Ken Epp

[Points Of Order, October 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would somehow appeal to not only you, but also to the member making the accusation, that perhaps he has jumped ahead in an interpretation of what was said. It seems to me that when he says that we are in chains, he in fact is very free. Could the meaning not have been that the members are not now also physically in chains as this member is not? That would be the charitable interpretation of this statement.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. What the member is saying about my statement is not factually correct. I want to debate this with the Canadian people so we can get consensus among the governed on something of great importance.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say that I am delighted to enter this debate, but I cannot because I am so concerned about what is happening to our country.

I want to tell the House why I became a member of the Reform Party. There were a number of reasons. One reason was the basic bedrock principle of all decent democracies in the world, the equality of all citizens. When I see what is happening here and the mishandling of this issue, not only by this government but by successive governments over the last 130 years, I am deeply concerned.

I am quoting directly from the Reform Party when I say that we believe in true equality for Canadian citizens, with equal rights and responsibilities for all. That is one of the things that attracted me to the Reform Party. When I first joined the Reform Party I realized that the Conservatives of the day and the Liberals before them had totally violated that basic principle in many different areas. I think it is absolutely shameful that the present government, the present leadership in our country, is totally unwilling to face this issue head on and do something right about it.

I need to take a few minutes to talk about process. People who have been watching on television have observed that in the last few minutes there have been several occasions when members of the Reform Party have tried to extend the debate for today. We have asked to continue the debate because we anticipate that the government, like the NDP government in B.C., wants to jam this bill through before too many people find out about it.

That is a violation, again, of a very basic principle of democracy. In a democracy the governed must accept the governance of the country. In other words, we have to have consensus among the people for the laws that are being passed.

There have been other occasions when a government has, within the rules of the House, which I say are dysfunctional, passed different laws and used the rules of the House, the ones that make it dysfunctional, to jam things through which it knows do not have the majority support of the people, and our democracy is crumbling. The best example I can think of is the GST. Former Prime Minister Mulroney not only jammed the thing through this House, he even evicted from his party several members who had the nerve to respect the wishes of their constituents and vote against it. He had the gall, in my opinion, to appoint extra senators to the other place whose only qualification for office was that they could stand on command and vote in favour of what has now become the most hated tax in the country.

The principle that we are missing is that the majority of Canadians who opposed that tax had it right.

I think it is arrogant in the extreme for a government to say “Here we are, a small group of people, and we know best”. We heard it from the NDP member from Kamloops earlier who said “I am not here to represent my constituents”. I am paraphrasing him of course. “I am here to make wise decisions on their behalf because they just don't understand”.

With respect to the Nisga'a agreement, we have found that particularly in the province of British Columbia where the people will be most profoundly affected by this agreement immediately, as well as across Canada where the effects will be felt later as they accumulates, the people do not support the agreement in large numbers. We are talking of a disagreement level which exceeds the number of people who were opposed to the GST. We are finding that support for this agreement is not there among the people.

Let us face it, there cannot be an agreement without two parties. There cannot be an agreement just because the leaders of the Nisga'a have agreed to it. Forty per cent of the Nisga'a people, when they voted on it, seriously questioned it. About 90% of the other side of the agreement, namely the other citizens of British Columbia, the non-natives, are saying “We do not agree with this treaty”.

Therefore it bears slowing down. It means that it is incumbent on the government not to shut down debate, as it did a few minutes ago when we asked if the debate could be extended tonight before it invokes closure and all of those silly things. Government members stood and said no. There were not enough Liberals in the House to stop it. They needed 15. That is shameful. We are dealing with an issue that has long term implications into the next millennium for the country.

There are not 15 Liberals in the House to stand to say they do not want the Reform Party or other members of parliament to debate this matter tonight. That is a shame. However, they have their allies. The Bloc members, the NDP and the Conservatives stood. They said “Let's not debate it. Let's just jam it down the minds of people. Lets forget about whether or not the people agree. It does not matter”.

I care profoundly about the country. I care profoundly about the equality of Canadians. For us to give approval by the actions of a whip telling his people how to vote and jamming the thing through, with all its implications, will have profound effects for many years to come. We will see our children and our grandchildren living with the consequences of this dastardly deed. This will go down in history as one of the dark points of the 36th parliament because of the fact that they will have put into the constitution rules that divide us based on race.

I would like to read another blue book policy which attracts me. The Reform Party's ultimate goal in aboriginal matters is that all aboriginal people be full and equal participants in Canadian citizenship, indistinguishable in law and treatment from other Canadians.

I believe that is a high goal based on a valid human principle. It is excessively superior to the lack of principles demonstrated in the Nisga'a agreement in which we have the country divided up based on bloodlines, based on race.

I also believe that we have been sitting on our butts far too long with respect to native affairs. I am saying this now collectively. I am blaming the governments of the last 130 years. There has been inaction and any action that has been taken has been wrong action.

The Indian Act is a bleak part of Canadian history. When the agreement says that we will move this group of native people out of the Indian Act, I have to say that I agree with that part of it, because the Indian Act has been used in order to keep native people in their place. That is very wrong.

I have only been in Canada for a scant 60 years. I was not here 132 years ago when some of this was done. I was not here 250 years ago when some of these fishing agreements were made. Yet I look back and say those who were here made an error.

As any person will say, it is the height of folly not to admit when one has made a mistake. It is a greater folly to say that what we have done in the last 130 years has not worked and if we do more of it now it will work. That does not make sense. We need to deal with this matter in a way which is rational, addresses the problem and does not continue to sweep under the rug the real issues. My closing statement is that the fundamental issue is the equality of all Canadians.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe, if you were to check, that several of the members were not in their places, which I think is crucial to this vote.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Since the member who just spoke is clearly one of the most knowledgeable people in parliament on this issue, I would ask again for unanimous consent to give him another 10 minutes. I think it is important to do that.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for a very excellent speech. He told some stories which I think are duplicated in all of our ridings. I have had heard of similar situations.

I had a phone call from a young married woman who, with her husband, is trying to make the family farm work, having taken it over from his father. It was really tough to pay the bills so she got a part time job to try to pay the farm bills. Lo and behold, unexpectedly this young lady found herself with child. She kept on working at her part time job, helping her husband as much as she could on the farm.

When the time came that she could no longer work because of her impending childbirth, she applied for employment insurance, to which every person in this country is entitled. This young lady was told that because she was part of a farm family and their income last year was x number of dollars she did not qualify. She was told that she would not get employment insurance. While everyone else is not asked how much money their husband made or how much their partner made when on maternity leave, here is a farm family trying to make ends meet, which needs employment insurance, and it is disqualified by the rules of the Liberal government. Those stories abound.

I really want to commend my colleague for bringing that dimension to this issue. It is exactly the kind of story we are hearing.

I wonder whether the member would like to enlarge somewhat on the kinds of programs that the Liberal government puts out that claim to be supportive of families, supportive of children, which in fact run exactly the opposite.

[Food, October 21st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I want to give the Liberal government a lesson on the value of work. It is said that we can live a minute without air, a day or two without water, and a week or two without food. Some of us might last a little longer.

Food is a basic essential for life. We can do without a doctor for years if we do not get sick. We might get by without a lawyer for years. We might get by without politicians for a century or maybe a millennium, but we cannot live without farmers.

The farmer's work has huge value because without the farmer, we starve. Where is the equal pay for work of greater value here? Why is the government ignoring the plight of farmers on whom we depend for our very lives?

History shows clearly that a nation can lose its sovereignty if it loses its independent secure food supply.

It is food. It is farmers. It is pay for work of immense value. It is time we recognized farmers for what they are worth.

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I really wish they would give thoughtful attention to what I am trying to say. As defenders of democracy, as they like to call themselves, they should also be speaking the same words I am now speaking.

I remember that when I was first elected in 1993 I came here and I was involved in a particular party. I brought in an amendment to a bill at committee. It was one of the first bills that went to committee before second reading. I was involved in the debate. I thought it would be great and I put forward an idea.

A clear majority of members, including those on the government side, were in favour of the amendment I proposed. One Liberal member used my name and said that I had a good idea. I cannot use my own name here. It is a stifling of freedom of speech in the House of Commons. I proceeded with the amendment to the wording of the bill and assumed that it would be accepted.

There came a day some time later when we voted on clause by clause in committee. The chairman asked “Shall clause one pass, shall clause two pass, shall clause three pass”. When it came I moved an amendment to the appropriate clause as required by procedure and the Liberal members all voted against it.

Later on I challenged them. I said “I thought you guys were on my side. I thought you agreed with the common sense of what I was trying to propose”. I would never divulge the name. Nor would I even identify the riding, which is within the rules here. The Liberal member to whom I spoke looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and said “We really don't have a choice”.

I put forward that evidence to say that the whole process is a sham. Even though the committee will do the work, and I have no doubt that it will try to do good work, the ultimate control will come from the government House leader in that committee. He will basically dictate what the final results of the bill will be.

It is surely unfortunate that I do not have a couple of hours to debate everything. I will have to hurry. I will now talk a little about the bill. My colleague has already mentioned the magnitude of Bill C-2. It is a huge bill. It has 250-some pages. There is a lot of detail in terms of prescribing how we conduct our elections. The index alone has xxii pages, and I will talk about two of them.

According to the government House leader who made a speech this morning, one of the topics covered is improving the way our elections work and of improving democracy in Canada. I want to talk about clause 39. It is important to actually put on the record what it says. I want to alert Canadians across the country from coast to coast who are sitting there glued to CPAC this morning to pay attention to what it says. There are several different positions. I cannot read them all but they all have this wording:

—the returning officer shall solicit names of suitable persons from the candidates of the registered parties whose candidates finished first and second in the last election in the electoral district, to be submitted to the returning officer—

Then it says that the candidates shall be appointed as much as possible half from the candidate's party that finished first and half from the candidate's party that finished second.

Is not Elections Canada and the work of Elections Canada impartial? Is that not what democracy is? We have right in the elections act proposed by the government an entrenchment of a practice which has been in our procedures for far too long. There is a pay off if one votes correctly. The Prime Minister will tell people in his riding to vote for him and he will be able to funnel millions of taxpayers dollars into the riding. That will be their prize for voting for him.

It is time to give Canadians free choice to vote for the candidate and the party that are principled and that represent the true values of Canadians. We should not cloud that decision by the immediate appeal of having money funnelled into the riding or getting some patronage appointments at the next election because all these positions are paid for by the Canadian taxpayer via Elections Canada.

I was surprised when I was first elected to find out that this process existed. In fact I was a brand new candidate back in 1993. I had never participated in elections before and one day I got a phone call telling me that the Reform Party came second in the 1988 election and that I now had the right to name all the deputy returning officers in the polls. I said, “That cannot be, Elections Canada is surely impartial. Just because we came second surely does not give me the right to now say that the people who voted for the Reform Party in the last election will now get a payoff, a government job”.

This was wrong and I recognized it right away even though I was inexperienced. I declined. I told the returning officer in Elk Island to choose the person who did it the last time if she or he did a good job. I also said that I did not care what party the person was with, but that if there was somebody who worked last time and did not do a good job that I would give my permission to fire them. I should have been out of the loop.

The principled Reform Party, not the one of political expedience doing anything that needs to be done to get elected but rather the one that is based on principle, says that the Reform Party supports giving Elections Canada the power to select and hire all of its own employees, including but not limited to returning officers, deputy returning officers and other field staff. We believe that the decision should be made on merit and on ability to do the job and not based on a debt to be paid because of having shown favour to one political party or another.

If I had time I would also love to talk about many other issues in Bill C-2 but of course with this process we cannot. I have only these few minutes and members cannot even ask me any questions. That is regrettable, I am sure.

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

I wish members opposite would listen to what I am saying. I know they have a duty to protect their political party and the government of the day.

It is a sham in this sense. It is known that the Liberals as the governing party dominate every committee. For the Liberals to have eight members and all of the opposition parties together to have seven is I suppose okay, but unfortunately government members lose their freedom in committee as they do the House. Just as we have had members of the Liberal Party stand with tears in their eyes to vote against something they were deeply in favour of, so we have those members in committees controlled by the leader of the government or the minister, as the case may be. I have firsthand experience in this regard.

[Canada Elections Act, October 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to rise in this short debate today. As you know, Mr. Speaker, but perhaps not everyone within hearing distance of the debate knows, we are indirectly talking about Bill C-2. The motion before the House right now is whether or not we should send the bill to committee prior to second reading.

I have had some experience with this matter. I will use the first couple of minutes of my time to address what we are really supposed to be addressing today, whether or not the bill should go to committee at this time.

When the bill was first introduced I thought it was a very good idea. We could get bills out to committee and let the members of the committee work through the bill in its initial stages so that before there is an entrenched position we could exercise the give and take of debate and give due consideration to various aspects of the bill. Hopefully we would come forward with a bill with less controversial wording and less in need of amendment. The whole idea sounded like a really good one.

How do I put this gently and within the rules of parliamentary language? I think committee work in this parliament is a sham. That is really a strong statement but it really is so, unfortunately.