they were crippled, aged or mentally ill. Those who are able to work would participate in public work projects".

Welfare and unemployment insurance are not a right in Canada and furthermore unemployment insurance is exactly what the name indicates. It is an insurance program and not a seasonal employment or special compensation package.

Workers should only be entitled to unemployment insurance provided they qualify and meet certain obligations. One of these obligations is that they are ready, able and willing to work; work immediately, not tomorrow or the next day or the next week, but immediately.

As I mentioned earlier the unemployment insurance program must be returned to a true insurance program. We should look at other insurance programs to see how they operate and perhaps we as a government could learn a lesson or two from the private sector. Perhaps our national unemployment insurance program should indeed be based on a user pay system such as household or automobile insurance where the more we use our insurance the more our premiums increase and, conversely, the less we use our insurance the less our premiums become.

This type of user pay based system is not solely for employees. It would also relate back to employers as those employers who regularly lay off workers would also have to pay higher premiums as well.

It is clear that this bill is taking us down the wrong direction. We should be looking at ways to make the unemployment insurance as well as government programs sustainable and self-sufficient. Bill C-216 is not even close to achieving this goal or even starting us down the right path.

I want to state clearly that while there may be a problem of fair compensation to individuals who serve on a jury regardless of their employment status, we do not believe that minor changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act is the way to accomplish or change this inequity.

We are not the only ones with this view. In fact a few of our supporters include the policy experts at the department of unemployment insurance and research branch of the Library of Parliament. The department of unemployment insurance comments that the problem is not with the UI rules but rather the poor compensation provided for jurors. The Library of Parliament wrote: "The primary issue in this matter seems to be adequate remuneration for jury duty and that is the responsibility of the provinces rather than the employers and employees who contribute to the unemployment insurance program".

Ultimately then, rather than adjusting the Unemployment Insurance Act the Reform Party proposes that judges should use their discretion to excuse UI claimants from jury duty as has been done in the past. Again, I think it is crucial to state the obvious which is those who serve on jury are perhaps not fairly compensated. On this point I am sure all of us in this House can agree.

As my hon. colleague from Yorkton-Melville stated in the House it is inexcusable that jurors are asked to work for days, weeks, and in some cases even months for $15 or $20 a day. I believe, as does the Reform Party, in equality and fairness and above all common sense. For that reason it is clear that this issue of appropriate compensation for jurors must be addressed.

However, we also believe in decreasing overlap and duplication between governments. Essentially we believe in staying out of the provincial arena and the issue of juror compensation falls 100 per cent under provincial jurisdiction. For these reasons we will be unable to support this bill.

Finally, I would like to move:

That the motion be amended by striking out all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following:

"Bill C-216, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act (jury service), be not now read a third time and that the order be discharged, the bill withdrawn, and the subject matter thereof referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development.

[Gun Control, November 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we know that there are approximately seven million legitimate gun owners in Canada and that the use of guns results in one of the safest, most thoroughly self-policed recreational activities anywhere.

To qualify for a purchase of a firearm or a hunting licence, Canadians must pass numerous examinations and training courses on firearms knowledge, safe firearms handling, wildlife identification and safe hunting procedures.

Handgun owners are required to undergo an even tougher application process and have rigid security restrictions. Yet despite all these controls, knee-jerk Liberalism has sprung into effect to establish even tougher gun laws when we know the problem is the criminal use of guns and not with the legal gun owners.

I challenge the Minister of Justice to do the right thing, which is to get tough on criminals and forget about creating laws that make criminals out of law-abiding citizens.

[Supply, November 22nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to respond to that question.

The key words the hon. member used were ordinary Canadians. Ordinary Canadians average 30 to 35 years before they receive a pension. Ordinary parliamentarians average six years. It would irritate ordinary Canadians to receive after 35 years what we receive after six years. I do not think the average Canadian would accept this in any manner, shape or form.