Ken Epp

[Verbal Abuse Prevention Week Act, March 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to speak to the particular bill, but having listened to the debate and having heard the sponsor from Hillsborough indicate his reasons for raising it my little old mind was just turning.

Everyone can imagine that as a young man I was actually a miniature of what I am today, but I had the same general geography and the same shape. As a result I have to confess that I was the object of a great deal of teasing. We would call it verbal abuse nowadays. In fact when I look back at it I realize I was really hard done by. I did not realize it at the time, but when I look back at it now I am amazed at how cruel some of the kids were to me.

I remember when our little country school closed down. I first attended a little country school with one schoolroom and one teacher from grades 1 to 8. It was closed down because there were not enough students. I was a big farm kid. I was about 180 pounds when I was in grade 8, so everyone can imagine.

We were bused into the big city school. Those city kids were merciless, not only because we were poor farmers but also because I had this, I thought, exceptionally fine aerodynamic shape. They did not think of it that way.

I had all sorts of things happen to me. I will not go into all the details, but just listening to the debate reminded me of some things I have long forgiven and forgotten. I have moved on with my life.

One thing that helped me to do that was parents who both by example and by encouragement helped me not to be discouraged. They helped to build my self-esteem which was greatly destroyed by not only the students, I may say, but also by the teacher.

I remember when I was in grade 9. I was ignorant, I will admit now. The young people here can hardly imagine it, but it was at a time before there was any television. I had never been to a football game in my life and because television had not yet been invented I did not know what football was.

As I say, I was moved into the city school. It was a beautiful fall day and the gym teacher said that we would play football. I did not have a clue. I totally did not. Nobody gave any instruction. We were just to play football.

I guess the other youngsters in that grade 9 class realized that I was ignorant, so nobody bothered to cover me because I was no threat. Lo and behold I later learned when the quarterback threw the ball to me. I was smart enough to catch it and I ran. As everyone can imagine that would have been quite a sight. I ran for all I was worth and I made a touchdown, but it was at the wrong end of the field. I did not know that I was running the wrong way. I thought these guys yelling at me were cheering me on to run faster. It was really quite embarrassing in retrospect.

However I still remember the teacher. I will not mention his name even though I guess I could within the confines of the House use his name. I still remember it. He came up to me and kicked me, and he kicked me hard. It hurt my tailbone. I was humiliated and hurt, but in my usual way I used humour and laughed it off.

I am sure I am the only one who remembers that incident these many years later, but that was a form of abuse. I guess nowadays I would sue the guy. No, I would not do it, but it is the type of thing which can be devastating. Fortunately I was blessed to have parents that gave a complete antidote to the results that type of thing could have had.

I remember another incident where these kids would deliberately take a step toward me. One of them would come up real close to me and then take a step toward me. What is the natural reaction? It is to step back because he is getting too close. Unknown to me another one had knelt down behind me and with that I went flying over and they laughed. They thought that was funny. I guess it was. It must have looked hilarious. I wish I had a videotape of it now, but it was abuse of the worst kind.

As I said, the greatest antidote to the results of verbal abuse came from my parents. On one occasion I did something stupid on the farm. I will not bore members with the details but I broke a piece of farm equipment strictly out of not being careful. My father would have had every reason in the world to bawl me out because we took the machine out of use for a while and it was costly to repair it. Instead my dad said to me “Ken, next time you should take a little more time”.

I remember the event vividly. My father, and I love him dearly, turned 90 a couple of months ago. He had no anger. He did not abuse me verbally or in any other way. He just gave me the solid advice that I should take a little more time, which is very good advice. The way he handled it put the onus totally on me. Had he struck out or lashed out at me with his tongue we would have had a good old battle and it would have been as much his fight as mine, but he handled it so well. I do not know where he got that wisdom but he did.

My hon. colleague from Hillsborough came up with the idea of bringing the nation's attention to the problem of abuse, be it verbal or other abuse. It is a notable and worthy goal.

As members know, I had the advantage of having taught high school for four years. I then taught at the college level for some 27 years before I came to this place. The difference between this place and the colleges is that here no one listens and no one learns. I should not say that. It is somewhat different from that. However during my years of teaching having gone through my earlier experiences helped me relate to young people who for one reason or another were also the object of scorn and abuse.

The initiative is a good one. It would help draw attention to the issue. The circle of abuse which goes from generation to generation must somehow be stopped. If we can draw attention to it and bring people to the point where they realize how hurtful words can be, I would hope that over a period of time people would learn to deeply respect one another.

I cannot help but think of another event that happened a little over a year ago which hurt me probably as much. I will say this as gently as I can. During the election campaign some of the comments made about our party by our political adversaries were very hurtful.

I am proud of the fact that my children have worked with relief agencies around the world. One of my most precious pictures is of my son and his wife as a newly married couple in Rwanda surrounded by some 400 beautiful little black children whose parents were killed in the country's horrible holocaust. Then someone has the insensitivity to accuse me of being a racist. That hurts. It is adult abuse. It is verbal abuse at an adult level and it sets a bad example to the children and young people of our country when it comes from our own leaders.

I wish we could get beyond that. I wish we could deal honestly and openly without false accusations or abusing each other verbally or in other ways. Let us build a society on respect and real love for one another where the interests and well-being of other people take precedence over our own.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, March 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would have been more pleased had you invited them to be quiet and listen to what I had to say because I think it is important.

My former colleague from Grasslands in Saskatchewan said that his years here were a waste of time. This is what I am starting to feel.

We have had a number of good times in the finance committee over the last three or four years. I have served with some enthusiasm on that committee. We have had a considerable impact. We have had a good collegial attitude. We have been professional. We have listened to witnesses and have included what they have said in our reports.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my speech on the budget, most of our budget recommendations were not included in the finance minister's budget this year. However, we worked independently as a committee to give the finance minister advice so that the tax burden and the expenditure of public moneys would be in line with what Canadians wanted. That has now completely deteriorated. That is so frustrating.

All the Liberals just voted for closure. They said that they want to stop debating this. I have an inkling that most of them have not read the transcripts from our committee. They do not know what the issues are. All we are told is that they want to get this thing on the road so they can start collecting a tax so please stand up when told to. All of the members, including those who crossed the floor from the opposition benches to the Liberal benches, voted to shut down the debate.

Closure and time allocation would not be necessary if we treated with dignity the ideas and the conclusions of members of parliament and, as a matter of fact, the recommendations of the witnesses at the committee and the questions and concerns expressed by all committee members. I emphasize that all members of the committee were interested in hearing more details. This did not happen.

Instead, when it came time to vote, the members who had heard the witnesses, who had been there to hear our arguments, for the most part were pulled off the committee. Substitute members were put in whose only credentials were that they were able to vote the way they were told.

In other words, every amendment that came from an opposition party would be routinely defeated. A number of amendments came from the Liberals because the legislation was not perfect. They found a whole bunch of areas in this legislation which they wanted to change at committee stage and so they did. They brought in their amendments and all of those amendments passed and for good reason.

As a matter of fact, if members came to committee with an amendment and said that they had missed something and wanted to fix it, I would vote in favour of it at committee. Why not? My job is to do what is best for the citizens of Canada.

Yet in Bill C-49 there is the imposition of a tax. The parliamentary secretary will use perfect hindsight next fall when he looks at this new tax. He will look in his rearview mirror and will see all of the airlines that have gone out of business or that have cut services. Then the government will adjust the tax, after the damage is done.

Time allocation would have been unnecessary if members of the committee had been free to exercise their own judgment and to recommend to the Minister of Finance that the tax should be revised now to prevent the damage that it will do instead of looking at it in the fall to see what damage has been done. It is atrocious. Parliament is totally missing its responsibility and the opportunity to do what is right. I am appalled by that.

Those members very gladly step up to the plate for the Prime Minister and say that they will have more dignity because the Prime Minister will arrange for them to have bigger and better salaries. I say let them have the dignity of thinking and voting for themselves, whether it is on time allocation or in committee.

Let Liberal members get that dignity, then they will earn their salaries. Right now they could all be replaced by a bunch of little pneumatic dolls with little buttons that run a little air pump so that they stand up to vote on command. That is really atrocious.

I am very appalled. Perhaps next fall we will see on the news the impact this will have had on the airline industry and in services to small communities. Perhaps next fall when we look back at the damage that has been done the Liberals will say that a member of the House and the finance committee had the foresight to see this and warned the members, but they did not pay attention. They blindly went ahead and imposed a head tax for security instead of actually doing what was recommended by common sense, by the witnesses, and I am sure by economists, if they had had a chance to study it.

That brings me to another very important point. Why is closure being used when an economic impact study has not been done? It is incredible that we would put our country's airline industry at risk by imposing a tax when the department officials have admitted that they have not done an economic impact study on what the results of the new tax will be. They are just guessing. The finance minister pulled $12 and $24 out of a hat. It is incredible. In the United States the fee for airline passengers is $2.50 U.S. with a maximum of $5 on a trip.

Earlier today the parliamentary secretary said it is a very simple tax. That is not what the witnesses told us. That is not what people from the airline community have told us in their submissions to us. They have said this is an incredibly complex tax. It is based upon where a flight starts, where it ends and in some cases where it has been in between.

Did the passengers have to go to a major airport to make a connection to another little town? Perhaps they went from little town A to little town B , but they happened to go through Vancouver or Toronto to get there. What is the impact and who will pay the security tax? In some cases the passengers do not even go through security because the same gate is used. It is absolutely incredible that these people should be taxed.

The most important consideration is that the burden of funding the security issue is being placed entirely on airline passengers. We are ignoring the fact that on September 11 most of the people who died were not in airplanes. It is of public interest to have secure airways. The excessive tax will kill the very industry that needs to provide safe services. Sure, it will cut off airline terrorism, because there will be no more airlines on which to fly.

Words fail me, which does not happen often. I am out of words to say what a huge error we are making here and how despicable it is that this parliament with all this collective talent, and intellect presumably, is unable to see the situation which is so obvious.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, March 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am very upset about what is happening in the House. I am starting to feel the same as did the former member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands, Lee Morrison. In his last statement in the House he made reference to the fact that he considered his years in parliament to be a waste of time. I am starting to feel that way too, Mr. Speaker. I am starting to feel as though I should stay at home with my family and enjoy my life because this place is becoming increasingly useless.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, March 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell the House how incensed I am that the government is not listening.

I was on the finance committee. Every witness said this was wrong because it would kill service to small communities. Yet the government is invoking time allocation to speed through a process of collecting a tax. It has nothing to do with increased security. Security would be there anyway. We are told in any case that no new measures would be in place until the fall.

The government is invoking time allocation to collect a new tax which would be punitive to small carriers, detrimental to our economy and way beyond what is necessary. It is incredible that we want to jam it through parliament when the committee asked for studies and the studies have not been done.

The secretary of state talked about 20:20 hindsight. He is projecting that the government will use hindsight. It will wait until the carriers are pushed under. Next fall it will look back to see how many of them went belly up. Then it will change the tax. I say big deal. Why do we not look ahead and say this is the anticipated result?

The secretary of state is an economist. He is supposed to be a specialist in projecting the future, not simply looking back. It is time the government listened and did the right thing. Why should we jam the bill through, do it incorrectly and kill the industry?

Before September 11 the airlines were in trouble because our economy was going down. September 11 made it much worse. Invoking time allocation on the bill would hasten the demise of our small air carriers. That is what the government has as its priority.

Can the secretary of state tell us why there is a big hurry when the facts are not even in? We should be looking at the facts of the case and not blindly following an agenda.

[Property Rights, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In view of the fact that this motion is so important and is driving such great interest, I would move that the time of the House be extended by 20 minutes during which time the Speaker may accept no motions other than the motion to adjourn.

[Standing Committee on Finance, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am very sad today. For a number of years I have served, I would add with considerable enthusiasm, on the finance committee. It has been very interesting and very challenging, and I like to think that the work of our committee had considerable influence on the fiscal policies of the government, and I think that we were doing some good work. However in the last few weeks that has really evaporated and I am very discouraged.

Can members imagine? We heard witnesses. The witnesses give us unanimous testimony that the new air security tax was going to kill their industry, and yet the finance committee when it came time to vote on the clause by clause moved all of the members out who heard the testimony and replaced them with sign-ins who would simply vote the way they were told to do.

We might as well tell the members of the committee that they can go home, that they serve no function there. We might as well tell the witnesses “Stay home, it does not matter”.

[Supply, February 28th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, an interesting thought occurred to me about proportional voting. In my riding I got just over 10 times as many votes as the NDP candidate. It occurred to me that someone one-tenth my size probably could represent the NDP and it would work fine.

I have a question with respect to size, that is, the Canadian dollar. The member in his speech decried the fact that Canada has been sold at fire sale prices. That is because of the fact that our dollar has so eroded. The fact is that our dollar is a measure of our productivity and our productivity is down the tubes. He never mentioned a thing about how to improve productivity in this country, which is the real cause, I believe, for the fact that our dollar is so low. What is his comment on that?

[Supply, February 28th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I always said in various debates that our conclusions derive from our first assumptions and are then driven by the analytic process we apply to the assumptions.

I want the member to know that I grew up in Saskatchewan in what is probably the birthplace of Canada's socialism. I was a teenager during the good old Tommy Douglas and CCF days. My dad and mom never indicated how they voted even to their kids, but I would venture to guess that there were times when Tommy Douglas got my family's votes because we believed in some of the things he was doing.

Swift Current where I grew up was where socialized medicine began in the whole country. It was our health unit which first said that through municipal taxes health care would be provided for Canadians so that no member of that area would go without needed health care because they were too poor to pay. That is a principle in which we still believe. If the member would take the time to read our policies, she would see that.

It is a disservice to say that we are against everything. It is not an accurate representation of Canadian Alliance policies.

We need to work together. We must solve the root problem of how representatives of the people work here and work through the problems to come up with the best solutions. We could have solutions which in some areas may look left-wing. We could have some solutions that look right-wing. But we could come up with the best solutions in all areas that would best serve Canadians.

Maybe we should think about doing away with labels and start to debate in a meaningful way the actual ideas with which we are challenged. We should allow a majority of members in the House of Commons through their own thinking and analysis to make the best laws possible for our country.

[Supply, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the consent of my colleagues to permit this to occur. I have been at a finance committee meeting and I have other duties this afternoon. The way the rotation goes it would not have been possible for me to rise and I would like to add to this debate. I really appreciate this accommodation, especially my colleague's.

I find it very interesting that the New Democratic Party has come up today with a very broad based, multi-point approach to how it would, in its words, save Canada. I would like to take the opportunity in the few minutes I have to address the last of the issues first and if I have time I will go on to another one. It has to do with democratic reform.

I am so eager to speak on this because of what has been happening around this place, in my observation, for the last eight and a half years and particularly in the last couple of weeks. I have found that probably the more distressing thing with respect to our democracy is not even how we get here but rather what happens to us when we are here. The point the NDP motion makes is that it would strengthen Canadian democracy through parliamentary and electoral reform, including proportional representation. I would really like to know what the party is proposing with respect to parliamentary reform.

The Liberals have a strange idea. They think they can strengthen the role of members of parliament by giving them a raise. We went though that last year. A former Liberal prime minister said that 50 feet off the Hill a member of parliament is nothing. I do not know how we can express this, but it appears to me that within 50 feet of the Hill and inside this place a member of parliament is less than nothing. No members of parliament count around here.

I am speaking specifically of what happens in the House and what happens in committee. I left the finance committee just a few minutes ago and I am fired up about this because what is happening there is so wrong, wrong, wrong. We have a finance committee that right now as we speak is dealing with how to gut a private member's bill. It is incredible. In this case I happen to have some serious questions about the private member's bill being debated there, but the fact of the matter is that it went to committee because it passed the House. A member from the Bloc had a private member's bill and was able to persuade the House, in second reading, that it should be referred to committee for further study. All the members here voted in favour of it and now that private member's bill is being scuttled. Basically the committee will be returning a blank sheet of paper to this place with a recommendation that it not be acted upon, which is bizarre to say the least.

I was caught in a conundrum. How does one vote on that? Shall this blank piece of paper pass or not? If I voted for it, it would have meant I was giving consent somehow to what the committee had done to blank the piece of paper. If I voted against it, it could be implied that I was not in favour of the bill, which was passed by the House. There is something really dreadfully wrong.

I have observed that of all of the time we spend debating in the House, probably the best times are days like today when we have an opposition motion, when opposition parties are able to bring forward an idea that resonates with the people we hear from out in the ridings, whereas from the government's side we usually get the government's agenda.

With all due respect, it seems to me that the cabinet members, the government as they are called, the front benches, are greatly out of touch with ordinary people. They have their agenda and they push it forward. They use the mechanisms that have become accepted in this place because of the traditions we have allowed to develop here which have totally emasculated the whole functioning of parliament.

We see it here in the Chamber, but now we are also seeing it in committee. In fact it has always been thus and I guess until this last couple of weeks I have just sort of gritted my teeth and said I will go along with it, but now I am starting to feel way down deep inside the same frustration felt by our colleague in the previous parliament, Lee Morrison, the member from Grasslands in Saskatchewan, who happened to be my parents' MP. In his last statement in the House he said he was leaving this place and declared that it had been seven years of his life wasted. I am starting to think that too and that is totally regrettable.

Here we are, 301 elected members. The Prime Minister thinks we are so important that he jammed through a pay raise for members of parliament, then he does not permit any of us to use our heads and to demonstrate that we are also leaders in this country and able to make contributions.

We had a fiasco in finance committee last week in which the members of the committee who wished to elect a chairman based on ability, on their assessment of who would best serve the country as a spokesperson for financial issues, were scuttled by the Prime Minister's Office and by the presence of the whip in the finance committee to the point that a different chairperson was elected. So be it, but it was wrong.

It is wrong that instead of allowing members of parliament to make the best decision we get these forced plays. Not only does it mean this for me as a member of parliament from the opposition side, but those members of parliament from the governing side are not permitted to even think for themselves or vote for themselves. They do not deserve a raise in pay. They deserve to get out of here. If this continues, what parliament will need is about five people up at the front who will say “we'll make all the decisions, trust us”, which is what it is now. The only difference is that we have a whole bunch of these blow-up dolls who, on command when someone pumps their little pump, stand up and vote. Then someone pulls the plug and they are down again and we do not see them again. That is ridiculous.

God gave me a brain to use. He gave me ears to hear what my constituents are saying. I am expected as a professional person to come here to represent, to speak, to think, to analyze, and when the final decision is made I will vote the way I believe is right. I think it is unconscionable that the whip from the governing party should say to us “be careful how you vote, there could be consequences”. Of course there would be consequences. We vote wisely and if we do not the consequences are that our electorate may not send us back again. However the consequences are not that someone will put the screws to us in this place. If that is the way this place operates, then let us shut it down. I regret that many of our young people, the pages who serve us so well here, would be without jobs. That is too bad because we have learned to really like them. They serve us well and it is nice for them to be here.

I think that what we need to do is empower members of parliament when they get here, whether it is by a proportional system or a first past the post system or some combination thereof. Yes, I think we should study that, but when we are here we ask that we please be given dignity and respect, respect that we are able to use our own heads, and we ask that we get rid of the shameful control by the Prime Minister's Office. That is the parliamentary reform we need. Some people say that then it will all come apart at the seams, but some of the stuff that happens around here should come apart at the seams.

I believe in the competition of ideas. Let us debate with each other. If I can persuade someone by reasonable argument then obviously among all of us in committee and in the House, the best decisions for the people of Canada will be made.

[Supply, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Notwithstanding that the hon. member from Calgary indicated he was sharing his time with the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, my schedule will not permit me to speak unless we can switch. My colleague and I have agreed, if it is with consent of the House, that I will go next and he will take my spot later.