Ken Epp

[Eldorado Nuclear Limited Reorganization And Divestiture Act, April 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we have a problem right now because of our very low dollar. The business of the country is for sale at bargain basement prices on the international market, so it is a problem indeed. One thing the bill deals with is privatization, and I believe it includes elements of the Petro-Canada deal.

The hon. member who just spoke will recall that it was a number of years ago that Petro-Canada was created. I do not know whether he was in the House at the time. As part of the bill we are now divesting ourselves of Petro-Canada. I would like to know whether the hon. member supported a nationalized oil company at the time and whether he supports the part of the bill that would now get rid of it. How far would he take the nationalization of these industries? Would he encourage Canada to gain control of all its major oil companies? How far would he take it?

[Eldorado Nuclear Limited Reorganization And Divestiture Act, April 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member who just spoke raised some very interesting questions. I faced the same dilemma with one of my neighbours not very long ago when we got into a debate. He has a little farm in Alberta that he wanted to sell because it was just not viable any more. He wanted to get rid of it. He did some advertising and he was offered $100,000. A foreign buyer came along and said that he would give him $250,000.

Here is the dilemma. I object to foreigners buying land in Canada and yet how could I say to the farmer that he should be forced to take $100,000 for his land and not accept the $250,000, which is a little closer to what it is actually worth? What mechanism do we use to assure that Canada stays Canadian? It is a concept in principle with which I agree. However, what is the New Democratic Party policy? Do we compensate people with government tax money or do we make it illegal for them to sell their product or property at the higher price?

[Firefighters, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it has been shown statistically that Canadian firemen, who put their lives on the line to protect our property from fires, and because of various chemicals and things, their lifetimes are shortened.

These members of various fire departments in Canada would like to pay an additional premium in order to get a full pension when they retire because of their shortened expected lifespan. Would the Minister of Finance consider this and actually bring in an amendment so that this could happen?

[The Economy, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am talking about the rate of growth. The minister is talking about productivity. Our rate of growth is now fantastically short of the rate of growth of the Americans. Statistics Canada gave us that information just this week.

The American growth rate is almost four times what ours is. That means that in the economic race it is moving ahead on eight cylinders and we are sputtering along on two. Our economy lacks acceleration.

What will the minister do to keep us from falling way behind the Americans—

[The Economy, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the government's fiscal policies are not working for Canadians. In 1997 our productivity growth was at 2.3%. Now it is barely half of that. This means that our standard of living is falling, along with our dollar.

What steps will the finance minister take to reverse these worrisome trends?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for bailing me out because I do wish to address some of my concerns. I have spoken in support of the idea of funding research and development, especially with respect to medical research that improves our standard of living. That is something we have to do.

We also have to recognize the fact that Canadians right now are in dire straits when it comes to research and development. The bill does not address that and the government should start addressing it big time.

Pouring money into research and development is one thing, but one also has to develop the whole culture of research and development. That happens in an academic environment by being surrounded with people of like mind and of equal great ability. It occurs when we have places of research which are outstanding in their ability and which attract the best in the world.

One of our huge problems is that researchers get paid in Canadian dollars. The bill would increase the initial funding of $550 million by $750 million, which is more than doubling it. All that does is compensate for the fact that our researchers and scientists are paid in Canadian dollars. It means the increase is necessary to compete with our American neighbours, for example.

Currency is a very important aspect of the bill, but the expenditure is nothing but a cover-up by the government. It covers up the government policies which have brought us such an extremely low Canadian dollar. It puts us at a disadvantage when competing for the brains and bodies of the brightest in the world.

I would also like to make a point about the bookkeeping process. Over the seven or more years that I have been here now, I have seen too often how the government uses the opportunity to put into budgets things that would use up the current surplus without properly accounting for them. No other businessperson in Canada could do that. I could not as an owner of a trucking company say that in the next five years I need 10 new trucks, buy two trucks per year for the next five years and bill them all in this year's budget because I have a surplus and thus reduce my income tax.

Accounting principles and the income tax law do not permit it, yet the government does it over and over again. This one time expenditure extended over the next five years will be totally billed to this year's budget. That is a sleight of accounting hand and the finance minister should be chastized. The government has done that too often.

The government did the same thing with the millennium scholarships. In 1998 the government introduced a $3 billion millennium scholarship fund which it was to use to help win the next election. It seems to have worked. It was billed in 1998, spread out over the next three years and very little of it paid out until the election year. Most of it was spent during the election year or leading up to the election. I take personal umbrage at that. It is offensive and it ought not to happen.

In summary, we support the objectives of the Canada foundation for innovation. We believe the money expended should be properly accounted for, not just booking it in the fiscal year just ending. We believe the government is wasting time in parliament bringing in amendments that should have been done properly if it would have done the legislative work correctly, because some of the other amendments addressed that.

I have some happiness with the fact that the minister has pulled back from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board but I deeply wish the Canada pension board would be subject to an audit by the Auditor General of Canada.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I was not aware that I was splitting my time. I thought I was the first recognized speaker. May I have consent to continue my speech for another 10 minutes as I have only finished half of the introduction?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that you compensate for my inabilities. I am surrounded by people who do that for me and I really am appreciative.

I would like to say at the outset that Bill C-17, the act we are now debating, is an act to amend the Budget Implementation Act, 1997. This is an act that has been around for almost four years, and we are now going to amend it. It deals with the implementation of the 1997 budget.

Over the last number of years we have had a number of these bills. About a year or so ago we debated an implementation bill that extended back 10 years. It just so happens that the finances of the government are done with the announcement of them in a budget by the finance minister and that makes them law. Then afterward we do it. We tax the people and take the money from them. If the budget includes the giving of grants the money is given, and so on. Eventually we get around to passing what we have actually done.

It seems to me that perhaps some of these things should be done in a more expeditious manner. We would not have the problem of people not really knowing where they stand on different issues.

I would like to talk a bit about Bill C-17 and about the whole idea of budgets and finances of the government in general.

First, one of the features of the bill is it increases funding for research and development. I do not think there are very many Canadians who would not acknowledge the importance of research and development. As a matter of fact over the centuries our standard of living has increased based on the things that people have invented and discovered. Sometimes these discoveries are by accident and sometimes they are very methodically carried forward with years of developmental research. Finally, they zero in on exactly what needs to be done to achieve a certain goal, for example, in the health area.

Many decades ago I remember reading about Madame Curie who invented the x-ray. An interesting thing happened. She put a uranium source in the same drawer as some film and lo and behold the film was clouded. Therefore, she was able to deduce from that that the radiation from the source caused an effect on the film which is of course a chemical reaction.

That was the beginning of being able to analyze what was going on in a person's body, whether healthy or ill. Usually of course this is done for reasons of illness or for injury. We are able to examine what is happening without having to perform surgery. Many times, especially over the last 40 or 50 years, it has still been necessary to perform surgery to see what was going on.

I remember a very pivotal event in my life when I broke my ankle on July 1, 1968. I was out with a bunch of boys at a children's camp. I was acting as a counsellor for a couple of days. I took these boys out for a hike and we jumped a fence. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, if you even want to contemplate that. It conjures strange images I am sure when thinking of me jumping a fence, but I did. Unfortunately, when I landed I was in a twisting motion and my ankle broke. I had to hobble back to camp. It was quite a task for a guy my weight to get back since I have always been heavy. It was probably close to a kilometre from where we were to get back to camp. I had to go all that distance on one leg with a makeshift crutch because these little boys could in no way carry me. I am sure everyone understands that.

When I got to the hospital, my leg did not have to be cut off. Although one of the guys at the youth camp had suggested it as soon as I hobbled into camp. He said to some of the others “Hey guys, get the axe. We have to amputate”. We had a little laugh about that.

The first thing they did at the hospital was to x-ray my leg. They determined the ankle was broken and proceeded to put it into what turned out to be an extremely painful cast. I suffered for six weeks in a cast. It was almost two years before my ankle was back to normal. At the best of times my ankles have to work pretty hard in order to carry the burden that is assigned to them. As a result of research they were able to determine how bad my ankle was damaged without having to cut the skin open and get in there and probe.

However, in my own short lifetime I remember a number of occasions where people have had an illness or an injury.

In order to diagnose it they had to do what was in those years called exploratory surgery. It is still done occasionally but much less now. What started out as medical research leading to x-rays many years ago has since developed into other diagnostic tools, including audio diagnosis, CAT scans and magnetic resonance imaging or MRIs. All these different techniques for getting a picture of what is inside a person are very useful. These techniques are a result of very careful research, development and testing.

The question is where the money for the research should come from. I was an academic earlier in my life. I went to university and those were probably the best years of my life. I had more time then, and I say that with all due respect to the pages who are very busy now as students. I had more time then to read books just for the fun of reading them than I have now with the business of life that happens when one accepts adult and family responsibilities and all other things that go with them.

In my career as a student and later on as an educator in a technical institute I always felt that there was a proper role for the use of public funds to fund research and development. One example would be the academic research environment in a university working in conjunction with perhaps the Medical Research Council of Canada. In Alberta we have a very strong Alberta Research Council in Edmonton and Calgary. I am specifically familiar with the one in Edmonton but there is also one in Devon. Each one does different kinds of research and some of it is the medical research I have already talked about.

A lot of research goes into the processing and refining of oil products in Alberta. The council looks at more efficient ways of using energy so that our non-renewable resources are treated carefully and we do not run out of them.

These research projects are very worthwhile. Although there is a proper role for the funding of many of these projects by private enterprise, and that happens big time, there is a role for the use of public funds through the universities, through the research councils and through all the different granting institutions we have developed in the last number of years.

One thing that has happened in Bill C-17 is that there will be an addition to the Canada foundation for innovation. Whereas before it had $500 million in its budget based on the mini budget of the Minister of Finance last fall, the bill would now add another $750 million, making the total $1.25 billion for research. That part of the bill is very worthwhile.

I am rather surprised that you are giving me a signal for time, Mr. Speaker. It was my impression that I had a 20 minute time slot and I am prepared to speak for 20 minutes.

[Canada Elections Act, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was at a distinct disadvantage since, as you know, I am totally unilingual so I speak only English. There was no translation available and I do not know what the government member said. If you will inform me of what he said, and depending on that, then I would possibly have a response.

[Canada Elections Act, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I was not going to rise on this occasion, but after the speech from my colleague from the NDP I cannot help but respond to some of the things he has said. Imagine putting at our feet the responsibility for preventing reform of the Senate when we have been the champions of it. I cannot believe he would even try to do that.

I would like to set the record very straight. So often when we talk about the unelected Senate, the Prime Minister in particular loves to do what the member for Winnipeg—Transcona just did, which is to say that we had the choice and we were against the Charlottetown accord.

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out to you, to other members in the House and to all Canadians who have ever heard our story that we were against the Charlottetown accord for 100 reasons. Unfortunately, the few tepid movements in that accord toward reforming the Senate were not sufficient for us to say that we would eat all the gravel, the dirt and the stinkweed in that meal and call it a pie. No, we were not ready to do that.

Indeed, the accord did say that there was some measure of voting for the Senate. If we look at it more carefully, it did not give the right to the people to elect the Senate. That was an option, but as I recall, the Charlottetown accord said senators could also have been put forward by lists from the legislatures of the provinces. What we have there is just another way of getting an unelected Senate.

We proposed, and we stand by it, that in our modern society in Canada, where we call ourselves a democracy, there should be nothing less than a Senate that consists of members elected by the people they represent, just like we are sent here by electors in our ridings. That is how senators should be elected. When the Prime Minister and members of the NDP tell us they are against an elected Senate because our party did not accept the Charlottetown accord, that is a misstatement of our representations in that area.

Another thing I have to say on this issue of the Senate is that we believe the House of Commons is properly constituted when it represents the population in the country. Right now we have the situation, and we have had it for many years, where, because 60% of the population of the country is in Quebec and Ontario, 60% of the members of the House are from Quebec and Ontario. We accept that. That is representation by population.

However, the Senate has 24 members from Ontario and 24 members from Quebec. What does British Columbia have, which is the third most populous province in the country? It has six senators. Did the Charlottetown accord correct that? No, it did not. Not only do we have the overbearing weight of legislative authority by two provinces telling the others what will be done in the country, but we have it duplicated in the Senate.

It is absolutely positively true that what we need is a Senate that is proportional to the provinces, not the populations of them. It is done in the United States and in a number of other countries. Maryland has two senators and California has two senators, which is not in proportion to their populations but because the role of the U.S. senate is to balance the interests of regions and states against the predominant majority, and in our case it would be the House of Commons and a predominant majority from the two most populous provinces.

With respect to the amendment putting the Senate in control, in any way, of affecting our legislative outcomes in elections, it is almost an oxymoron. These members are not elected but are going to become involved in our elections. How absurd. I simply say, loud and clear, let them be elected. Let them represent the people who they are supposed to represent.

The province of Alberta, from which I come, has 23 out of 26 members of parliament who are Canadian Alliance members. That is a simple fact. Alberta people believe most strongly in the policies, the principles and the integrity of our party so they voted for us.

When we had senatorial elections, whom did they select in our province? With more votes than any member of the House of Commons got, they selected two members who happened to be associated with the Canadian Alliance. Those are our senators in waiting. Are they getting respect? No. Who does the Prime Minister appoint when there is a vacancy in Alberta?

I have no disrespect at all, because I know that it is against the standing orders, but I say this genuinely. I have the highest respect for people who are in the Senate from our province. I happen to know Tommy Banks a bit. I have admired some of his works for many years. Now he is a senator which is great. Had he run for election and the people said that he was their selection, then fine. However, we had an election for the Senate and he did not even run.

I have heard it said in the United States that to be a senator one has to win an election. In Canada to be a senator, one has to lose an election. People who run for the currently governing party, if they lose in their riding, end up getting appointed to the Senate instead. That is absurd. It does not sit with modern day democracy.

We are talking about a Senate which balances the powers of this place by one in which senators are equally represented across the country, in terms of the same number of senators per province. We are talking about an elected Senate, elected by the people. We are talking about an effective Senate which basically would continue with the powers that the Senate has now.

I strongly urge members, especially the Prime Minister, to watch his tongue when he says that we rejected an elected Senate because we did not support the Charlottetown accord. One just cannot give a guy a little bit of a dirty stick with some icing on it and say “Here, eat the whole thing”. We would have taken the icing all right but it was covered with so much other totally objectionable material that we had no choice. The Canadian people proved that we were the ones who were right. When an analysis was done across the country, the Canadian people were the ones who rejected the Charlottetown accord. It was not us. All we did was get into the debate.

Just talking about the Charlottetown accord debate, I remember I was a recently elected nominee for our party at that time. I was elected in June 1992 to represent our party in the next federal election which we thought would possibly be that fall. Of course we know that the Conservatives postponed it because all indications were that they were going to lose, and how they lost.

Here I was a neophyte, a math and computer teacher, and I was asked to go to a forum in one of the towns in my riding to debate the Charlottetown accord. I was on the stage with no less than the woman who until recently was the leader of the Liberal Party in Alberta. At that time her name was Nancy Betkowski. She was an Alberta cabinet minister in the Conservative government of the day. Next to her was Brian O'Kurley, the previous member of parliament for Elk Island. He was of course a Conservative member. There was a Conservative member of parliament, a Conservative member of the cabinet from the province and me.

In my introductory speech, which was one of my first public speeches, I remember clearly saying I never thought that I would see the day when I would be standing on the platform with two other people and they would be considered the heavyweights.

As it turns out we had the right ideas. We had the right analysis on the Charlottetown accord, and we stand by it. As they say on that good game show “that's my final answer”.