Ken Epp

[First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act, November 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to represent the constituents of Edmonton—Sherwood Park in the debate on Bill C-71. It is an important bill. I think probably most people here will regret the fact that it is being given a rush job. It is very important in these instances to get things right. In general I concur with and support the intent of the bill.

Before I talk about the regulation of commercial and industrial undertakings on reserve lands, I would like to make a brief comment about the process we are undertaking. I know probably most Canadians who are watching this on CPAC are not aware of the fact that we are doing this under a slightly different procedure from the norm. That is, whereas usually a bill is introduced by the government and then receives second reading, which is called the debate on agreement in principle, in this instance we are debating the bill prior to it coming to second reading. We are debating a motion that the bill will be sent to committee before second reading.

The intent of that is, or at least it is advertised to be, the parliamentary committee will have greater and more flexible input into the wording of the bill. It sounds wonderful in its concept. However, in the 12 years I have been in the House I have observed that more often than not the government has used this to stifle debate. I hate to say that, but that is what has happened.

One of the things that occurs is that we get this debate where we have 10 minute speeches, and it is not really possible to get into the depth of it. Then it goes off to committee and the committee deals with the bill in hopefully a more flexible fashion because it has not yet received second reading in the House.

Unfortunately, in previous occurrences of this process being used, there have been instances where the government has used it to limit debate and the power of the committee to change the different clauses in the bill is not as great as it should be under these circumstances.

On numerous occasions I have been very frustrated in committee. Even though opposition members have tried to make meaningful, reasoned and defensible amendments to bills, they have been shot down by the majority government. Sometimes members on the committee have not fully understood what is being debated and the ones who have given the orders from on high have not been in committee to hear the arguments. That is a potential problem. It is less of a problem when we have a minority government, but it still is a difficulty with which we need to continue to grapple.

With respect to this bill, it is long overdue. I am not sure that it is a perfect bill. In fact, I have a couple of questions about it myself, just in a cursory reading of it. It is a situation that we have in Canada which is unique and it needs to be addressed.

We like to say that we are a nation of equality, that we treat all our members in our society equally. Yet over the last 135 plus years we have had two different sets of rules for different segments of our population. When settlers first came to the country from Europe and other parts of the world, the natives were here already. For some reason, the powers that be at the time during Confederation set up quite a different way of allowing them to run their society from the way the rest of us could, those of us who immigrated to Canada more recently.

I always say that Canada is made up of all immigrants. Any person who has studied the history of our continent will say that even the natives came here from elsewhere, albeit a number of centuries earlier than the rest of us. However we are all immigrants on this continent and those who arrived here first, for some reason, have over the years suffered from a set of rules governing their activities that were substantially different and to their detriment. I for one would like to see this corrected.

I have had a number of really good relationships with different first nation individuals. Way back, when I was teaching at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, I taught a number of first nation students. They were very fine people. If I can generalize, they have a gentle nature. I found them to be very cooperative most of the time, certainly on par with my other students.

It is unfortunate that these individuals had a completely different set of rules and one of them with respect to ownership of their land. There are different rules, such as ownership of mineral rights on lands that are usually separate from surface rights. However the natives on reserves have not had the ability to capitalize on the potential that some of their resources had. If they did, they were under separate rules and this gave, in some instances, an advantage and, in some instances, a disadvantage. In any case, I think it would help to promote the well-being of our country if we treated natives and non-natives alike when it came to the use of the resources they have on the land on which they live.

One of the things not in the bill that has distressed me over the years is that natives generally are not permitted to own their own land. They are on reserves and the land is held in a commune style way. None of us who are used to living the other way would tolerate for a minute not being able to own our own house or the land it sits on, or that the money designated to us by the government would go to other people who then could use it to control our life and determine whether we can fix a broken window in our house.

Unfortunately, over the years we have had too many instances where what I call the grassroots natives have asked for help. They tell us what has happened and they say that they have absolutely no power to influence the outcome. It could be the electrical system in their house that is not right or the plumbing system that is not working but they cannot get the money to fix those things. We hear a lot these days about water and sewage systems. Those things need to be corrected.

This bill in particular deals with the development of natural resources and is rather specifically directed toward oil sands development on reserve land in Alberta and elsewhere. I am somewhat familiar with this. Before the Electoral Boundaries Commission made such a terrible job of re-drawing the boundaries in my riding, my previous riding of Elk Island included, among other things, the Shell upgrader plant just outside of Fort Saskatchewan in the province of Alberta. I know the issues being dealt with here are very important because of the fact that they will allow not only the natives on the reserves but also Albertans and, indeed, all of Canada to benefit from the development of these resources in an orderly way.

I have some serious questions which I hope the committee addresses, especially, as my colleague from the NDP mentioned, questions with respect to regulations that are really wide open. We speak of self-government for our native people and yet these regulations are totally under the control of the minister.

If we had a good, benevolent minister and a good, honest government I know these things could work for the benefit of the natives but there needs to be a system of checks and balances. Even when we form government and we have a Conservative minister of Indian affairs we should have a system whereby there is a great deal more accountability than this particular bill provides.

Unfortunately, my time is up. I had a good introduction, and this is what I am talking about. These 10 minute speeches do not really allow us to develop the thoughts that we want to. I hope the committee will do some good work in analyzing and correcting the few flaws that are in the bill.

[Supply, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely astounded at what I heard the minister say. He has given everyone the impression that he, as the minister, will bring something to the committee and the committee must then immediately do what he says.

I think it is the other way around. It is the parliamentary committee that will address this issue and, as has often been ruled by the Speaker, committees are the masters of their own agenda.

When the minister came to our committee, and instead of presenting a draft bill, he presented yet another endless routine of debate and discussion papers. We decided that we would take more decisive action. The committee did that.

He said that we have not even had any interested witnesses. There was no member of the Liberal Party on that committee who proposed that we should bring witnesses forward. That was not done. If he is concerned about that, it is not true because there was no list of witnesses, although we did hear from some. We heard from the commissioner and other interested parties.

Mine is more a comment than a question. I am simply saying that he is misrepresenting the work of the committee and trying to blame us for his own inaction.

[Question No. 206, November 15th, 2005]

With regard to the formal dinner held for the Queen on May 24, 2005, in Edmonton, and the procedure for invitations for such: ( a ) when were the invitations sent to the invitees; (b ) to which individuals were invitations sent; ( c ) were the whips of the recognized political parties of the House of Commons asked to extend invitations to their Members, and, if so, when were they asked to do so; and ( d ) do the final calculations for the total cost of the dinner hosted by the Prime Minister include any and all commissions to contracted agencies?

(Return tabled)

[Privilege, November 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the musings of that member would be funny if it were not so tragic. His accusations against our party are totally unfounded. I know I have to stay within parliamentary rules, so I simply say that he is full of hops.

I will exercise my freedom of expression in saying this. It is very sad that he can stand in the House and somehow defend what happened in the province of Quebec in the last election and over the last number of years. Judge Gomery has put it right on the line. All one has to do is read the first six pages of his report, his executive summary, and it is very clear. All the things that we suspected and that were reported by the Auditor General took place.

The member is somehow trying to deflect what should be a contriteness of heart on the part of the Liberals by blaming us. It is like blaming the policeman who came across a bank robbery and stopped the robbers. What he is doing is complaining about the policeman for breaking up a very good party. This is incredible. I really am ashamed of that member.

Is it possible that none of the 30 members of Parliament from Quebec had no knowledge whatsoever of the fact that money was being shipped to them, cash in brown envelopes? I can hardly believe that.

I would like the member's comments on that. As well, I recommend to him that what he should do is stand up, hang his head in shame and say to Canadians, “Sorry, we blew it”. I would like him to say that.

[Points of Order, November 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I was involved several years back in one of the most grievous cases of using props in the House of Commons for which I was chastised and I apologized.

I noticed today, Mr. Speaker, that every time, except the last one, the Minister of Transport held up his copy of the Gomery report he never once opened it or read from it.

I say that he was using it as a prop and I think, Mr. Speaker, you should chastise him.

[Sponsorship Program, October 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians in my riding and across the country are wondering what kind of tricks to expect from the Liberal government on the eve of the interim Gomery report. They are sitting on the edge of their seats, expecting the magic of the Liberal damage control team to make the ugly reality of Liberal corruption disappear into thin air.

It seems that the Liberals have not yet learned the most basic of life's lessons: that one cannot achieve the right results by the wrong means. They tried to buy the loyalty of Quebeckers, but landed up insulting them in the most grievous way. How ironic that the Liberals, claiming to be the saviours of Canada, are themselves the greatest threat to national unity. Separatism in Quebec and disenchantment across the country have reached an all time high.

I urge Quebeckers and all Canadians to turf these corrupt Liberals. I urge them not to waste their votes on parties that cannot muster enough seats to replace the Liberals. Only the Conservatives have the numbers and it is high time to get a trustworthy, reliable, clean, honest government.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think we have made this clear over the last number of years, and it is very similar. We are saying that the money left in the hands of the taxpayer, the entrepreneur, the businessperson, the investor, would generate more economic activity and actually make Canadians on all economic levels better off. There is no doubt about that. It would probably increase government revenue so that we could do things like reduce the EI premiums to the place where they actually are fair, vis-à-vis the benefits that are paid out, and not use the fund as a huge cash cow.

I think also that besides those reductions in taxes, we would find a very rapid reduction of our debt. That debt is still over $500 billion. It is a huge load on Canadian taxpayers. Even though it is now less than it was, it is still a huge load. I would like to see some substantial tax reductions and substantial debt reduction from those surpluses.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, what the member opposite has said sounds so reasonable, but we should just stop to think about what he has said. He said, “We have programs here and we want to fund them”. I will simply say that if it is a program that is defensible and is necessary, it should be in the budget. That is exactly what I said with the NDP deal. If every one of the things which the government put into its second budget to replace the first one were viable programs that should have been there, that are important to Canadians, why were they not in the budget in the first place so we could plan on it?

The idea of planning on not to spend money that is needed on behalf of Canadians but to use it as a little goodie bag at Halloween or Christmas or during elections is wrong. It is called fly-by-night economics, which I think is the worst kind there could be, and the kind that the Liberal government is guilty of.

I would like to see all those programs very rationally planned so that Canadians know what they can expect. Whether they are farmers or other business people or ordinary taxpayers, Canadians should know what they are getting.

It is time that we had things like income trusts. I wish the government would put to rest all the uncertainty on that issue and say that it will not touch them. In the last years, the Liberals have been musing about changing the rules. It is too late for Canadians who depend on those income trusts to make changes. They are really concerned. That type of thing should not be done. There should be a long term definite plan that Canadians can count on.

Frankly, the idea of using one-third of the surplus for program spending is just another example of lack of planning. The government should be able to plan for what is needed. If there is an additional surplus, as I said before, I agree it should be used for tax reductions, thereby probably increasing government revenue, get rid of the debt, thereby increasing the amount of money that is available for programs by reducing the debt servicing charges. But to have a slush fund that is not defensible at budget time should not be there at taxpayers' expense.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I just love it when the member asks me questions because he opens so many doors.

First of all, the Laffer curve is spelled L-a-f-f-e-r, after Professor Laffer, an economist who invented that particular theory. It is very simple. Sometimes when I am talking to students in classes I give this example. If a professional hockey team charged zero dollars per ticket, the arena would be full and the team's income would be zero. If the team charged $1 million per ticket, the arena would be empty and the team's revenue would be zero. I wish we could use graphics here because I am used to teaching and in the old days I liked to use a chalkboard. If I had that I would draw something that looked like an inverted parabola. Obviously there is someplace over there where the revenue for the government is maximized. That is the rate. There could be a lower rate, usually at two places, and then the tax rate is reduced, the revenue goes up to a certain point and then it goes down again.

The member's statement that with zero taxes there would be no revenue was absolutely right, but what a simplistic way of looking at it. I invite him to buy a book, or to borrow one from the library, and read about the Laffer theory. It is a very good one and it is one to which the Liberals should pay attention.

The member talked about Prime Minister Mulroney pulling the rug out from under the finance minister of the day. That pales in significance when compared to the present Prime Minister pulling the rug out from under the feet of the finance minister when, unprecedented in Canadian history, there was a budget presented by the Minister of Finance that turned out to mean nothing. Prior to now, budgets had to be kept secret. There could not be a single leak from the budget documents. If there were, we would demand the resignation of the finance minister.

This time around, the finance minister gave his speech, and it is supposed to be that those are the rules that govern Canada from the day of that speech. Lo and behold, a week later the budget meant nothing because the Prime Minister had made a deal with the NDP changing the budget by some $6 billion, which means that the budget speech really is meaningless.

The finance minister, the Prime Minister and the whole Liberal government through that exercise alone have lost a great deal of credibility among Canadian people and certainly among those in the economic and financial fields.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

One-third is debt reduction, one-third is supposed to be tax reduction and one-third is government spending. The government will now have to work real hard to see where it will be able to spend the extra money. I think that should be covered by the contingency fund. I think we should have very orderly and planned tax and debt reductions. The government should be headed in that direction, which is certainly the direction in which we will be going when we are over on that side, and we hope it is soon.