Herb Grubel

[China, March 14th, 1996]

There are no briefing notes on this.

[Privilege, March 14th, 1996]

Is it deliberate?

[The Budget, March 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the puzzle still remains. The Statistics Canada numbers I have in front of me give me the January 1995 and January 1996 numbers

of full time employment in Canada and they have decreased by 227,000.

I would think that if this is correct, then to be bragging or boasting about gross jobs of 263,000 is highly misleading, that in fact there has been a serious loss.

When will the government create jobs?

[The Budget, March 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday's budget speech by the finance minister created a serious puzzle. He noted that the private sector had created 263,000 jobs over the last 13 months. A check with Statistics Canada, on the other hand, shows that there had been a net loss of 227,000 jobs.

Can the minister please explain this puzzle?

[The Budget, March 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. An unfortunate clerical error has been made. Would you please in our subamendment insert the word "recovery" after "delays economic" so that the passage would read "delays economic recovery and normal job creation". Mr. Speaker, you have it in front of you so there will not be any ambiguity.

[The Budget, March 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. Indeed it is a legitimate question.

I do not believe that in the past opposition parties have been as courageous and open as the Reform Party has been in presenting alternative budgets, even though the job to propose methods is the responsibility of the government, not the opposition. The opposition's task is to criticize, and this is our main task. As I suggested, we have done so.

I will send the member the taxpayers budget as prepared last year. In there all of the cuts are presented. I did some calculations. It would take 5 per cent out of program spending this year and next year and the sun would shine on Canadians again. We would be out of the tunnel.

From what I hear from my constituents, this is what they would like to have more than anything else. They have continued pain and uncertainty of having to take bitter pills of continuously hearing cuts already on the books and which are still coming, and yet there is no hope.

This is a budget without hope. Everything is more cuts. More cuts have been announced for 1998-99, outside of the range of the government. That is all it is. There is no hope, nothing but pain. I believe it is a strategic error to do that, on top of the fact that the government has on its books an increase in the debt of $112 billion, if all goes well, which many are questioning.

It will be over $600 billion that we are handing to future generations. I want to know how the member opposite will face his grandchildren and tell them he has left them as a permanent gift the interest costs and amortization on $600 billion, and that he was in the House of Commons while it went from $300 billion to $600 billion.

[The Budget, March 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I will be taking 10 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, do you remember a time when you had aches and pains and went to the doctor for help? He may have given you some bitter tasting medicine and assured you that you would be well in two weeks. When you left the doctor's office you probably already felt better because your worries were relieved and you knew that all would be well within a definite period of time.

Canadians feel the pain and are worried about their economic situation. There are 1.4 million of them who are unemployed. Their neighbours who work for the government are expecting a pink slip any day. The daughter graduating from university has no job yet. There is a long wait at the hospital for the operation needed by one of their relatives. There is disturbing talk about the viability of the Canada pension plan. This is only a partial list of what worries and pains Canadians in 1996.

Canadians expect their doctor, the government, to help them. They expect the budget to offer relief and hope. They were disappointed. The doctor said: "Keep on taking the bitter medicine I prescribed for you last year. Sorry, while I think you will be all right, I cannot give you a definite date when you can stop taking the medicine and stop worrying".

Canadians are not satisfied with the measures by the government in this budget. The measures are not adequate to restore fiscal balance within a definite time frame. The uncertainty continues as there is increasing talk about a recession, another Quebec crisis or international financial upheaval.

Just a tiny bit more medicine in the form of spending reductions in this budget would have done the trick. Canadians were ready for it. They want to get it over with. They want to get back to normal. What did they get instead? A budget that interrupts a momentum gained by last year's tough love measures.

No one believes that next year's budget leading up to an election will restore this momentum. These facts are also known to international investors. They will not give up their demand for getting at least one or two points more on Canadian bonds than they can get on U.S. bonds.

As a result there is no interest rate relief. High interest rates are the main obstacle to job creation. They burden Canadians with higher mortgage payments and leave them with less income to spend on consumer goods and services that would result in the hiring of more Canadians. Investors cannot afford to build those factories. The interest costs make them non-competitive in international markets.

What worries Canadians also is what a number of media reports noted. The budget signals a shift away from deficit fighting into an election mode. The traditional Liberal methods for buying votes have reappeared.

Money we do not have is being spent to help summer student employment. I feel sorry for those students when in a few years they become taxpayers and have to repay these gifts from Ottawa in full, plus an awful lot of interest on top.

Money we do not have is going into the support of high tech industries. There are pious assurances that the money goes out through recoverable loans and in partnership. Some leaders of high tech industries say they do not want such programs. They do not like having to pay general taxes so that money can be given to competitors who will make life tougher for them. They know there are plenty of venture capitalists out there who lend money to those with economically viable projects and who are large enough to spread the risk.

It is only the high tech ventures that are rejected by the private investors as being too risky that the government will support. Almost by definition, a collection of them will end up not earning enough to repay the government. This is how loans made by the government inevitably turn into subsidies.

Finally, I am on a personal crusade to point out the almost criminal injustice that is being perpetrated on future generations of Canadians. They do not have a vote in Parliament. No one in the system is representing them. They can be taxed without cost to sitting politicians.

We are passing on to the helpless future generations not just a visible debt which already requires to service it about $50 billion of interest every year or 35 per cent of current tax revenues, but we also have burdened them with the cost of services for the elderly. It has been estimated that when the bulk of baby boomers retire in 2030, young or unborn Canadians will be required to pay another $50 billion for medicare, old age security benefits and the Canada pension plan.

Only economic growth, expected to be small, will relieve them of the burden of having to pay at least 70 per cent of tax revenue on the visible and hidden debt they are inheriting. The interest of these unborn or young Canadians obviously does not carry any weight in the minds of those who designed this budget.

It may be on target, as the minister keeps on boasting, but it is also adding shamelessly $90 million a day to the visible debt. I ask the minister and his colleagues: Where is the vaunted Liberal compassion? Does it get applied only to those who can vote for them in the next election? Do the young and future generations count for naught because they cannot vote?

Let me summarize Reform's and my objection to this budget. It coasts. It is giving up momentum in the move to a balanced budget. It fails to provide a definite end to the nation's trauma and uncertainty. It delays the time we are out of the tunnel and the sun shines once more on the possibility of lower interest rates, more jobs, tax reductions and a return to the good old times when budgets are balanced. It sends the wrong message by starting the traditional Liberal spending that precedes and election. It shows no compassion for future generations. It is a bad budget for the current generation; it is a terrible one for future generations.

I move:

That the amendment be amended by adding after the word "Senate" the following: "and in particular, its impact on investor confidence results in these investors continuing to demand high interest rates on Canadian bonds, which delays economic and normal job creation" and;

By adding after the words "transfers to provinces" the following: "and in particular it does not offer Canadians a definite date within this government's mandate in which the deficit is eliminated, and in which economic growth once again would make feasible discussions about tax cuts, debt reductions and the restoration of social program spending".

[Constitution Act, 1996, March 4th, 1996]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-213, an act entitled the Constitution Act, 1996 (balanced budget and spending limit).

Mr. Speaker, the Parliament of Canada is limited in its freedom to pass legislation by the charter of rights and freedoms.

The private member bill I am introducing today is designed to limit parliamentarians in their ability to run budget deficits, which in effect provide benefits for voters today at the expense of unborn generations who have no vote and representation in today's Parliament.

The record shows that Parliament has been totally irresponsible in its disregard of the interests of future generations. My bill will make it responsible by prohibiting deficits, limiting the growth of spending and imposing fines on MPs who vote for deficit budgets and excessive spending growth.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Government Business, March 4th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, your predecessor on May 29, 1991 ruled the following according to Beauchesne's fifth edition, citation 167(1):

The effect of a prorogation is at once to suspend all business until Parliament shall be summoned again. Not only are the sittings of Parliament at an end, but all proceedings pending at the time are quashed. Every bill must therefore be renewed after a prorogation, as if it were introduced for the first time.

I now continue with the text of the ruling of your predecessor. He said:

Thus prorogation gives Parliament the chance to start anew in dealing with the business of the nation.

While the effects of prorogation are clear, there have been many occasions when the government has sought the permission of the House to reinstate legislation considered in the previous session. This has always been considered an extraordinary procedure. In fact, on two separate occasions, July 1977 and March 1982, the House amended its standing orders to permit certain bills to be reinstated in the next session. These and other instances of reinstatement-have been dealt with by unanimous consent.

This tradition was not followed in 1991 and it is not being followed in this year's prorogation. All that the opposition demanded in 1991 is being demanded by Reformers and the Bloc now: government, please do not use a omnibus motion to reinstate all bills that died with prorogation; instead, bring them up for unanimous consent, one by one. We the opposition have not only the right but the duty to examine the reinstatement of each bill on its own merit.

Prorogation means the government decides to end a session of Parliament and suspend all business. Governments have historically used this mechanism because they have exhausted their agendas and wish to use the throne speech to set a new tone. All of this is business hallowed by long and valued tradition. It has served Canada and other parliamentary democracies well. It should be

changed only after it has shown clearly that it no longer serves such democracies.

The change in tradition introduced in 1991 and continued with the present motion threatens to destroy the basic purpose of prorogation: the opportunity for government to start parliamentary business anew with a new throne speech.

With the quasi-automatic reintroduction of unfinished bills from the preceding Parliament, all we have left of this tradition is a throne speech with its accompanying expensive pomp and vacuous media hype. The essential element of a clean legislative slate is gone. The historic modification of permitting the reintroduction of selected pieces of previous legislation is nullified by the insistence that all such previous legislation be reinstated without proper debate on each.

Perhaps it is more efficient in our times to have such omnibus motions. During the 1990s in one debate one the members of the present government, then in opposition, suggested that such an innovation should be embodied in a bill brought before the House before prorogation. Reformers agree and are ready any time to be persuaded that changing this or any other parliamentary tradition is in the interest of all Canadians. We were never given the opportunity by the government to vote on this matter.

Now here we are in the enjoyable position of being able to cite for all some of the remarks made by individuals now on the government side of the House, citations which show how power corrupts.

The former member for Ottawa-Vanier, now in the other chamber, said in a speech given on the occasion of prorogation in 1991, page 647: "I cannot understand why this government, these government bullies now want to impose their will on the House of Commons through force of numbers and then would have us believe that they are sensitive to parliamentary reform and want Canadians to see this House work in a friendly, co-operative way".

I continue with a remark by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands:

I want to deal with the propriety of the motion that the government has introduced. I suggest that it is contrary to all the practices of this House for the last 124 years. It is a breach of the proprieties of this place. I suggest that it is morally wicked of the government to proceed with this motion and particularly then to apply closure to the motion and thereby curtail the debate on it. What the government is doing by this, and let us make it perfectly clear what is happening here, is short-circuiting the legislative process.

I suggest that this is wrong. It is wickedly wrong. It is a gross violation of the constitutional principles on which this House has operated since Confederation. Indeed it is contrary to the whole practice of British parliamentary tradition for 900 years. Nothing like this has ever been tried before. I suggest it is wrong. The government knows it is wrong.

These are remarks made and recorded in Hansard by members of the present government in the House to a motion identical to the one before us today when they were opposing it.

Let me continue with another quotation by the hon. member, now a minister, for Cape Breton-East Richmond: "I contend that the motion is in principle unacceptable in that it seeks to circumvent, indeed to subvert, the normal legislative process in this House".

How can these members of Parliament look us in the eye when they stand to vote in favour of closure, in favour of this motion which they opposed with such strong words in the past?

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands a few days later in 1991 said, commenting on this motion: "In other words there was always a debate allowed at third reading of every bill that was reinstated, but here in this motion today we have a bill that is deemed passed by this House, so there will be no debate at any stage on this bill".

The record notes an hon. member interrupted the speech saying: "That is terrible". The hon. member who had the floor said: "It is a national disgrace". Another hon. member yelled: "It is a travesty". These are the same members who have the affront today to get up and vote for a motion which they had a short five years ago condemned in such strong words. Let me continue with the speech made by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. He said:

If this kind of thing was reported in parliamentary journals around the world, the Canadian Parliament would become a laughing stock because of the outrageous conduct of the government in introducing this motion. It violates all the constitutional principles of debating bills at three readings in the House of Commons. That is the standard practice in every British parliamentary institution and has been for hundreds of years, and this government is violating this practice.

Who is to blame for this practice aside from all the members on the other side? The government itself had a choice.

They had a choice. Remember those words. The members opposite may remember them because they came up in a debate. They had a choice. They chose to prorogue the last session and leave the business unfinished on the Order Paper. They sent us away through April and early May and said: "We do not want you in Ottawa. We do not want questions every day. We do not want to listen to you. We do not want our sins exposed to the people of Canada on national television here on the floor of the House of Commons".

I could not have said it better. The only thing I would change in order to make this a speech relevant for today's situation is to say: You have kept us away from here and the opportunity to do things

for Canadians by debating the issues on the floor of the House until February 27, when we were supposed to return much, much earlier.

The situation has not changed. These kinds of rulings and motions simply show how people change once they get power. Once they are sitting on one side and they see the interest of the people in continuing with traditions that have served the country so well, they argue one way and in the strongest fashion one can imagine. The words were used by the same individuals who are now in power. We all know power corrupts. What do the Liberals do? They have the nerve to stand up and look us in the eye and do exactly what they have condemned so strongly in the past.

Another favoured member in the government had a few words to say on this. It is the hon. member for Halifax. I can just see her demeanour when she read into the record the following:

I can only say that the government should hang its head in shame. One wonders today why the government prorogued the House of Commons last time. Why did it prorogue? We heard a speech from the throne which did not appear to tell us anything new or different. It did not appear to give us any new blueprint for Canadians. It was remarkably low on specifics about its programs. Yet we had the prorogation. One presumes it was because the government wanted to get away from here, take some time, regroup and come back with some fresh ideas.

Instead of fresh ideas, we have today this pernicious-and I underline that word-motion of the House leader ramming through five bills. We are just supposed to pretend that prorogation did not take place. We are just supposed to accept the government's decision that these bills will come to this Parliament in the state in which they were supposed to have died in the last Parliament.

I challenge the member for Halifax to look me in the eye, remembering the words I have just read which she said on the occasion when the government pushed on the House a similar closure motion that is under discussion today. It is very revealing the way power corrupts.

I have a few more quotations. Some of them are quite delicious. I must say I am disappointed to read that this is the way these individuals talked. The member for Winnipeg North Centre said:

The role of the opposition is to be a thoughtful opposition and a thoughtful critic of what the government is trying to do. But the lack of opportunity as posed to us in this case makes it very difficult for an opposition party to continue to deal with the government when we do not feel the government is being honest in its motives.

I cannot help myself but read this. It is from one of the most articulate and argumentative members of this House who has departed for higher callings. Now the premier of a province, the former member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte said:

The governing party of the day, regrettably for the country-a country in desperate need of leadership on the constitutional front, a country in desperate need of leadership on the economic front-does not have the confidence of the people. Even as a member of the opposition, one who wants to replace the governing party, I say it is regrettable for Canada that at this time in our history only 14 per cent or 12 per cent or 8 per cent of Canadians have confidence in the government of the day.

What does this government do? Does it attempt to lay bare before the people of Canada its agenda? Does it attempt to persuade the people of Canada and the elected representatives of the people of Canada of the value of its agenda? Does it say it has a vision for Canada and such a profound belief in our vision for Canada that we are prepared to debate it and to defend it?

No, it uses the tyranny of the majority. It uses the temporary trust given to this party as a consequence of an election two and a half or three years ago to bulldoze its legislative measures through the Parliament of Canada, to deny the people of Canada a chance to be heard, to deny the elected representatives of the people of Canada-not an opportunity to speak, but their obligation to speak, their responsibility to be heard in the proper examination of bills.

This is merely a sample of the kinds of words and arguments a group of people while they were in opposition used to oppose a motion that now has been introduced in this Parliament. But the tables have turned. These same members are now part of the elite. They are part of the government. They have power.

We can see how much power corrupts. The principles they enunciated and the strength of the convictions they had at that point have gone down the drain. I challenge each and every one of the hon. members who made such strong statements, when they stand up to vote, to acknowledge that they are voting against their own words and their own arguments.

[The Economy, February 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is strange indeed that apparently Canadians do not realize any of this. They must be stupid or something. Why would they be so pessimistic?

Canadians are likely to become even more pessimistic when they find out the throne speech has shifted the emphasis away from needed deficit elimination to costly subsidies and ineffective direct job creation programs.

Does this shift in the financial priorities of the Liberals signal a return to traditional policies in a prebudget mode of damn the deficit and future generations, full steam ahead, getting re-elected at all costs?