Ken Epp

[Petitions, June 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have another petition to present, one of 118 pages with 1,704 names on the issue of preserving marriage. This is a very good petition. It is different in wording from some of the others. It mentions the necessity of our government upholding the historical, biological, cultural and religious definition of marriage and states that marriage is between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

The petitioners are asking Parliament to guarantee the freedom of speech for grandparents, parents, teachers, counsellors, ethnic minorities and religious people when they promote the benefits of traditional marriage, and therefore, they are asking the government to protect the children so that they will have the right to be raised by their biological fathers and mothers. I want to say that the names on the petition clearly indicate that it comes from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. I recommend that Parliament start listening to these petitions instead of having them tabled and made to disappear into the backroom.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, before we go to question period, I want to make a point to all of my colleagues.

BlackBerries have to be switched off on airplanes because their transmission interferes with the electronics of an airplane. The same thing is true here. If the BlackBerries are active when they are next to the microphones, the microphones pick it up. It is most annoying and it is broadcast right across the country.

I wish members would turn the things to “no transmit” when they are here, just as they do when they are on airplanes.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my Bloc colleague has asked a very insightful question.

One thing I want to say about the Bloc members is that they are very consistent in representing the needs of their province. I wish they had a little wider view of the country as a whole, but at least they are true to the mandate which they have defined for themselves.

The question of whether the Liberal Party would have been as amenable to the proposals from the NDP if the Liberals had a majority is a hypothetical one, but I think the answer is self-evident. We have some 11 years of evidence of a majority Liberal government walking roughshod over every one of the rest of us. With very rare exception did the Liberals ever accept even the smallest amendments from the opposition parties. There is no doubt about it that it was electoral fear that caused them to cut this deal. I do not think that there is any problem believing that.

The member also raised the question about having voted for Bill C-43. We recall that when that first came up it was the first time that the minority Liberal government had presented a budget. At second reading of Bill C-43 we did not support it. That fact has escaped a lot of people. We did not support it, but neither did we vote against it because although the Speaker said that the question was on the budget, we supported the government having a chance to prove itself.

This Parliament was very young and Canadians were not ready for an election six months after the last one. Although the Speaker said that the vote was on the budget, every one of us knew the real vote was on whether we should have an election. With one vote both questions had to be answered and they are diametrically opposed. We came up with what we thought was a workable solution. We would not support this budget because of those serious flaws, but at the same time, we knew that the real vote was on whether there should be an election. We decided at that time not to put Canadians through the necessity of having an election. That was the dilemma we faced.

With respect to the EI fund which the member also asked about, I would simply say that the government continues to take huge amounts of money in excess of the actual actuarial needs of that fund. I think that is a crime.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak in our Parliament. One of the primary functions of Parliament is, and has been since Parliament was invented, to carefully administer and to be a watchdog for the expenditures of the king.

Of course we have the king over on the other side there, wandering around handing out billions of taxpayers' dollars, and with this bill, Bill C-48, once again he would have an unfettered ability to spread that money around. I think that we as Canadians ought to be terribly concerned about this kind of legislation that permits the finance minister and the Prime Minister to do all of these things without accountability.

We have been made so aware in this country in the last four years or thereabouts, with this ad scam thing, that to spend money out of a grand scheme and a big fund, without a detailed plan and without accountability, is just a recipe for disaster.

I would remind all the members here and all those who happen to be listening around the country that ad scam happened because there was actually a hidden fund called the unity fund. It was not even specifically stated; the government did it sort of on the sly. Money was allocated from this so-called unity fund. The Auditor General subsequently reported that there were huge amounts of money, over $100 million, for which she could see no evidence, no paper trail, no justification for spending the money, or even a record of where it had gone.

Now we are in a place where this government is currently under investigation by Judge Gomery as to all these illegal and I would say criminal activities, because taking money that belongs to others is called theft; and that is exactly what this government has done.

Bill C-48, in this little collusion affair between the Liberals and the NDP just in order to buy their votes, sets up exactly the same kind of scenario. I would be very concerned if I were a member of the Liberal Party or the NDP supporting this and saying, “Here is where we want to go”. It is going to hang on their shoulders. Hopefully, when the Canadian people wake up and see what is actually happening here, it will pull them right down to zero.

I did a little calculation and I made an interesting connection, that is, the 19 votes that were bought with this $4.5 billion works out to pretty well as much per vote as the cost of an election, at around a quarter of a billion per vote. The money the Liberals have spent per vote, for those 19 votes, would buy an election. In other words, the money that this deal cost is equal to the cost of 19 federal elections. That is amazing.

Of course we know that the money that is allocated is for what the NDP and the Liberals think are good causes. I would venture to say that I, as a member of Parliament, a Canadian citizen and a representative of the people in my riding as well as one who is looking to the well-being of all Canadians, would favour the programs that they are talking about, but the way this is being done is absolutely untenable.

If these were good, important programs, and they are, then why did the finance minister not put them into his budget speech?

Do members remember way back in the old days that when information from a budget was leaked it would precipitate the resignation of the Minister of Finance? That was not so terribly many years ago.

Now not only do we have the total speech being leaked in advance, but we also have this bizarre scene in which the speech the finance minister gives on budget day has become meaningless. I think this is a tragedy, because as for what he said on that particular day with respect to the government's anticipated plans for taxation, the receipt of money, and the expenditure of that money, all the money that is to be put into the various government programs, that plan turns out to have been nothing but a giant hoax.

There he was saying it, but when we tried to propose amendments, we were told that it could not be done. For the record, we actually tried to influence the budget in advance and frankly were quite singularly rebuffed. When we tried after the fact to propose amendments, we were told very clearly that it could not be done, that the speech the finance minister gave on budget day is what is going to be.

In fact, that is how it has always been.

What did we find two weeks later? The government was facing extinction. It was on the endangered species list. There was all this garbage that we were getting from Gomery. There was all the evidence that showed there was so much criminal activity not only on the front benches of the government but also in the Liberal Party itself, which is the root of the government. As a result, Canadians were saying that they were going to turf those guys. Bring on an election, they were saying, we are going to replace them because they are not worthy to run our country.

What did the Liberals do? First of all, they ignored some votes in the House. We had I believe five votes, two of which were explicit non-confidence votes. I remember, Mr. Speaker--and I am going to do it now because when the Deputy Prime Minister did this it was not shown on camera and Canadians did not know this--that when we had that vote of non-confidence and the Liberals lost that vote of non-confidence, the Deputy Prime Minister made a gesture like this one: “So?” That is exactly what she did: “So?” In other words, a vote in this place does not matter, she was saying, we will just ignore it.

So doctor democratic deficit killer over there, the Prime Minister, does not believe in democracy. The Liberals lost five votes and then, finally, in order to make sure they won one, they had to entice one, and tried to entice more, of our members to cross over. We know they cut a deal with the Minister of Human Resources, because she landed up over there and she is in cabinet. The evidence is there. There was a deal cut. It happened.

Now they have tried to cut a deal with the NDP and the NDP has bought into it. I cannot believe that the NDP would be willing to prop up this corrupt government at such a huge price.

I am simply saying that Bill C-48, the bill we are debating today, is the government's attempt at trying to look, at least formally, as having fulfilled a deal that was made between those two guys, in the hotel in Toronto, with the candles burning and the soft music playing. It was absolutely incredible.

I need to say a little more about this. Right now we are debating this at what is called report stage, and I imagine this is not significant to many people, that is, Bill C-48 was passed here by a slim majority at second reading with the NDP's help and the other shenanigans that the Liberals pulled in order to entice votes. It was passed at second reading. It went to committee and the committee dealt with it.

The committees are supposed to scrutinize legislation. The finance committee did this. It proposed a number of amendments. What do we have today when we are dealing with report stage? All we have to do is look at today's order paper where these amendments are spelled out. I am going to read a very small part of them. Motion No. 1, which we are now debating, is basically this:

That Bill C-48, in Clause 1, be amended by restoring Clause 1--

That is because the committee in its wisdom deleted clause 1 of the bill and reported it back to the House. Where is the democracy? Where is the process of the committee? Why is it not being paid attention to?

Instead, the committee reported the bill back to the House and that arrogant Liberal government simply brought back an amendment saying that anything the committee has done, it will undo. Once again, the Liberals have the purchased votes over there and will probably get it to pass.

It is the same for Motion No. 2:

That Bill C-48, in Clause 2, be amended by restoring Clause 2--

In other words, the committee took it out. The government says it is going to put it back in. It says, “We have these bought votes over here and we will just put it back in”. Democracy just goes poof, out the window.

The Prime Minister ought to hang his head in shame. He ran for the leadership of his party. He ran as a potential prime minister of the country in the last federal election as the person who was going to address the democratic deficit. At every stage he is doing the opposite. Meanwhile, Canadians are suffering because of the lack of a fiscal plan that would put Canada on a solid footing, which is where it ought to be.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe how many things this member could get wrong in one speech. He talks about the brain drain and says the people who left in the last 10 years are now coming back in droves. I wonder what evidence he has for that. I have not seen a single report that says people are coming back in huge numbers. We are still losing as many to other countries as we are getting back. I think he is wrong on that point.

He said that we have pumped thousands of dollars into research, et cetera. Does he not recognize that governments do not create money? The government cannot just buy royal edicts and give so much more new money. That money comes from somewhere. It comes from the earnings of Canadians, businesses, enterprises, manufacturing and natural resources.

How can he say the government has pumped it in? The government has really taken it from one person and given it to another. It has taken it from the taxpayers and reallocated it. I am not necessarily opposed to that, but to somehow imply that it has pumped all this money in as if it created it from nothing is sort of misleading.

He talks about a $100 billion tax break. I get so sick of this. The amount of $100 billion over the next 10 years is planned for the future if the Liberals still happen to be in government. Canadians know that their take home pay has actually not increased more than about 2% in the last 10 years, one of the lowest increases in the world. The Liberals keep crowing about this $100 billion tax break. We are talking about a one year budget. How much is it per year? Let us be honest with Canadians.

He talked about reducing EI premiums. The government is still taking $5 billion more a year out of it than what it is paying out. It is a huge cash cow for the government. He talks about the environment. I do not think Liberals want the Sydney tar ponds actually solved because then what would the government put in the throne speeches and annual budgets? The government always has plans. I think they are wipeouts.

[An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments, June 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP member covered quite a bit of ground. However, I would like to point out to him, when he talks about corruption, that he makes a serious error when he uses the words “Liberal” and “Conservative” in the same sentence. I do not think he is being at all honest. I do not know how else I can say that in a parliamentary fashion.

There was never before in Canadian history a scandal of the magnitude we face in the country right now. Not only are the members and the leadership in the governing party, but also the frontbench of the actual government, in collusion in funnelling money from taxpayers into the coffers of the Liberal Party. That has never been seen before in Canadian history.

The fact that those members would collude to prop up that totally corrupt government is a total affront. I will not say that any government, whether it is an NDP government in British Columbia, Saskatchewan or Ontario, or whether it is one of the other governments in one of the provinces or in this place, was ever perfect. That is an unattainable goal. However, the depths to which the government has sunk has indeed set new records. I wish that he would acknowledge that and be a little more careful when he uses the words “Liberal” and “Conservative” in the same sentence. I am challenging him on that part.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, June 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I was referring to the member for Huron--Bruce. I just had a mental block. I apologize for that. I believe that is what he said.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, June 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If you will recall and look in the blues, I think you would find that the member across the way, whose riding I have now unfortunately forgotten, had said that in subsequent votes he would be voting yea for all of these votes.

[Points of Order, June 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will take whatever measures are necessary to make sure that it loses nothing in the translation.

[Statistics Act, June 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House now for almost 12 years and I have come to the conclusion that one cannot ever explain the behaviour of Liberals. One day they are hot and one day they are cold. It seems as if they can put through legislation very quickly if they have the heart to do it and if it is something that pleases or benefits themselves.

They invoked closure some 80 times when they had majority governments in order to speed up bills that they really thought were important and should get through. This is one that has all party support. It is quite appropriate for us to say that all members in the House of Commons in this particular case should think about the legislation. I believe that it is very important that this go to committee where hopefully the committee will have some time to deal with it.

The other thing that my colleague mentioned was that the legislation has always died on the order paper. That is because the government has always waited toward the end of a Parliament. I imagine that we are coming close to the end of this one too. Even if this were to go to committee, who knows when the committee would meet and actually report back, and when would it be voted on in the House and actually get passed? Will there be amendments to what the Senate presented? If there are, then we know it has to go back to the Senate for final approval.

This whole process does take time and it is unfortunate that the government always waits until time is running out before it brings in these things. That is a considerable affront to researchers and genealogists who would eagerly like to see this bill passed and the census information released immediately.