Ken Epp

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in direct response to the statement just made by the hon. member, over the years, Albertans, proud Canadians that we are, have happily contributed billions of dollars into the federal coffers without complaint, and we will continue to do so. We believe in equalization. It is part of the Constitution of this country so that provinces throughout the country can provide an equitable level of services at an equitable level of taxation. We believe in that, which is why this government is working to strengthen that equalization program.

I am getting sick and tired of people saying that we broke our commitment on the Atlantic accord because it is not true. I urge members to look at annex 4 of the budget speech, which I will read into the record. It states:

At the time the 2005 Offshore Accords were signed, total Equalization payments were based on the fixed envelope approach....

I will skip ahead because time is short. It further states:

Budget 2007 puts in place transitional provisions under which Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia will continue to receive payments under that Equalization program. Both provinces will be able to permanently opt into the new Equalization program at any time.

In other words, the commitment is kept, was kept and will be kept. It says so explicitly. Those guys have been building a straw horse and now they are trying to bring it down.

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened when the Liberal member who asked the previous question accused this side of repeatedly saying something even though it is not true, so that eventually it becomes believable.

I submit that this is exactly what has happened, but on the other side. Let us look at the facts. Right now that hon. member is grinning. I would urge him to get out the budget document, to look at annex 4 and to read the document, where it states explicitly that these accords are being honoured and that it is the choice of the provinces if they want to move to the other plan. It is up to them. If they want to stay with the old one, they may. The document says this.

Yet repeatedly those members in the House, our political adversaries, and some of the premiers have not taken that into account. Consequently there is misinformation out there that is just very, very unfair. I would like to ask the member whether he would finally agree to read the document and to truthfully report what is in it instead of making false accusations against our party and our leader.

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thought of an analogy while I was sitting here listening to his speech. Let us say that when I was a younger man one of my kids who was in school at the time got this promise from me, his dad, “Son, if you get over 80% in that next physics exam, I'll give you $10”. Let us say that the son fulfilled that and when he came home, I gave him $20. Would he now be justified in saying, “Dad didn't keep his promise”? I do not think so.

A careful examination of the numbers shows that under the new plan from this government, the Atlantic provinces and Saskatchewan would get more than they did under the old one. How can they claim that this is a broken promise? It is just not an accurate statement.

[Employment Insurance Act, June 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this is an extemporaneous speech. I was not really going to speak, but I wanted to just mention that the hon. member bringing forward this bill has missed a golden opportunity.

I have been here for almost 14 years. I have never been chosen for a private member's bill, yet he was chosen, and what did he do when he introduced his bill? He had 15 minutes to explain to me and to others in this House why this bill should be supported. Instead, he chose to take a few cheap shots at the Conservative Party and then he sat down.

There was no opportunity to ask questions because we ran out of time. I would have liked to have asked him some questions. But he missed an opportunity which he had handed to him, which I would have loved to have had for my private member's bill.

Second, and I am not sure about this because my memory is no longer perfect but I do recall that a similar bill like this was brought in here previously when the Liberals were in power. It seems to me that the Liberals all voted against it. For them to now come here and say that the Conservative government is refusing to give the royal recommendation to this and thereby not allowing it to go forward, they did the same thing when they were here.

There must be some valid reasons. I have not had an opportunity to study those reasons indepth, but there must be some reasons and I believe that our parliamentary secretary put it right on the line, and that is, when we make changes like this to our social programs, they must be done rationally. They must be done with full accountability and they must be done in such a way that they are sustainable.

Those are the questions which need to be asked instead of ranting and raving here, and calling us all those names which they love to use. They hope that by repeating them often enough there will be people who will think that we do not care about these people. We do. We care deeply about them. We are bound and intent to establish programs which are, as I said before, sustainable, cost effective, and truly open and accountable.

I really wish that the member would have taken the time to deal with his bill and to present it in a way that would have persuaded me to support it. I just wanted to get that off my heart.

[The Economy, June 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada warned that Canada's standard of living is at risk because of lagging productivity. What was one of the reasons it cited for this drop in productivity? The Liberal sponsorship scandal and a lack of accountability in government.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board share what this government has done to bring accountability and transparency back to Ottawa?

[Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act, May 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am gaining a bit of a reputation for doing this on various occasions, but I am sure that if you would seek it you would find an eager unanimous consent to see the clock as 6:30 p.m.

[Canada Elections Act, May 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank, immensely, the interpreters who are working in those little booths back there without whom I would not be able to communicate with those people. I am unfortunately a unilingual English speaking Canadian and they appear to be unilingual French speaking, since they usually do not speak the other languages.

I want to correct the Bloc members. Several of the members have indicated that they are the greatest thing going, that all the Bloc supporters come out in droves and vote for them and so on. I, being a little inclined mathematically, went to the website of Elections Canada and looked at the numbers. I will not bore the House with the details, but these are the percentages.

In the province of Quebec the Liberals got 21% of the vote, the Conservatives got 25% of the vote and the Bloc got 42% of the vote. It looks to me as if their premise is right. Their supporters do show up and vote for them, and for that they are to be commended.

However, I want to have them compare that with my wonderful province of Alberta. I will go in increasing numbers. The Bloc got 0% of the vote, the Liberals got 15.3% of the vote and the Conservatives in my province got 65% of the vote.

Therefore, enough of that saying it is members of Parliament who serve their constituents who get their voters out. Clearly, in Alberta we do as Conservative members.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, May 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as the seconder of this bill, I am very interested in it. We have had the same kind of experience in my riding as the member has talked about. I have attended a number of sessions where some of the leaders in our community have tried to address this problem and come up with some solutions.

I would like the hon. member for Peace River, who is bringing forward this bill, to please enlarge on what he was saying. Perhaps this would give the member an opportunity to add another minute or so to his speech before he was cut off.

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the speech from our hon. colleague over in the NDP wing of the House. I certainly sympathize with the view that she is presenting.

Whenever we see children that are suffering through no fault of their own, but because of the circumstances that they are in, it makes us think that we have to do something.

I know in our family our son and his new wife went to Rwanda to help look after the orphans after that very difficult situation. So many of these children lost their parents, either because they disappeared or they were killed. Our kids went there with our blessing and support because these are children that needed to have that help. I appreciate what the member has said.

What I would like to ask the member is, does she have any idea about the real root causes for this negligence? It is easy to say that it is the government's fault that it has not been looked after properly. Perhaps that is part of it. I sometimes think that perhaps there is a deeper societal element that we need to look at, and see if we can identify the root of the problem and look at corrective measures from that regard.

[Criminal Code, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if those are all the wonderful things that the Liberals would do if they formed government again, then my question is somewhat rhetorical. How come they did none of those things in the 13 years when they were government, most of the time a majority government where they could have done whatever they wanted? They did not do it.

I have one daughter, a daughter-in-law and five grandchildren. I am thinking of the following situation. Someone assaults or rapes either one of my adult female children or one of my grandchildren and that criminal has a gun and/or a knife. Let us say that when the perpetrator was found, it was discovered that this was not his first, not his second, but his third offence. I do not know the family situation of the member opposite. I have never investigated whether she has a daughter or not. If this were her daughter who was brutally attacked by an individual with a weapon who had three previous offences, I wonder what she would do in order to address the situation.