Ken Epp

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am totally astounded at the response of the Liberal member opposite.

The Liberal government has been taken over by corruption, and all sorts of sleaze and allegations of wrongdoing. Most of which is now being proven as true. Among other things in our new budget, there is funding for an Ethics Commissioner, which unfortunately is necessary because of the lack of ethics on the other side. The Liberals are unfairly targeting rank and file members of Parliament instead of going after cabinet members, wherein lies the real power. That is where the investigations and accountability should be concentrated.

The government is using $3 million a year to run the office of the Ethics Commissioner. Apparently, spending a bit of money on an inquiry to find out why the fisheries department is not doing the right thing for the fishers, not only in British Columbia but across the whole country, is of no great consequence to the Liberal member. He thinks it is a waste of money. I would like my colleague to comment on the misplaced priorities of the Liberal government.

[Parliament of Canada Act, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member made a statement a few seconds ago about the fact that members come here because they love the work. I believe that is probably true, but it is also a bit of a dilemma if our salaries do not represent a wage level that permits members of Parliament or people to run for Parliament who have normal expenses and who are not independently wealthy. I happen to be one of those. I was an instructor at a post-secondary institution for many years. It was becoming increasingly difficult to pay all the bills living on a single salary with a family. That is one reason why I became a politician.

When I came here, part of my motivation was to see what I could do to reduce government spending and reduce taxation. Compensation for members of Parliament ought to be very balanced. It should not be so little that only people who are independently wealthy can run. Nor should it be so much that those who have been elected somehow feel they have won a lottery. It ought to be somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps the hon. member could expand a little on his comment because of the things I have stated, namely that I do not believe we want only the elite, the rich, the independently wealthy to work as members of Parliament?

[The Senate, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the prime ditherer over there keeps saying that he favours democratic, parliamentary and senatorial reform. However he just cannot bring himself to do anything about it.

Albertans have just elected the people they want to represent them in their upper house. Now the prime ditherer has a choice. When he fills the three Alberta vacancies, he can either choose people from his list of Liberal Party hacks or he can choose from the list that the people of Alberta have given him, democratically chosen.

Since in either case he will be appointing people from a list, I would like him to explain how choosing from his personal list of people he wants to reward is more democratic than choosing from the people's list.

I dare him to stop being so chicken. Why not take at least one bold decisive step instead of allowing the democratic deficit to grow and grow?

[Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec Act, December 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know that I cannot refer to the presence or absence of members so I will not, but I think it appropriate that we have a Liberal minister in the House and also at least one Liberal member. I therefore call for quorum.

[Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec Act, December 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I was not planning on speaking to this bill. However, as speeches have been made, I have been listening and looking at the bill. I have a number of things that we should seriously question with respect to Bill C-9.

I find it absolutely atrocious that the Liberal government has gone ahead and implemented this whole program without parliamentary approval. We find under this Prime Minister the same illness that we had under the previous Prime Minister, Mr. Chrétien. Parliament is just an annoyance. It is just something that has to go through.

The government has actually had this agency in place for two years. For two years it has had budgets in the estimates of around half a billion dollars per year. It has been doing it without parliamentary approval. It has come here now and expecting Parliament to just rubber stamp what it is already doing. In a sense, we are in fact rubber stamping it and I think we probably have no choice. The thing is already being done.

It would be unwise for us to be against this particular bill because of the turmoil that it would cause for all the people who are employed in this program and in the work that they are doing in Quebec. Yet, at the same time, the sequence is wrong. We ought to hold the Liberal government accountable for its arrogance and for its presumptions.

I have huge problems, when I read in this bill, as I mentioned in one of my interventions earlier, about the government's ability to make grants and contributions. What a scandal that is. I cannot believe that the Bloc are actually favouring this bill because it is obvious that the Government of Canada, as long as the Liberals are in power, will simply be picking its Liberal friends to start businesses. Look at what happened in the former Prime Minister's riding, where his friends got money, grants and guaranteed loans in order to build a hotel in which the former Prime Minister himself had a financial interest.

That is the type of thing we invite when we have this kind of agency instead of having it at arm's length. I look at, for example, the powers of the minister. In this bill, the minister can totally control who gets the money and guaranteed loans. I am concerned about the fact that the minister may make regulations, which means the minister in charge who is part of the prime ministerial team. He can do that in order to exploit the opportunities for improvements in employment as identified in a designated area, as well as regulations specially applicable to that area or community which may be made under the authority of this section that vary from regulations of general application to Quebec.

We have the federal government looking at a specific region in a province, and having the right and the power to override other regulations, and to make grants, contributions and advertisements. All these grants and contributions have been such a scandal in the previous government's administration.

I am deeply concerned about the fact that the government is now seeking parliamentary approval for what it is already doing and giving it additional powers over what it already has in terms of interfering and picking economic winners and losers. I just cannot see that for the long run and in the broad perspective of our country that this is a good thing to do. I needed to get that off my chest.

[Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec Act, December 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin this intervention, as I have before, by thanking the interpreters who work in those little glass booths. Without them, as a unilingual Canadian, I would be unable to understand about what the member had talked. I so appreciate their work.

I listened very carefully to the very articulate member from the Bloc. He mentioned that it would be perhaps better to have a reduction in taxation levels so their businesses could compete with one another. I got from that an undercurrent. I would ask, why should the federal government be in Quebec or any province picking winners and losers?

Bill C-9 would give the minister the right to plan, implement, direct and manage programs and projects or offer services to improve the economic environment in Quebec, including programs, projects and services, supports to business associations, conferences, studies, consultations, trade shows, demonstration products and market research. It gives the government the right to collect and disseminate data. The federal government is really good at running a data bank. We learned that with the gun control system.

Here is another one. The Liberals can pick to whom they want to give a loan and for whom they want to guarantee the repayment. I love this one, they can make grants and contributions. If those words do not throw up a red flag, especially in the province of Quebec, I would be very surprised.

I could go on and on, but I am not giving a speech. Surely, the member would rather say that the federal government should get out of picking winners and losers in Quebec and let Quebec entrepreneurs fend for themselves on an equal and level playing field.

[Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Act, December 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for his work on the committee as vice-chair and as one who is very much involved with it.

I was interested in the fact that he raised the issue of having to deal with different groups within the water boundaries of our country on a sort of country-to-country basis, setting these people up as individual nations. If Bill C-14 passes, does he anticipate that we will have delegations to these different nations? Will we have ambassadors there? How will we actually manage the intergovernmental affairs vis-à-vis these individual groups as compared to the provinces and territories that we have now?

[Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Act, December 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very succinct question for the member opposite.

One of the dangers of having these treaties negotiated one at a time is that those who are negotiating now can use previous ones, if not as a template at least as a guide, but later on when there are other agreements negotiated perhaps some new elements are brought in which then are not available to those whose negotiations have already been completed.

I wonder whether he sees any danger in the fact that the different groups will now have different contracts, shall we say, with the government in order to conclude these agreements which differ substantially and which could be construed as treating different classes of Canadians unequally.

[Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Act, December 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the member of Parliament, on a non-partisan basis, for his great interest and the large amount of work that he has devoted to issues that have to do with natives and with the various challenges that they face.

One of the things that comes to my mind, when I hear him and others speak in support of this bill, is the fact that there continue to be new treaties and new arrangements that are made for land settlements with the natives. Would he explain to us the benefit of having all of these individual agreements as opposed to having a master agreement which would treat everyone equally?

[Jimmy Shelstad, November 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, words are inadequate to express the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking grief experienced by the family on the death of a child. That emotion is multiplied a million times when the death could have been prevented.

This summer, 17 year old Jimmy Shelstad was tragically killed in a marked crosswalk in Sherwood Park. He was struck by a drunk driver. One cannot imagine the overwhelming burden of grief on Jimmy's parents, Blake and Gladys, grandparents Keith and Carole, and the rest of the family. His school friends have erected a memorial at the intersection where this tragedy happened. I drive by it frequently and grieve for the family.

Jimmy had to pay the supreme price for his killer's mistake, but his killer will probably get a conditional sentence. This has to end. How we all wish that the penalties could be severe enough to actually stop drunks from driving. Then we would have no more shattered dreams and broken hearts.