Blaine Calkins

[Business of Supply, November 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there are aspects of the motion that have merit and I know that the government is making progress in addressing those areas, such as the VIP. However, a number of points related to the Canadian Forces pension are inaccurate and what we need is a good, long study, and some clarity on these issues because not all parts of this motion are actually up to par.

[Business of Supply, November 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his question and for maybe toning down the rhetoric a little.

He obviously has a very serious issue in his constituency and any opportunity that the government has to take care of veterans and their widows should be examined and given every bit of due process. It is the veterans and their widows, the widows who stayed at home and supported the families while their spouses were off fighting on behalf of freedom and democracy for everybody in Canada and around the world, who should be afforded every reasonable opportunity to have the advantages of any of the pensionable benefits. I cannot speak on behalf of the government totally, but I can assure the hon. member that that is my personal feeling.

I wish he had spent as much time, when he had the opportunity as a member of the previous government, pushing for exactly what it is he is talking about today. He had that opportunity and if it did not get done he should seriously examine why his party could not get that done on his behalf.

I would like to talk about the numerous veterans in my riding who will be out in full force on November 11 at the various legions. I have about 15 legions across my riding and I will be glad to hear from them about the positive things that are coming from this government, with the new veterans charter and with the other health care initiatives that we are taking action on to ensure all veterans and their widows have an opportunity to get access to the services they need.

[Business of Supply, November 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Edmonton Centre.

I would like to thank the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore for introducing the motion. The debate could not come at a more appropriate time.

In the next week, Canadians will remember and pay tribute to those who risked their lives and too often paid the ultimate sacrifice for freedom and democracy. The very least we can do in the House is have an open, honest debate about the most important issues facing our veterans.

Like all things, context is important to understand to grasp the issue at hand. For me and thousands of veterans in Canada, that context began in 1995. In that year, the then minister of finance and former prime minister introduced the most heavy-handed budget in Canadian history. No one was spared. Cuts were made to health care, to post-secondary education, to infrastructure support and the list goes on. However, the most important and most tragic cuts were the ones he made to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Because of the cuts he made, thousands of allied war veterans were shut out from the benefits they should have rightly received. They settled in Canada after the war, paid taxes in Canada and helped build our great country, and this was the thanks they got from the Liberal government.

Because of the cuts he made, veterans had to pay to take a taxi to the doctor because of a $5 co-pay. Not only was that unfair, it directly targeted some of the most vulnerable in our society. While the Liberal Party was entrusted by Canadians to protect and respect the legacy of our veterans, all it could do was cut benefits and charge them for taxi rides.

Eleven more years of Liberal rule and nothing changed. Veterans found it harder to qualify for benefits. It took some veterans years of battling with the government to get even the smallest pension. These veterans again found themselves playing the role of brave soldier, only this time they were fighting battles with the Liberal government.

Then, the Liberal government, with the member for LaSalle—Émard in tow, asked itself how it could help more of its Liberal friends while ignoring what was best for Canadian veterans. The answer to that was the Veterans Review and Appeals Board.

After opening this new patronage machine, the former prime minister could not get his Liberal pals in place fast enough. I will give some examples of the appointments the former prime minister made. His former executive assistant, Denise Tremblay, received a five year term; former Liberal MP, Charlie Power, won the lottery with a seven year term; while fellow Liberal MP, Ian Murray, got himself a five year appointment. The other thing members should note is that no fewer than nine of the members on the board when we took government had either sat as a Liberal in Parliament, in a provincial legislature, had been an assistant to a Liberal minister or had worked for a Liberal member of Parliament. To put that in context, that was almost 50% of the members of the board in February 2006.

A few years down the road, in 2003, former Prime Minister Chrétien threatened 23,000 veterans' widows by saying that he would take away their veterans independence program benefits. This shameful act was met with outrage from the widows and their families. The former prime minister was taken to task by his caucus, not out of concern for the widows, but because they were afraid of losing their jobs.

The minister of the day defended the exclusion of the widows by saying that he could not include them because the prime minister would not give him any more money. How cold and shallow is that? These people sacrificed to give us the freedom we have today and the Liberals could only say “Sorry, we have no money”, despite the fact there were record surpluses at the time.

In any event, the member for LaSalle—Émard took over a sinking Liberal ship after forcing out the previous prime minister. What did that mean for veterans? Absolutely nothing. Not only did the right hon. member for LaSalle—Émard do nothing for our veterans, but he did not even mention them in either the 2004 or 2006 Liberal Party election platforms. That is incredible. How could the Liberal Party drop the ball so badly that it refused to include veterans in its campaign propaganda?

Did the veterans not register on the government's polls? Were they not good focus groups? Perhaps the Liberal brain trust was too busy finding things to insult current members of the Canadian Forces with their ridiculous attack ads. We will probably never know.

One final point on the do nothing reign of the right hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, and this is more to the credit of the current Prime Minister than anyone else, is the new veterans charter which was passed in May 2005, literally by the express consent of the opposition parties.

The former Liberal prime minister from LaSalle—Émard had to be forced by the other three opposition leaders to agree to the legislation. Even then, it took this Prime Minister and this Minister of Veterans Affairs to sign it into law.

However, that was then and this is now. I can say, on behalf of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Veterans Affairs, that our government has more respect for veterans than was shown by the official opposition in its 13 years of government.

I am confident that Canada's new government will raise the bar when it comes to treating our veterans with respect and dignity. There were 13 years of neglect, cuts and disrespect shown to our veterans by the previous Liberal administration. Canada's new government endeavours to undo those past 13 years and treat Canadian veterans with the respect they deserve.

Our new government will not use the Veterans Review and Appeal Board as a golden handshake for former parliamentarians or their staff. Our new government will change the Liberal culture of “deny until they die”, to one of compassion and fairness. Our new government will continue to support the Department of Veterans Affairs with new resources and initiatives to better the lives of our veterans. Our new government will also ensure that each and every veteran is receiving everything he or she is entitled to under the law.

We have achieved much for veterans during our short time in government. We have begun to fill vacancies on the Veterans Review and Appeal Board to serve veterans more quickly and we have added a national advertising campaign for board positions. We have put an additional $350 million into Veterans Affairs Canada to help new and traditional veterans and we have signed into law the new veterans charter, the biggest change in veterans' benefits in 60 years.

We ordered a review of all health services, including the veterans independence program.

We have done all that in a short period of time, and we still have a lot of time left to accomplish good things for veterans.

As for the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, I am supportive of his efforts with this motion but, as I noted earlier, there is a health care review currently underway and I am sure the minister will inform us of the results of that review in due course.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, October 26th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague talking on and on about the budget. He brought up several items that I thought were quite interesting. However, there is one part that I would like to talk to him about.

I have a background as an educator. I taught at a post-secondary level for five years. I have been a graduate of three post-secondary institutions with eight or nine years of post-secondary education behind me. Not once did I ever receive a tax credit or a tax write-off for my books. There was always money announced for education and so on, but not once did I get a tax credit for my books.

Another thing is, I applied for bursaries and for student loans, and a lot of this was under a Liberal government. I would apply for this money in the form of a student loan and I would get a little bit of money. Then I would go out and realize it was not enough to actually live on in Edmonton, or various other communities where I was living, to go to school. I would go to work and earn a little extra money for myself, so that I could help reduce the burden on the government. I would try to make it on my own, so that I would not be a burden on taxpayers because they were already generously paying 70% of my post-secondary costs to begin with on top of the fact that I was getting these student loans. The money was always clawed back .

So, in this budget which we see here, we are going to actually put money back into the hands of students. If we put money into education, a lot of it just gets swallowed by the system. As soon as organizations hear about more money coming in, there is always a rallying cry for more money to pay salaries and so on, but none of that money actually trickles down and benefits the students who are actually going there.

I would like to ask the hon. member if he is going to support this implementation which would put money back into the hands and the pockets of students to ensure that they will not have their bursaries and their scholarships clawed back when they have some extra cash for the hard work that they have done. Is he going to support that or is he going to reject this generous offer to students in Canada?

[Petitions, October 26th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from constituents dealing with same sex marriage.

The petition say that marriage, as the union of one man and one woman, excluding all others, is an institution and not merely a bundle of rights and benefits subject to the equality provisions of section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; that the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one women, excluding all others, is the foundation of families and of human society and pre-dates all states, governments and Parliaments; and that the proclamation of Marriage for Civil Purposes Act, tabled as Bill C-38 in the 38th Parliament of Canada, giving recognition in Canadian law that marriage for civil purposes is the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others, section 2, including persons of the same sex, is undermining the institutions of marriage and family and the well-being of Canadian society.

[Business of Supply, October 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague on the demographic time bomb issues. If I recall some of the information that I have read, by the year 2020, we could be faced with three workers paying for social programs in a 3:1 ratio versus 5:1, which we have right now. I am very concerned about our low birth rate and some of the issues we have with that.

If we are going to retrain people and if we are going to look at policies whereby we are encouraging people to stay in the workforce, based on the pilot project being examined right now by the government, when our government does puts recommendations forward based on these pilot projects and when we have well thought out strategies and policies dealing with keeping people in the workforce, can we count on the hon. member's support for that? The hon. member said he was looking forward to well thought out programs and policies.

[Petitions, October 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of 342 constituents. This is the third petition that has been tabled on this subject today.

The petitioners pray that the government, assembled in Parliament, take all measures necessary to immediately raise the age of consent from 14 years to 16 years of age.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, September 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for bringing the bill before the House but, based on the answer she just gave to the previous question, I am led to believe that somehow, if someone makes a lot of money and contributes more to the economy, that person's vote is worth more than the vote of someone who does not.

In keeping with the reasoning of her logic, I believe 6% of the gross domestic product of this country comes from Fort McMurray which has a population of 80,000. Based on that, perhaps Fort McMurray should have 6% of the vote of this country.

I would like her to elaborate on why it is that the money being generated from mineral resources is worth more than the individual person. It comes down to one person, one vote, equal representation across the country. I just cannot reconcile the member's logic in justifying the bill.

[Business of Supply, September 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Could you find some time to review the objective of the motion today? It is about women's issues, but we seem to be discussing budget cuts. If we could have some relevance on this, I would appreciate your ruling.

[Business of Supply, September 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her excellent speech. It was very refreshing to hear about the positive things that are happening for women in this country instead of the constant slander and victimization from the parties opposite.

I would like to point out to my hon. colleague that in Alberta, where we no longer have a provincial debt, we spend more money on social programs per capita than any other province.

I am wondering if the member could bring some sense as to why the Government of Canada just announced its major contribution to bringing down the national debt and what positive effect that is going to have for the future of all Canadians.