Ken Epp

[Speech From The Throne, January 31st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I only have one question. While I was listening to the member's speech I was thinking that what drove me out of his party and into the then Reform Party, now the Canadian Alliance, was the lack of accountability by parliament for the finances of the country.

There is no doubt about the fact that if the government that we have now, and the government of which the member was a member previous to that for nine years, would have exercised restraint, we would not have even today a gross debt of over $600 billion. He has put his finger on it. It took him some 10 years longer to find out than those of us who are in this section of the opposition.

I honour and respect now what he has just said. What I would like to know is how do we know for sure that on his road to Damascus his conversion is real.

[Speech From The Throne, January 31st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, does this mean that it will be extended only to the extent of giving him the allotted time of 20 minutes?

[Speech From The Throne, January 31st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions to ask of the leader of the Bloc.

One has to do with the funding of health care. He indicated that the federal government should fund health care and allow the provinces to implement the health care system in their provinces as they so choose. In his amendment he has proposed that Quebec should become independent of Canada, which means that the federal funding would then obviously cease. Does the member see a contradiction in that statement?

The other question concerns culture. I acknowledge very freely that some 25% of Canadians speak French and are of French origin, while 75% are not. Many other cultures in Canada are represented. I happen to be one of those who is neither English nor French. I think that I have the right to practise my culture with my family and my relatives, as do all of the Ukrainians in my riding. That is by far the most populous group.

Should the federal government be involved in supporting the culture only of the French language in Quebec and in the rest of the country, or should it get out of that and allow Quebec to promote its own culture, or should we fund all different cultural groups equally?

[Canadian Forces Day, October 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is appropriate on what is undoubtedly the very last day of the 36th parliament that we should conclude our debates with such an important topic. I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague from across the way for having introduced this motion.

Just before private members' business began we were talking about water and how in this country we have an abundant, safe supply of it. We take it so for granted. We often take for granted the relative peace and safety of our land.

We are greatly blessed by the fact that we do not have to have active, armed troops in full combat gear going up and down our roads and highways, protecting our borders and generally using force to keep the peace. We have become accustomed in Canada to our freedoms, our freedom to move about and our safety, without fear and without worrying about being attacked by either internal or external agents. We are probably remiss. We do not think about this enough, nor do we express our gratitude enough to not only God, under whose charter this country was founded, but also for the people who serve us in the various peacekeeping capacities. Certainly I am thinking of not only our armed forces, but also our very notable police forces, the RCMP and the many other provincial and local forces that we have throughout our land.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if we did not have the restraint of our peace officers and our armed forces in order to protect the peace, because we realize when we look at other parts of the world that it could indeed be very fragile.

The member is proposing that we have one day a year in which we, in a specific way, acknowledge and give honour to our armed forces personnel. This is of course something which we already do to some degree annually on November 11 when we have Remembrance Day.

It has been my privilege over the last seven years as a member of parliament to participate in that very special day which we have on November 11 every year. I have had the occasion on that day to visit one of the local legion branches in my riding each year. There are five of them altogether. I have rotated around from one to the other. Last year I went to the community of Chipman where they do not even have a legion branch per se, but where they have a very fitting and a very respectful ceremony on November 11 to honour the armed forces.

On every occasion when I have picked up that wreath and approached the place where we place it, I have been touched by the emotion of realizing that the wreath represents a sacrifice which other people were willing to make in order to protect our safety, our society and our country, to protect and defend those things that we so strongly believe in.

I have had only a very small and indirect involvement with violence in the form of war, that is, in the sense that our son has served overseas. In fact, both of our sons did, but one for a greater length of time. He served, not with the armed forces but with the peace forces: World Vision, with which I am sure many of the members here are familiar; Samaritan's Purse; and Compassion Canada, agencies that are there to help people. He did go into areas where the land was wartorn. He came back from Bosnia and told us that the countryside was a lot like ours but that when he went closer to the houses, which also looked like ours, those houses were full of bullet holes.

There is no doubt that we owe a tremendously huge debt of gratitude for those in the armed forces who sacrifice their own safety and put their own safety at risk in order to defend the rights of others and keep the peace.

I happen to be a member of parliament who has the privilege of having a large armed forces base in my riding. The Edmonton base is actually in my riding since my riding sort of boundaries right up to the city of Edmonton. I have a number of people there who are working in the armed forces. It has been my privilege on a number of occasions to visit that base and talk to the different personnel.

Frankly, among other things, we ought to be showing these people the respect which they should have by making sure that their needs, financial and otherwise, are adequately met. It is one of the areas that I think we should address. Many of them are not paid enough in straight money to provide for themselves and their families. Besides having a day in which we honour them in addition to November 11, we should also be looking at providing them with adequate means of livelihood.

I concur with the member's desire to amend the motion that instead of having it fixed at the 15th day of June, we would have it the first Sunday in June. It is a good amendment and I would support it if it were put forward again.

It is important to have a day where everyone can participate. In our Canadian culture Sunday is a day when, despite the fact that we are becoming more and more commercialized on that day, many people do work less. Government employees, for example, enjoy Saturdays and Sundays off. Sunday is one of those days when we have a little more personal freedom to be together with families and do things.

Since many thousands of Canadians attend worship service or a synagogue on Saturday or Sunday, these ceremonies could also be included there. As people of faith, we also believe in being thankful, and to weave gratitude to our armed forces personnel into a religious service would be something very appropriate.

In principle I agree with this motion. November 11 is a fairly adequate acknowledgement of the work that our armed forces do, but that particular day is rooted more in history. We use the phrase “lest we forget” and think specifically of those who gave their lives and of those who suffered bodily injury in the great wars of the past. This would be a day to honour and give credit and tributes to those who presently serve in our armed forces.

In as much as we are indebted to them, we should seriously consider having such a day and making it part of our national culture and part of what we do once a year to emphasize the wonderful blessings that we have as a result of the things our armed forces personnel do for us and on behalf of us.

[International Boundary Waters Treaty Act, October 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak for a few minutes to this very important topic. We all know the importance of water. I suppose some of the occurrences in the province of Ontario in the last couple of months have really underlined that for us.

I remember that when my son was in Africa he reported to us that one of the greatest problems and challenges in the continent of Africa is to provide a plentiful and a safe water supply to the people on that continent. There is nothing that is more important than an adequate supply of water that is safe, free from contamination and free from anything that would harm us.

We are also aware of the fact that water is a renewable resource. I often marvel at the different engineering cycles that have been designed into our planet. One of the most amazing ones when we stop to think about it is the design of the water cycle, which goes up into the clouds. We fly through it with some bumps when we are on an airplane. The water precipitates, comes down and is so necessary.

I remember when I was a farm kid in Saskatchewan that if we did not get rain we did not get food because the very plants required that water. That was all part of the big cycle. That water of course would then eventually evaporate. Some of it found its way into creeks and rivers, some of it into the South Saskatchewan River near where I live, and some of it found its way over to the Hudson Bay and into the ocean. Once again, the sun evaporated it and it came back in clouds. It is a large cycle. We need to recognize the fact that a lot of this is really quite beyond the control of people and, specifically, it is beyond the control of governments.

Therefore, it is very important for us to make sure that the water supply and the basins that we have in Canada are protected from exploitation and from harm. We need to make sure that our water supplies are kept intact and not subject to being drained so that our own people suddenly no longer have an adequate water supply.

In principle, I agree with this particular bill before us today. It is regrettable that when NAFTA was being negotiated there was not a specific reference made to the total exclusion of water from any trade considerations. The wording in the NAFTA agreement unfortunately is ambiguous. It says that NAFTA creates no rights to the natural water resources of any party to the agreement.

As Canadians, we sit here with our water supply and wonder if this means that neither the United States nor Mexico, nor any other country, has any rights to our natural water resources. Or does it mean that we as Canadians, since we are also a party to this agreement, do not have the rights to our own natural water resources? It is regrettable that the people who signed NAFTA did not pick up on that and correct it before it got into its final form. Hence, we now have this dilemma.

I really believe that when it comes to the sale of water we could make pretty good use of that resource. As I said before, if it is taken elsewhere in the world, through the design of our universe, it will come back to us. We could sell the same water over and over again and it could be a very good thing for us economically. However, as soon as we begin to do this it becomes a tradable commodity and subject to NAFTA which means we would, at that stage, lose control of it.

As an interim measure, I think we should pass the bill so that commercialization, sale of bulk water, is not even contemplated. To do so under NAFTA would get us into a real bind.

I will concede now and give the floor to the member for Mercier.

[Starred Questions, October 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent of the House to revert to motions for the purpose of moving concurrence in the 36th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. I believe that all parties are in agreement and that we can proceed.

[Standing Committee On Public Accounts, October 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will put it this way then. Clearly the work of the committees is a very important role of members of parliament, and members of parliament on this side of the House were prevented yesterday, when they were prepared to do so, from dealing with this issue.

In view of the fact that exactly the same thing happened in 1997, a week before the election, the probabilities, to me as an amateur mathematician, just seem outrageous. I would like to know from the government why it would deliberately boycott a committee meeting like this.

[Standing Committee On Public Accounts, October 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, occasionally rooms for committees get changed. When that happens members of parliament make a quick phone call to the clerk's office to find out where the committee is. In this particular instance, we have not one, not two, but eight Liberal members all of whom, coincidentally, failed to phone the clerk's office to find out where this meeting was being held.

How can the government ask Canadians to believe its explanation that it could not find the room?

[Economic Policy, October 19th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I wonder if I could find unanimous consent of the House to just ask the member one more quick 30 second question.

[Economic Policy, October 19th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I reject what the member is saying about our policy. We believe that it is the role of the federal government to work very closely with the provinces and come to an agreement with them with respect to the funding of health care across the country. Certainly there has to be accountability.

I find it rather amazing that a member from the government side, after the gross mismanagement in HRDC and in native affairs, that the auditor general just decried—it is not us saying it—that he would somehow imply that the Liberals are the masters of accountability and there would be none under our programs. It is really just the opposite. I need to rebut that.

I would also like to ask the member about tax credits. During his speech he indicated that the view in our graph is somehow distorted. He actually held it up even though props do not usually appear in the House. I often wish we could. As a math teacher I would love to show those graphs to help communicate. He actually did it and got away with it. He showed that dip in health care spending by the federal government which was indeed cash transfers. I understand tax points. At the same time we never noticed that our federal tax load actually went down. In other words, the tax room was vacated but we were still being taxed.

There is that aspect to it. The other part that rather confused me is that he said “We are not acknowledging that they transferred tax points and that this is good”. Then he also said almost in the same sentence, and I may not be able to quote it exactly, something along the line that when transferring tax points, the federal government's ability to have a say in it is removed.

I disagree with that. I think that tax points is a valid way of arranging with the provinces for financing. I would like to ask him if we propose tax points it is bad, if it is done by them and we are not acknowledging it, it is good. I think he is inconsistent and I would like him to clarify.