Ken Epp

[Bank of Montreal, December 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, 'tis the season of gifts and goodwill. I would like to use this occasion to do something which is quite unusual. I would like to thank and congratulate one of Canada's major banks for an initiative, which belies the oft given criticism of their lack of concern for the well-being of the people they serve.

The small business banking division of the Bank of Montreal has announced a program of breaks for small business. Offering small business loans and lines of credit at the prime rate is a real interest break. In addition, it is giving a voluntary retroactive interest credit of one-quarter per cent to its small business customers. They do not even have to apply for it; it is automatic.

I congratulate the Bank of Montreal for this timely gesture. It demonstrates the bank's compassion for the thousands of small business operators in Canada, many of whom are facing genuine financial challenges. It also shows the bank's commitment to its customers and to our country.

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will indeed keep my question very brief. I do not know what happens to people when they become part of a majority government. I will not use any pejorative terms but when the member used to come to finance committee as a witness, he dealt pretty forthrightly with all the facts of the economy. We appreciated him as a witness.

Now he is parliamentary secretary to the finance minister and unfortunately he has joined the mantra of the Liberals in saying things that are disingenuous, if I may quote a word he used. I refer, among other things, to his using the term $100 billion. This is an annual budget. He speaks continuously of this $100 billion tax cut. The motion we are debating today and one of the things that our party took exception to was the report talking about the $100 billion tax cut. It just is not so.

From an annual point of view, because the $100 billion refers to a five year period, it is $20 billion per year on average, not $100 billion. It is $20 billion for an annual budget and it is just wrong for him to pass this off as a $100 billion tax cut. It is not.

Second, even within that $100 billion it is less than that amount because he has failed to take into account that a large portion of the presumed tax cut is simply a failure to collect taxes that were previously announced. If I say I will charge someone $100 for something and then later on say it will be $120, and he objects so I say I will bring it down to $110, have I given him $10? No, I have not. I am still taking $10 more. That is what the government is doing with this spin.

I said I would be brief but I find it difficult. Let us hear how brief the parliamentary secretary can be in his answer.

[The Budget, December 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to an issue that is undoubtedly of great importance to Canadians.

The one thing we were well aware of even before September 11 was that the economy was in a decline. That did not really surprise anyone. The timing may have surprised some, but one of the facts of life is that economies are cyclical and the frequency of the cycle, as the economy goes up and down, varies from time to time based on certain factors. However it is certainly not expected that we would have a continued period of growth in our economy. There will be times of reduced rates of growth and in some cases even a shrinking in the actual size of the economy.

One of the things the budget should have done was assure Canadians and investors from outside the country that things were in good financial shape and that they could have confidence in investing, in working in this country, in hiring people and basically making the economy continue to roll. However, the government failed to do that.

For many months before the last election we were calling for a budget. I was very upset when the government brought down its budget just days before the election was called. It was called a mini budget or a fiscal update. The only reason we got the kind of tax cuts we did get was because of what I would call electoral fear. The Liberals were afraid that because my party had shown a fiscally balanced approach to putting more money in the pockets of taxpayers, that they were going to lose big time. Therefore the finance minister brought in a financial update in October last year, just prior to the budget, in order to steal our thunder, which they did. Canadians for some reason trusted them. I suggested to the people in my riding that, based on the record of the Liberals when they promised to cut the GST, I would not vote for them based on the fact that they were promising to cut taxes. A few people in my riding did vote Liberal despite my advice but, thankfully, not too many of them.

I would like to focus on the fact that tax cuts taxes are very important. It is not sufficient to merely talk about them. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you have ever had an occasion in your life where you have been deprived of water. The one time when I was very dehydrated it did not help a bit that my friends talked to me about water. What I needed was water, not talk about it.

The government does a lot of talking about tax reductions but it does not deliver them. If we look at the pay stub of the average Canadian, by the time the increases in the CPP are factored in, the actual deductions in their pay cheques are nowhere near what the government is claiming. Furthermore, and I emphasize this, all this talk about $100 billion in tax cuts is pure garbage. I know members over there like to use this big number. If they talked about a tax cut of $20 billion per year it would not cut it. In order to make the number bigger they multiplied it by five, just arbitrarily. I do not know why they did not pick six, eight or ten years. If they would have multiplied it by 10 they could have called it a $200 billion tax break. Instead they just picked the number five.

We are talking here about annual budgets. It is not the talk that will put money into the pockets of investors and wage earners, it is the actual delivery of those tax cuts.

One of the things that has been mentioned by a number of my colleagues, and I want to repeat because it is so important, is that the $100 billion is a hugely inflated number. It really is in actual fact.

Let us say, for example, that civil servants, some of whom will perhaps listen to this speech and say that the member for Elk Island is right on this point, wanted a raise. Let us say they are civil servants who are making $50,000 a year. If we told the civil servants that we would give them $250,000, the civil servants would say that is great and they would take it, and then in very small print we would say that it would be over the next five years.

Do members see how meaningless that is? If we are talking about annual budgets, we need to give an annual number. To put into an annual budget a projection of a total over five years is just as useless as when the Liberals put in a five year projection of total money that is to be put into health care or when they talk about the infusion of money into our military. It is totally less than what they say in terms of an annual budget, but of course they like to put out this big message.

How about the actual magnitude of that rate? What would happen if we were to say to those same civil servants that we were going to cut their salaries by $10,000? The civil servants would then say that they were going on strike. We would then compromise and give them $5,000 on top of that after the cut. Quite clearly there is a huge debate now. The Liberals would argue that the civil servants got a $5,000 raise because their salaries went from $40,000 to $45,000. As a matter of fact they had a $5,000 cut because their salaries were at $50,000.

I say the same thing about these tax cuts. The fact that the Liberals are using $100,000 is just inaccurate and they ought not to be able to get away with it. There were tax increases planned. With inflation and the lack of indexation, the tax rates were to go up. The Liberals said that they would re-introduce indexation, which we in our party were really pushing for. They did it, which means that now they will not be taxing so much. The fact of the matter is that we did not get a tax cut. To use actual numbers, if the tax bill was to be $500 and now it is to be $450, as they did not collect the $500, how can they call it a tax break? It is just not accurate.

I urge all Liberal members to vote against the budget because it does not communicate a true, positive, economic outlook for Canadians.

[The Budget, December 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have many questions to ask the member, but first I will respond to his last statement. I think all of us are greatly concerned about the fact that children are born suffering from the consequences of having mothers who drank while pregnant. That can result in brain damage which a youngster has to live with for all of his or her life.

My question to the member is, since there is a line item in the budget to support native young people or children who suffer from this, and I presume the money is going to be used for education, exactly how will the money be used and accounted for? What proof will we have that it is effective? What measurements will the government actually put in place to confirm that there is some real action taking place on this very important issue? I know it is an issue dear to his heart.

[The Economy, December 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, since 1993 the Liberal government has added $75 billion to our national debt. It has now reduced it by a cumulative $36 billion, which is good news, but that happens to be exactly the amount by which the EI surplus has been overcharged. The parliamentary secretary says that this is a fictional amount.

Over that period of time, when the government had so much more additional income from income tax revenue, other revenue and the $30 billion it took from the employees' pension fund, I would like to know where the money went.

[Points of Order, December 7th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I raise a very important point of order with respect to procedure in the House just a few minutes ago when you called for a vote. It was a correct ruling on your part that on the voice vote the noise from the nay side far exceeded that on the yea side. You called it correctly by saying “In my opinion the nays have it”. At that stage Liberals stood five demanding a recorded vote. According to the rules of the House, such a vote is automatically deferred, this being a Friday.

I think your procedure by conducting it again and changing the outcome is such that the present debate should be precluded. I think you should revert to the decision already made and called. The Liberals having responded, that decision was made and it was clear.

That is what we should simply go back to. That is my very strong suggestion, plea and, if I may use a union term, demand.

[An Act to Amend Certain Acts and Instruments and to Repeal the Fisheries Prices Support Act, December 7th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am well aware that I cannot challenge the Chair, but I question conducting a vote twice when a decision was already called.

[Criminal Code, December 7th, 2001]

My colleague is willing to give me some of his.It was a matter of principle. As I said, I did the same thing with alcoholic beverages. I said I would not drink them.

This came about in a strange way. When I was a youngster we were quite poor. Members who have heard my speeches in the House have heard some of these stories. I made my spending money by picking up beer bottles other people had spread in the ditches, bottles which would not have been there had people not been drinking while driving. Not only did they drink before they were driving. They were drinking while they were driving and tossing the bottles out. It gave me a meagre income. I remember it distinctly. We got 18 cents a dozen, one and a half cents a bottle. I picked them up and used them for spending money.

One time my father provided for me to make restitution for a loss I had been part of. That story has also been told in the House. It took over a year of picking up beer bottles to raise enough money to pay for some broken windows, but that is another story.

During the time I was picking up beer bottles I learned to strongly dislike the smell of beer. It was only many years later that a friend of mine told me there was a substantial difference between a nice cold beer out of the fridge and one that has been laying in the hot sun for two or three weeks. I had a bit of an advantage in the sense of being turned off from that deal.

I am disqualified in the sense that I do not drink. I will never be involved with drunken driving as long as I keep the pledge. I am eminently qualified because I believe very strongly that people must make decisions and follow through on matters of principle.

One matter of principle I strongly believe must be that we do not drink and drive. It impairs one's ability to manage a vehicle, which is a lethal weapon when it gets up to speed on a highway or city street. If there is a lack of ability to control the vehicle for whatever reason the person should be severely restrained by law.

The same principle applies that I have spoken about frequently in the House. It is impossible to pass a law to make people good. The purpose of the law is to restrain those who would do evil. It is evil to drive under the influence of alcohol or anything else that inhibits one's ability to manage a vehicle.

I happen to live out in the country. My riding is mostly rural. We have lots of intersections where there is a stop sign in one direction and free flow in the other. A number of my friends have been severely injured and one was killed because people coasted through stop signs. Whether they were sober or inebriated they went through the stop sign and caused a collision.

There was a young man a couple of miles from our house who was travelling home having visited some family. He and two of his children were instantly killed when someone went through a stop sign. To me that is unconscionable. My wife and I have had several occasions where we had to screech the brakes to come to a stop because someone violated that rule.

When we accept the privileges of which we have so many in our country, many of them have an attached responsibility. That responsibility should be kept and delivered on as a service and as a result of our concern for fellow citizens.

Most people have been speaking in favour of Bill C-46 today. I have severe questions about it. As people who have been watching know, the bill is, among other things, an authorization to use an interlock connect with the ignition so a vehicle will not run unless the person operating it and blowing into the tube is free of alcoholic content in his or her breath.

I am concerned about the authorization. The bill states that it:

--has no effect until the expiry of a period fixed by the court

(a) of at least three months, for a first offence;

(b) of at least 6 months, for a second offence; and

(c) of at least 12 months, for each subsequent offence.

When will we put an end to this? When will we say to people who get picked up driving while under the influence of alcohol that they cannot do that? We can catch them once, twice or three times and the bill simply says “for each subsequent offence”.

I read in the paper not long ago that someone was arrested for drunken driving and it was his 14th offence. There comes a time when we must say to these people that since they have shown a complete lack of responsibility we will remove their driving privileges because they are a danger to everyone else on the road.

I would like to see the offences strengthened. The bill would disable a vehicle from running if the person driving it was not sober. This might prevent someone from driving a vehicle when he or she is not capable of making that judgment. However we need to be careful not to give too much credit to the action we are taking here today.

How about a person who is irresponsible and willing to drive when inebriated? Will that person avoid taking a vehicle that has such a device? I am sure we will have penalties for driving a vehicle that does not have the device if the person has entered into the agreement. On the other hand there are people who drive regularly although they have been disbarred from driving. They do not take responsibility. How about people who might have a friend blow into the device for them?

Those are just some of the ways of circumventing the device. Can we trust these people? They have proven, by the fact that they have driven even once on the road while inebriated, that they are not willing to take responsibility.

This is a crazy story and one I probably should not tell because if the guy who is the object of it hears it I may get into trouble. I was driving in one of my little towns which had a two lane road in each direction divided by a median. As I approached an intersection the road turned from two lanes into four with the addition of right and left hand turning lanes.

I was following a half ton truck on the two lane portion of the road and the driver was literally bouncing off both curbs. He would hit the right curb and then drift over across two lanes and hit the left curb. I realized we were heading out into the country and there would be no other way of stopping him if we did not get a red light at the intersection. Fortunately we did.

I stopped behind him, threw on my four way flashers, jumped out of my car and did something rather bizarre. I ran up to him, opened his door, put my rather substantial body in front of his, reached over and took the key out of the ignition. I know he could have assaulted me but at that stage I was ready to take the risk because we were going out onto a country road with two lanes, one in each direction. The way he was driving I was quite convinced it would result in an accident and possibly even severe injury or death because we were getting into highway speeds. I did it because it was my civic duty.

Hon. members would not believe what the guy said to me. Hansard would not be able to print the words, but I will say that he spoke with slurred speech when asked me what I was doing. I told him that he was going nowhere because he obviously could not drive. He said that he was okay but I told him that he was not and I took away his key. He was so stunned he could not raise any objection.

To shorten the story, in due time the RCMP arrived. When the RCMP officer asked the guy to get up and stand on one foot he could not. As a matter of fact, he could not stand without holding on to his half ton truck. He had to be led by the arm into the police officer's vehicle.

I like to think I saved a life that day. I took a risk but I saved a life. That individual did not take responsibility. We should do everything possible to take people like that off the roads.

I rather doubt anyone in the House or in the country does not have a relative or at least a close friend or acquaintance who has not been affected by drunk driving. I have several. One of my colleagues at NAIT where I taught for many years had the grief of having his young sister killed by a drunk driver. She had just started university. She died as a result of drunk driving. People do not recognize how important it is to stop drunk driving because they do not think it impacts on lives or takes lives.

Another couple I know well was struck on the highway by a vehicle driven by a drunk driver. Their young son who was about 10 years old, a beautiful, brilliant young guy who did well in school, was reduced essentially to being a dependant all his life. He is now in his early twenties and he is still not able to function as an adult. That was taken from him by a drunk driver.

We hear of drunk drivers taking lives, particularly of high school students at graduations and other parties. Thinking of young people, I was given a poignant poem which I will read as part of my speech. It underlines how damaging the activity of drunk drivers can be. I ask members to listen to the poem:

Close to the door he paused to stand as he took his class ring off her hand all who were watching did not speak as a silent tear ran down his cheek and through his mind the memories ran of the moments they walked and laughed in the sand but now her eyes were so terrible cold for he would never again have her to hold they watched in silence as he bent near and whispered the words... “I LOVE YOU dear” he touched her face and started to cry as he put on his ring and wanted to die and just then the wind began to blow as they lowered her casket into the snow... this is what happens to man alive... ...when friends let friends... drink and drive.

[Criminal Code, December 7th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, this is one occasion I rise in the House when I am particularly disqualified from speaking. On the other hand I think I have a great qualification. I made a personal pledge when I was a youngster never to drink alcoholic beverages. I have kept the pledge to this day.

I have made a couple of other interesting pledges. One was that I would go through life without ever getting a ticket while driving. That means speeding, stop signs, stop lights and things like that. I am humbly proud to announce to the House that at this stage in my life I have never yet had a ticket. I am some 62 years old and have been driving almost 50 years. It is incredible.

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am reluctant to go back to the flag controversy. However I want to set the record straight. The hon. member indicated that somehow it was this party that started that controversy. That is not true.

As a matter of fact it was a Liberal member who said that we should display these flags when the member from the Bloc came back. I am venturing a guess that he had a flag on his desk as most of us did on that one day of parliamentary insurrection.

I do not like the fact that he is only attributing that to us. The member from the Bloc who triggered it is actually smiling at me right now and I appreciate that smile. I was involved because when one of the separatists asked me to remove it I did not want to do it and that escalated things. I say that for the record.

I would like to talk about the comments he made about our plan to lead us into a deficit. That is not accurate. When I look back at our history I see that we were more accurate than the government every time in anticipating the results of the fiscal plan. With our limited resources in research we did better than the finance department with all its highly paid, expensive gurus and experts. When the finance minister in the last couple of years underestimated the income by up to $7 billion a year we were almost squat on.

In 1993 we had a zero in three plan which was for the government to stop borrowing within three years. The government had many things to say about that such as the country would fall apart. We projected accurately and indeed in three years the Liberal government had the books balanced as we predicted.

Then it boasted that it had done it. No. It had little to do with it. It happened despite the government. We were able to accurately read the economic direction of not only this country but our neighbours to the south who influence us so greatly. We saw what was happening. Our predictions were squat on.

One could argue that it does not matter whether we are on the government side or not since we can accomplish the same thing from this side. We could do much better than the Liberals on that side because we would have accurate predictions.

The hon. member is saying that this would take us back into a deficit. That is not so. The plan we are projecting repriorizes spending in such a way that the wasteful spending would be gone. Those new priorities for Canadians would be met, and there would be no deficit. There will be under the Liberal government if it keeps on allowing different pet projects to go forward and with spending on all sorts of projects.