Ken Epp

[Petitions, May 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we add yet 27 more names to over 500,000 on the issue of child pornography.

These people are mostly from my riding. They are concerned that the government seems to be paralyzed into inaction in its failure to take action on the issue of child pornography. The petitioners urge the government to do something.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, April 13th, 2000]

Was it the Minister of Finance?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am privileged today to stand in the House of Commons and speak, not only on behalf of the taxpayers of Elk Island, but also, I believe, on behalf of the taxpayers of the whole country on the implementation of the latest budget.

It is interesting that we have not yet fully implemented the previous budget. We still have some bills to pass. Today we are talking about the current budget.

When I think of the implications of the budget, I immediately think about families. Some time ago I read that one of the most important factors leading to marriage breakups and family stress are financial factors.

I read somewhere that husbands and wives argue more about money than about anything else. There is no doubt in my mind that our tax regime and the government intrusion into our economy and governments, of which the federal is only one of the three levels of government in this country, but the combined levels of government confiscate from the average taxpayer approximately half of the earnings of that taxpayer. Psychologically, that is very discouraging.

It means that as we earn money in order to provide for our families that we actually get to use only half of it. The rest of it is taken from us. Consequently, it makes it very difficult for people to make ends meet and, as I have just said, this is what adds to stresses in families because there is an argument as to where the limited resources of the family should go.

I would like to preface my statements today on the budget simply by emphasizing again that this is an anti-family government. The Liberals do not do what is good for families. They do not do what is good for children. They tax families to death and then somehow they try to get out that they are doing all these wonderful things by giving families money.

The government has no money. The money that it has is what is confiscated from taxpayers and all it does is redistribute it. It takes it from the pocket of one taxpayer and puts it into someone else's pocket. The degree to which this government does it is excessive.

I would like to also say that there is no implication here that I do not believe in helping those who are less well off. I believe their taxes payable should be even less and that benefits for people who are in dire straits should be there. How they are delivered is a matter of great debate. I, frankly, think that a distant federal government in Ottawa trying to figure out how to distribute the taxpayer's money and to identify people who need it is just wrong.

We have noticed in the last couple of days that the government has transferred a lot of money through Bill C-23 to a group which statistics show are above average in income. The government's anti-family agenda continues. I think it is time that we replace this government and that we start having some policies and principles in Canada which are pro-family and which allow families to keep more of their earnings to pay for the things that they need.

The previous speaker from the Progressive Conservative Party spoke about the debt. This has been one of my chief complaints about the management of the government. The message from the PR department of the government is that everything is fine. The Prime Minister likes to have people think everything is okay, “don't worry, be happy”.

Yet the facts belie the situation. The government gets the people to feel better by giving messaging that puts it in a very good light. As a matter of fact the documents, the actual facts, the numbers in the book, show a completely different picture. They emphasize that the facts are not that rosy and what the government, the finance minister and the Prime Minister do is to simply try to persuade the people that things are really good.

I happen to have here a copy of the 2000 budget plan which is the basis of the bill today. The bill we are debating is the implementation of parts of this budget. I happen to have a copy of the budget here. It is a fairly big document. It has about 350 pages in it. I think it would be wonderful if Canadians would take the time to actually get on the Internet site and look at these budget documents and see what it is that they really say.

I am on page 52 of the budget plan 2000. With respect to the debt, it says “Net public debt”. We see in 1998-99 it was $576.8 billion. In 1999-2000, the year for which the books are not yet quite completed, although the fiscal year has ended it will take a while for all of the government accountants to check up, the number for the debt is exactly the same, $576.8 billion. We look at the current budget. What is the government's plan to reduce the debt? It's plan to reduce the debt is zero since it has budgeted for a net public debt at the end of the year of $576.8 billion. Then we have the projection for the next budget for planning purposes. This is not part of the bill we are discussing today, but it is what is expected to happen the year following this budget. What is the number? It is $576.8 billion. The plan this government has to reduce our indebtedness is zero.

When I first ran in the 1993 election, one of the things that I did shortly after the election was make a number of visits to schools. I still do a number of these, but for some reason or other the number of calls that I get to come into the schools has diminished a bit in the last couple of years, but at first I had many visits. I used to begin my little talks to those students by apologizing from my generation to the young people of that generation. I used to say to them “I am so sorry that people in my generation somehow did not exercise our political clout to turf the people out who were putting this generation into debt”.

We have young pages in this place. Earlier today we had a number of young people in the visitors' gallery. All of the young people across the country are asked to pay the bills that we in our generation have rung up. I take partial responsibility for that because I sat on my hands. Yes, I always voted. I voted for the PCs most of the time who were at that time the least of all of the bad options. We were hopeful in 1984 when we finally elected a Conservative government that it would do something about the debt which was increasing continuously under the Liberals. We had a great amount of hope that when the PCs took power in 1984, that would be the end of the spiralling growth of debt, the end of deficit spending. Did that happen? It surely did not. As we well know, we had record deficits under the PCs.

I heard my colleague from the PC Party speak a little while ago and he addressed the debt question. He said, “As a matter of fact that debt was simply the compound interest on what the Liberals left them”. Mathematically he is correct. Let us take the debt that the Conservatives inherited in 1984 and simply apply an interest of around 9%. I did the calculation one time. If we use an interest rate of around 9% or 10% it does bring us to the level of debt that the Conservatives had when they were brutally kicked out of office in 1993. That was because it took us about nine years to discover that the debt that the Liberals had built was not going to be eliminated by the Progressive Conservatives since in that same time they allowed it to continue to grow. Program spending was not greater than the amount of their revenues, but every year they borrowed. The numbers are obvious. The interest payments on the debt were around $35 billion, the deficits were around $35 billion. In the last year it was over $40 billion. It is simply true that they did not look at the debt. They pretended it did not exist. They did not address it.

Are we any better off under the Liberals? The answer is no. As a matter of fact, I happen to have the numbers here right at my fingertips because I looked them up in preparation for this speech today.

In 1993-94 the debt was $508.2 billion. Under the Liberals it grew approximately $37 billion in the next year, $32 billion in the next year, and $24 billion in the year after. My numbers are a little too high because those are the projected numbers. The debt grew to its present number which, as I have already indicated several times in my speech, is around $576 billion.

It is atrocious. While the Liberals communicate to Canadians that they are wonderful, that they have beaten the deficit dragon, the fact is that the deficits of some $40 billion a year have been overcome simply by the fact that the government is taking that much more in income tax revenue.

The Liberals say they did not increase taxes but they did. The tax revenues are up. It is right in the budget document. This is not political messaging; it is simply what we read in the document. If we look at the income tax revenue in previous years and compare it to income tax revenue now, it has steadily increased to the point where now the government is taking about $40 billion a year more out of the economy than it did when it first took office.

Hence the deficit has been eliminated but not because of good financial management by the government, but because it has allowed bracket creep to continue over the last number of years. Therefore the income tax revenue has gone up and it caused the deficit to disappear because the taxpayers were putting in more money.

The amount of actual program spending the government has cut is minuscule. It is essentially zero once we cut out what it has downloaded to the provinces through its reduction in transfer payments.

It is not at all attributable to the Liberal government that we are in better shape now. We are in better shape because the debt is no longer increasing. It has not been because of the Liberal government; it has been in spite of the Liberal government.

Added to that is all the wasteful spending which has been brought to light by the auditor general. The auditor general is a non-partisan officer of the House. His task is simply to report to Canadians on the management of the money. Over and over and over the auditor general reports that there are big problems. He does not use the word boondoggle, we do. The simple definition of that word is where money is being spent in great amounts without proper accounting and without proper control.

I have a surprise for a lot of people who do not know this. Many people think that we are now in a surplus situation, that we have money to spend and therefore we are really looking pretty good. I found something that the finance minister never mentioned in his budget speech. No one on the Liberal side has brought this to the attention of the Canadian people, but here it is.

Once again I am looking at the actual budget document printed by the Minister of Finance and delivered to the House of Commons on February 28. It says on page 76, “For 1999-2000, a financial surplus of $8 billion is expected”. The finance minister said this lower surplus reflects the assumptions of a balanced budget and lower sources of funds from the pension accounts, et cetera. In 1999-2000, the year just ended, the government expects a financial surplus of $8 billion.

We have to remember that was in the fiscal year in which we passed a bill in the House which allowed the government to do a bookkeeping entry by taking $30 billion from the pension fund of the civil servants of our country. Our party believes that probably the government was entitled to part of that, because clearly there were overpayments and there is a surplus in the fund. Undoubtedly the Canadian taxpayers via the government are entitled to a part of it, but a part of it at least is due to the employees of the government. The Liberal government defeated any amendments we had to correct that and took $30 billion from them.

It is also as a result of the fact that there are huge surpluses in the EI fund. Have the Liberals corrected it according to the actuarial standards? No, they have not. They have made some little mediocre changes. The actuary said that the rate of premiums for EI should be around $2 per $100 of earnings, but the government continued to take $2.40 per $100 of earnings. The Liberals brag that they have cut it, but they are still enjoying huge surpluses in that form.

The next paragraph is the one which will shock members. It will probably shock most Liberal members because the finance minister has not brought this to our attention and he was mum about it in his speech. It says on page 76, “For 2000-01”, the year this budget covers, “a financial requirement of $5 billion is expected, the first requirement in three years”.

We are back to borrowing money in order to run the operation of the government. This is in the cash flow part. These are the budgetary balances and the government is projecting for this year's budget that there be a requirement of some $5 billion worth of borrowing and it is keeping it a secret from us.

I have exposed the secret. It is in the book in a little paragraph on page 76. I am sure that everybody was instructed carefully, “If you see it, do not mention it, because we do not want people to get the impression that we are not perfect managers of the taxpayers' money”.

The lid has been blown off that one. We have seen all of the wasteful spending, the spending not accounted for, all the grants and contributions, the political slush funds. We have seen all of that. The government is not responsible. Now we see it communicating that everything is hunky-dory when in fact with this budget it is bringing us once again into borrowing.

It is a shameful thing that the government simply cannot get its act together. We live in a country which is rich in resources. We have minerals. We have mines. We have oil. We have gas. We have diamonds. We have forestry products. We have a tremendously valuable agriculture resource, probably the best in the world. Our farmers are the most efficient in the world. We have a hardworking energetic population. Certainly living in our climate we are a very hardy population.

There is no excuse in the world for this country not to be the very best in the world. It should be debt free. If the governments over the last 30 years had been dealing properly with our money, we would not have debt. We would not have some $40 billion a year in interest payments which siphon off from Canadian taxpayers the money that should be spent for programs like health care and education. Those are programs Canadians are demanding but which they cannot have because governments, both past and present, the Liberal government and the Conservative government, all of them in the last 30 years, have done this to our young people, to our families, to our country. They should hang their heads in shame because they have failed utterly.

We ought to get some people running the government who act like business people, whose objectives and primary goals are to do what is right for the people, to manage the economic affairs of the country properly. They have to forget that the primary goal is simply to get re-elected, which is what too often clouds the financial decisions in this country.

In conclusion, I wish I had another 20 minutes to speak but unfortunately the speeches of 40 minutes are gone from this section.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, April 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, most of what this member said is ridiculous. He somehow seems to think that unless we promote socialism we are not doing the country a service.

The fact of the matter is that the more freedom we give to individuals and the more we promote free enterprise and competition, the better off we will all be. I would like to simply ask—

[International Circumpolar Community, April 11th, 2000]

I did not mean it to have any derogatory sense at all, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to take a few minutes to debate Motion No. M-237, which is interesting. What the amendment has done is put into French what we were understanding. Had the hon. member for Churchill proposed to change the boundaries of the provinces, there would have been quite a bit more discussion on this. He would have found himself in many interviews with the press and many other exciting events had he actually proposed that we move the boundaries of all of the provinces down in order to accommodate this motion.

I would like to speak to the motion as given:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should recognize the 55th parallel as the identified Canadian boundary for participation in the international circumpolar community.

As I understand it, he is not changing any borders. All he wants to do, when it comes to negotiations and participation with other countries involving the circumpolar region, is include all of those people who are north of the 55th parallel. I wish he would look at me and nod so that I understand the motion. He is nodding yes. Thank you.

I do not know how many people here are aware of an interesting fact about Canada. I happen to live just outside of Edmonton, Alberta. Edmonton is at 53 degrees. This suggestion means that we would be taking a line approximately 220 kilometres north of Edmonton, everything north of that would then be considered to be in the circumpolar region if this motion were to pass. Another way of putting it is that we are moving the boundary south approximately 560 kilometres from the present 60th parallel.

An interesting fact about Edmonton and about Canada is that Edmonton is farther from the equator than any land mass in the southern hemisphere is from the equator, other than the Antarctic. In other words, if you went to the very southernmost point of South America, Africa or Australia, you would still be nearer the equator than we are in Edmonton. We have a lot of people who live north of the 55th parallel. We are indeed a hardy population in Canada. We believe in sticking our faces into the wind and the snow and carrying on.

The motion has to do with the inclusion of people who are living between the 55th and the 60th parallel for the purposes of these international debates and discussions.

It goes without saying that living in the northern climate is a challenge. It is a harsh climate. It is one that demands a lot of respect for the people who for centuries have lived in that region, have survived there and have done very well. They are a hardy people. We ought to congratulate and admire them for that.

It also makes a great deal of sense that, when we deal with the question of how to survive in such a harsh climate, we work with other countries that have similar situations so that anything we discover or invent that will help us to live comfortably in that part of the world we would then share that with people of other countries who are also in this circumpolar region.

Second, this part of the country is very rich in resources. A lot of people are not aware of that. We tend to think that life begins in Toronto, stretches over to Montreal and ends in Ottawa. A lot of this country that is outside of that Bermuda Triangle that I have just mentioned.

North of the 55th and 60th parallels, there are many resources. We are talking about huge mineral and mining resources, such as oil, gas, and all the natural resources which exist up there. As well, it is a part of the world that is very rich in animal life and vegetation. There are many different forms of life.

This brings challenges to all of us who live in that kind of a climate. I cannot but encourage us to work together with other countries that are developing their resources in similar climates, to share our resources and, hence, improve the quality of life of more people than just our own.

I have some serious questions on this subject. I am always a great one for asking questions and then allowing other people to try to find the answers. I have some serious questions about our work with other countries in this particular regard.

It seems to me that Canada very quickly tends to help form or join any and every organization that comes up. We see our Prime Minister going overseas. Part of this country's foreign policy seems to be developed as information goes from the Prime Minister's brain to his mouth. It is not fully formulated when it leaves his brain but, by the time it gets to his mouth, we have some pronouncements. We have heard that in the last couple of days.

How effective is the Arctic Council? When we deal with other countries through it, are we getting a kick for our dollar? I wonder if there are better ways in which this can be accomplished. Can the finance minister tell us what studies have been done to show that this is a wise investment and that it is worthy for us to be participating in these organizations with other countries in this way?

What often happens is that these organizations tend to grow as soon as government resources are put into them. It is not only from Canada but other countries as well. It is not necessarily a corollary that a larger organization gives more benefits to the taxpayers in whatever country, including Canada. However, I think Canada is particularly vulnerable to joining and spending money without being really cognizant of tangible and measurable benefits.

I suppose we could maybe just put it under the auspices of HRDC and see what happens. It could not be much worse than what we already have. I am being facetious so I had better say that. I do not think Hansard records the sound of sarcasm. Now I have it on the record.

The other question I have concerns the relationship between the provinces and the federal government. We already have a lot of tension between the provinces and the federal government in the areas of health care and others. If this boundary were moved down then a portion of each province would once again have to work, I think, through the federal government in foreign policy in order to deal with foreign countries.

I do not think we will say to these organizations that are dealing north of the 55th that they have carte blanche, that they can do whatever they want. It invariably has to be in consonance with federal foreign policy, which is, of course, controlled by the federal government.

To have another organization in parallel to what we already have instead of working within that is questionable in my view and would need more answers.

At any rate, I congratulate the hon. member for Churchill River for again showing us genuine, legitimate concerns about the north and how the people of that part of the country are working together.

[International Circumpolar Community, April 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I think by my rising and speaking in the English language the interpreters who are interpreting from French to English must be heaving a huge sigh of relief after your work.

[Modernization Of Benefits And Obligations Act, April 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. I could think of hundreds of them.

I think of my own friendships before I was a married man. I used to joke that a single man does not know what true love is until he is married, and then it is too late. Of course that was in jest.

Both of our sons were well on in years before they were married. In fact one of them is not yet married. They have very close friends. They live together, they share costs and expenses. They have a relationship which I do not think should qualify under this bill. The problem I have is that when the government attempts to come up with a list of everybody who is entitled to this or that, or whatever, the list never ends. That is the flaw of this legislation.

[Modernization Of Benefits And Obligations Act, April 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have indeed thought about this question over the last six years since I became a member of parliament. I remember often discussing this topic. It seems to me that it comes up every time the Liberals are in some sort of public relations fiasco. They come up with another bill on same sex benefits and they keep talking about equality, widening the circle and so on.

In every case the Liberals have added to the list. That is not what spells equality. To me, the list is not complete until everyone is on it. I do not know why they insist on simply adding to the list. Why do they not come up with a policy that looks at needs?

There are many examples. One example is the case of the natives in this country. We try to accommodate the way in which they have been mistreated and mishandled for so many years by giving them special benefits based on their race.

Would we not be better off if we looked at the needs and provided for people based on need, as opposed to race, colour or other characteristics?

The list will not be complete until everyone is on it. I might also add, parenthetically, even fat people.

[Modernization Of Benefits And Obligations Act, April 11th, 2000]

Yes, it seems like longer. Anyway, I want to take a few seconds to thank my parents. When I think of the family in which I grew up, we had parents who loved each other, who loved us, and we knew it.

I have related in the House before the story of the day when I was guilty of a serious transgression, having gone with some of my older cousins to an abandoned house and broken all the windows. I cannot believe I did it but there I was, a little nine or ten year old.

My father, and I just love him for it, took the time to take me to the man who owned that house and to hold me accountable. I had to ask that man to forgive me for what I had done. Dad also required that for the next three or four years all the money I earned went to pay for the damage. He held me accountable and I thank him for that.

We saw the love that our parents demonstrated to each other and to us, the level of discipline that requires, and the level of very loving discipline they gave their children. It would have been almost impossible for my brother and I to have grown up to be criminals. It would have been impossible because we just saw the opposite so richly modelled.

I remember, again just thinking of my parents on their anniversary today, how often they reached out to help other people in need. We were always participants in it. I do not have the time today to talk about the details, but we had a tremendous example in our home.

For about the last 20 years my mother used to pray that she and my father would outlive my invalid sister. I have talked about her in the House too. When she passed away just a couple of weeks ago, it was a tremendously emotional time for our family. While we were saying goodbye to our sister whom we loved so dearly, we were also saying thanks to mom and dad for all those years of being faithful to the trust they had to make sure that she was looked after. It was my mother's heart that said “Lord, we want to outlive Marion so that we can make sure that she is looked after”. The Lord granted that request, and for that my family is very grateful.

When I say that in preamble to my comments today, I am saying that strong families are indeed the backbone of a good and healthy society. I do not in any way apologize for that. I not ashamed of the fact that the ideal is a mom and dad loving each other for life. They nurture and care for their children. They make sure that they are looked after physically and that they have a very strong upbringing. The children are taught to care for others, to love one another and to forgive one another when we err, as we all do. They have that strong foundation.

As some of my colleagues have mentioned, I would be much better pleased if the Government of Canada would just spend some real time making sure that government policy was supportive of that ideal instead of doing what it does.

As my colleague who just spoke indicated, often the decisions of the government are negative for families. We have families who are literally struggling financially. They cannot make ends meet. They both have to go to work to pay their taxes and to try to provide for their children. I cannot for the life of me figure out why the government cannot have as a tax policy a special break for families that are providing the absolute best, an ideal environment for the upbringing of their children.

I know that I and other members of my party have been subject to quite a bit of negative comment because of our stand. I would like to put that to rest.

There have been accusations of our hatred and many other terribly negative comments. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have to say that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in showing any lack of support for people. That is what life is all about. It is about family. It is about friends. It is about life, and it is about love. I reject outright their accusations.

In saying that, I would also like to add that some of the things the Liberal members opposite have said about us have been hurtful. We are tempted to yell back and say “You are just not right”. But because of the heavy emotional things which have gone on in my life in the last couple of months, and pardon me if my voice breaks a bit, I am really hurt by them. I do not care whether it hurts me, but that a member can look at another person and make an accusation so flippantly about presumed attitudes or the presumed motivations of other people, without knowing the facts, is not good for us. I really wish that Liberal and other members would not do that.

Undoubtedly, I have concerns with this bill. That does not mean I do not want to reach out a helping hand to those who have genuine need. It is just the opposite. In fact, if I have one major criticism of this bill, it is that it is passed off as bringing equality when in fact it will not. All it will do, in true Liberal style, is bring in another group to be included in the circle, to the exclusion of all others. I reject that.

I know of a number of people who have cared for and lived with each other for years and years. There is nothing in this bill for them. There is nothing here about equality.

I am thinking about two of my friends, two sisters who never married. They lived together with their mother for many years, until their mother died, and then they kept on living together in their house. I assure the House that there was never any conjugal relationship between them. Does the government recognize their need for sharing their benefits? No. No, it picks out one group and says that this is all about equality. It is not. It is about the group it has chosen, and that group right now happens to be people living together in homosexual relationships. That is what this bill is all about.

I also have heard over and over that this bill has nothing to do with marriage. That is interesting. I wondered if it did, so I opened it and I was absolutely amazed to find that one of the very first words in the bill was “marriage”. That was before the amendment.

The short title states:

This Act may be cited as the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act.

Clause 2 amends the Agricultural Marketing Programs Act. Subclause 2(1)(ii) states:

—marriage, in the sense that one is married to the other or to a person who is—

It goes on from there. The government says it is not about marriage. The very first word is “marriage”. In fact, it is about marriage. It is about a relationship. The government is referring to two people living together in a relationship which is similar to marriage. That is what it is doing, in effect.

I can assure the House that neither my parents' marriage nor my marriage will be threatened by this bill. Absolutely not. But in a way it does change the meaning of marriage when couples living in relationships which are not marriages are treated exactly the same. Then, indeed, the practising definition of marriage will change.

I regret that my time is up, because I could have gone on.

[Modernization Of Benefits And Obligations Act, April 11th, 2000]

It is 65 years of wedded bliss, according to my dad. I am just kidding.