Bob Nault

[Status Of Women, June 17th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious what happened to the money. The agreement that was suggested, put forward to the provinces, was not accepted by the provinces. The federal government then of course came back to the drawing board and is interested in having a discussion with the provinces.

If the provinces want to make a proposal to the federal government we would be very interested in seeing the proposal. When that happens we will make comments on it, when we know what the provinces would like to see in the field of child care.

[Financial Administration Act, June 13th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, the member has been told a number of times what is going on. It is

obvious to all of us that Human Resources Canada is consolidating and centralizing the administration and processing functions.

When that is done, it stands to reason that service in certain areas will be reduced and employees will be moved from one place to another. That is how the administrative savings being sought will be achieved.

It is no different in this member's riding than it is in mine. In my riding of Kenora-Rainy River we went through the same thing, but we seem to understand it a lot better.

The key is that when the numbers of employees are reduced, we must make sure that their function in the administrative process continues to have front line service. We continue to say that the intent of improving the system is to maintain the front line service for communities so that service will adequately respond to the needs of individuals.

This is a two year process. Once it is in place, the hon. member will see that the front line employees will still be available to look after the needs of individuals. With the kiosks and mail service centres restructured, he will see that it will work as well in his riding as it does in mine. It is fortunate for us that our ridings are similar. Once he gets a chance to see the service in action, he willknow that the minister's answer to him in the House of Commons was correct. This is an administrative improvement, not a chance to reduce service.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, in his remarks the member made suggestions about two systems of law and that in certain parts of the country alcohol and firearms are being smuggled in. Those are serious allegations.

The member has some background in the legal system and in law enforcement. I would be interested in knowing whether he has proof of these allegations. If he does, why has he not brought it forward or is it just more Reform rhetoric, taking it to the extreme? There is some smuggling, which is probably true but to make it sound like it is coming in by the truckload to Cornwall, I think is a little far fetched.

Would the member tell us where he is getting his statistics and whether there is any validity to them? Could he also tell us which communities he is referring to? He is being somewhat careful with his wording. My understanding is that he is referring to aboriginal communities. If that is right, then why not come out and say so?

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, first of all, the member is wrong when he says you cannot put your tax dollars toward a French school. I have a house in Ottawa. I bought it a couple of years ago. I put my tax dollars toward a French separate school system. They came to the house and asked which system I wanted to be under and I put it there. The member is factually wrong and should stop saying that.

If the member is so concerned about bilingualism nationally why is it that Quebec is not bilingual? Quite frankly, it is grossly unfair to suggest we have a bilingual country but New Brunswick is the only bilingual place, and Quebec is not.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I had a difficult time following the member's debate based on the Reform motion. Nonetheless, I would like to ask him a fairly obvious question.

As separatists, his party is advocating that Quebec leave Canada. At the same time he is spending a lot of time complaining about the non-existence of the French language outside Quebec.

The province of Ontario, the province of Quebec and all other provinces control their educational system. Quebec controls immigration. It also controls labour markets, labour market adjustment and training. We are now in the process of transferring that area to the province of Quebec.

The province of Quebec has all the tools to protect its French language. The premier of Quebec has stated categorically that he would protect minority rights in Quebec, which means that English would still be a part of Quebec's culture, unless they are suggesting everyone who is English leave.

I would like to know from the member, as a separatist, where he is coming from. Is there a fear that French will disappear if Quebec stays in Canada? Is there a fear that unless things are done differently the French fact in North America will not exist? Can he explain to me what will be better under a separate country as far as the ability to keep the French fact in North America?

Why does Quebec not have a policy to help French speaking people in the rest of Canada? Why does Quebec not seem to have an interest in French people outside Quebec? Why does it continue to tell its population that in provinces such as Ontario there are no French people? We know that is not the case.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

We will pass it in one day. It will not take us long. I would vote for it because I do not think Reformers are worth the money they are being paid. I know I am because I have one of the largest ridings in Canada. I have 80 communities, 46 reserves. I would like to bring my little friend from Medicine Hat on a three or four week trip up north on a float plane. He would come back a lot skinnier than he is now.

I want to make it clear that that sanctimonious attitude is the reason this country is in trouble now. We are working very hard to clean it up. Canadians will not buy into his party's nonsense.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, the member made the exact point I was hoping he would make.

I never said there was anything wrong with giving the leader a slush fund, if that is what they want to call it. They do not want to call it the suit allowance, so we can call it a slush fund, an entertainment allowance or whatever. I understand that as the leader there are many other activities involved which involve a lot of expense that average members of Parliament would not have to deal with.

My issue is with the sanctimonious attitude of the member across the way. He pretends that no one in the Reform Party would ever have the gall to do anything like that. Just admit that there are certain things to being an MP that are necessary, that funds have to be allowed for them and then we can get off this little sanctimonious trip his party is on.

I have seen this before. I come from the labour movement. I have listened to the NDP for years and years and years with their pie in the sky kind of attitude and their sanctimonious attitude toward how government is run. Then we brought in our good friend Bob Rae in Ontario where I come from. Then the people really saw what it was like and what the NDP was capable of doing and not doing.

The people of Canada should be careful not to buy into this nonsense across the way and giving them the chance to run this country. They will do what Brian Mulroney did. They will do what Bob Rae did. They cannot give us the kinds of policies they are proposing without completely raising Cain and ruining Canada's economy. I am very fearful that someone will buy into this rhetoric.

About my pension. The member said I got a raise in my pension. I have been here since 1988. I am on my eighth year. My pension was cut by 33 per cent. The member across the way does not have to worry about that because he will not get elected again and he does not have a pension. However I have a pension which is fine. I have a family. I have a young child at home and a wife who does not work. In this job it is pretty tough for my spouse to work when I am on the road. I represent one-fifth of Ontario's land mass.

What I dislike the most is when a member stands up and suggests that I got a raise when in fact I got a 33 per cent cut. I am not saying I am underpaid, but at least be honest. If the pension is too lucrative for his liking, then we will give him another cut in pay. If he wants to work for less than we do, we will oblige him. He can send us a letter from his House leader and we will see what we can do through a private member's bill.

My friend from North Vancouver likes to sponsor private members' bills that do not make much sense. Bring one in that says the Reform Party will work for free and we will pass it in a big hurry.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, the next issue is the one that my chirpy friend is talking about and that is the debt.

There is no doubt that the Liberals are going to deal with the debt. We have a strategy to deal with it because it is a major issue. We cannot deal with the debt until we deal with the deficit, get our fiscal house in order and clean up the mess of the Mulroney years.

When I sat in opposition there were 42 cabinet ministers over here. They took up two and a half rows of seats. They all had their fancy limos. They all ran around creating programs. We have come in with a very streamlined and clean government which is working toward improving the economy. I want to prove that we have.

So far I have explained to everyone in the House and across Canada that we have met our commitments in moving toward a balanced budget. We have worked very hard at that. We have had to make tough choices.

If the party across the way were to be different than the Tory party of old, it would admit that the government has done a very good job as it relates to that issue, even though it has been tough. None of us on this side are happy when programs are cut because we are Liberals. Liberals like to give service to the Canadian people. Liberals do not rejoice when somebody is cut off. We do not rejoice when a program is cut because it hurts people.

Therefore we do not spend our time running around the country saying: "Man, are we ever doing a good job cutting the deficit," because it hurts. We just carry on with other areas by focusing on issues that we think are important.

I want to talk about the government's record on jobs. The member talked about that at the end of his speech. I do not want to talk about it very long. It is a pretty darn good record. Quite frankly anybody should be proud of it. The question Canadians should ask is: "Are we better off than we were before? Are we better off now with this government than we were under the old government? Are the directions, the policies and the programs of this government proving to be successful in going where we want to go?"

There are key indicators that should show that. One of course is interest rates. They are at the lowest in 30 years. The inflation rate is at the lowest in 30 years. The bond raters and even the Globe and Mail said that the government has really got its act together and is going in the right direction. That is two areas.

The other area is job creation. Nobody in this Chamber will say that Liberals are happy with the unemployment rate because they are not. If we had our way we would like to see the unemployment rate down to the lowest level that it has ever been in history or at least lower than it has ever been in my lifetime and that is under5 per cent. We have a long way to go because the rate is still over9 per cent.

I want to lay these facts on the table. Perhaps the Reform's research is not very good. If the Reform members would ask us we would send the facts over to them.

Reformers continue to pretend that something is not working in the government as it relates to jobs and strategy but the numbers do not prove that. Six hundred and thirty-six thousand more Canadians have jobs than when we took office. That is not bad. The average gain in 1996 has been roughly 30,000 more jobs every month since December. Full time jobs were up 47,000 in April. That is the fifth month in a row there has been growth in jobs. Most of the increase in that month was in the manufacturing sector with 37,000 very good, high quality jobs.

Another issue which I find very cynical about the Reform members, as sanctimonious as they can get, is that they pretend there is some sort of conspiracy over here. They just want to be very selective in their facts.

Let me give the reason the unemployment rate has not gone down as fast as it should even though jobs have been created. The labour force was up 54,000 in April and up 137,000 since October 1995. What does that mean? It means people who had quit looking for work over a number of years are now beginning to look for work and are finding work. The labour force is getting bigger which changes the numbers and makes it look in some cases as if the unemployment rate is not going down as fast as it should. The reason is that people are now getting so much a sense that the government is going in the right direction that there is hope and they are now looking for work more than they ever have before.

Another statistic comes from the private sector. This is another indication of how well the government's policies are working. Twenty-three per cent of employers told Manpower Temporary Services, which is a private sector group that does monitoring of this, that they expected to increase staffing in the third quarter of 1996. This survey found that 23 per cent of employers expected that they would be hiring more employees.

In northern Ontario, 40 per cent of the employers in the Sudbury area expect to hire more people in this next quarter. Thirty-three per cent of the employers in the Thunder Bay area, which is close to where I am from, said they expected to hire more individuals because of the faith they have in the economy and because of the policies of this government. This comes from a private sector

group which knows that growth is coming and that we have our fiscal house in order and the benefits are beginning to show.

In the last budget we focused on certain areas. I could spend another hour talking about the nonsense motion of the Reform Party simply because it shows just how desperate Reformers have become. I know how frustrating it can be to be at the same level in the polls as the Conservatives were two and one-half years ago during the 1993 election. They were hovering around 12 per cent. Those were the good days. That is about where the Reformers have been hovering around. Sometimes they jump to 16 per cent, the odd time when somebody says the right thing. I can understand why they would get very depressed and why they would have a nonsense motion like this one.

Let us remember that in the last budget we said that because we could not raise taxes, which we recognized, and because we knew we had to deal with the deficit and debt, we would have to repriorize some of our spending. We focused on three areas: youth, technology and trade. A multitude of things are going on with respect to youth, which I wish I had some time to talk about but I do not. There is also technology and trade, the Team Canada approach and the $20 billion worth of trade and exports we have been able to help employers with because of the priority we put on international trade. Those are the kinds of things Canadians expect us to do.

In closing, I will tell the opposition members about this government's very good record and the integrity it has brought back to this place. I can understand how difficult it can be for right wingers to understand what integrity is. They had to live through the Brian Mulroney government and all of the scandals that I lived through between 1984-88 and 1988-93 when some 20-odd ministers had to pack their bags and wonder off. Of course they voted for those folks.

Let me give Reformers one bit of advice. If they are going to be successful as a party they are going to have to do it based on facts, not on fiction and not on trying to scare Canadians that this party is doing a bad job. Talking to my constituents and the polls prove to me every day that we are doing the right thing. We are improving people's plight every day and we are working very hard at it. We are not doing it overnight but we are making a difference.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

The member who is chirping in his seat used to be a lot closer to the front. He moved to the back, as he must have had the odd occasion to vote against his leader.

That was one promise which the Reform Party made. When we run in the next election we will be able to say that they are free to vote with their constituents, but, quite frankly, we know that the leader of the third party muzzles his members.

Speaking of muzzling, we now know that the party is very similar to the Tory party of Brian Mulroney. A few members have been placed in the penalty box. They were muzzled because they were too extreme. If a member of the Reform Party wants to be extreme, let him be extreme. Quite frankly, that is the philosophy of the party. That is what the party projects out on the hustings. I have heard that on many occasions from the members who were booted out by the party because of things they have said about certain individuals in society.

The member, when he made his speech, continued to suggest, in sort of a roundabout way, that somebody is on the take and that there is some sort of conspiracy going on. That is the theory I heard during the election campaign from the Reform candidate.

This member has followed through, saying that there are evil people out there who are running the government and who do not care about the people of Canada. After hearing statements like that, that is why the people in Canada are cynical. Had he taken the facts and said this is what I am disappointed about, this is what the

government can improve, and talk about it, then it would be a reasonable debate.

We could have a debate on what the Reform Party would do about the GST. When I was in opposition we had that debate. It would be a good debate. I would love to have a discussion about taxation and about what could do done differently.

All the member wants to talk about is poor old Sheila Copps, how she made a mistake, how terrible it is, how deceiving it is. Yes, she has paid a price. She has admitted that she was wrong. She has admitted that she went further than the red book.

I campaigned on the red book. I can tell members that my little Reform friends in Kenora-Rainy River spent about two months trying to figure out whether I said something I was not supposed to say about the GST. My friends in the press have come back to me and said that I must have followed the red book very closely because I am pretty clean. They have spent weeks trying to figure it out.

Many of us on this side ran on the red book. We knew changes had to be made to the GST but in this place, like everywhere else, people make mistakes.

The member suggested that the government has broken all its promises. We are human and err. We are willing to admit that we make mistakes. However, the member stated that everybody on this side has become as bad as Brian Mulroney. I was here. I know why the Tories have only two seats. I know why there are two children of the Tory party on that side of the House: one is a separatist party and one is so far right wing that its policies are extreme because that is the way it is on the far right. Those are the facts and the reality.

Remember also there is the odd moderate in that party. One was kicked out and it has a couple more to go and I suspect it will not be long before they are out. One of them is laughing across the way. He is probably closest to being a moderate.

Reform will get rid of them because they do not fit into where this party is going. I look forward to the Vancouver convention when Reform makes it quite clear to the few moderates there are that they have to go. They just do not fit into the mould of the Reform Party, which is the very cynical view of how politicians and Canada work. It is unfortunate that it continues to portray that as the economy gets better and better.

I have one last little point to make about what makes me angry about this silly little motion we are debating today. The leader of the third party has a suit allowance paid by taxpayers' money. Remember how different these members were going to be. Heaven knows, my wife would like it if I had a suit allowance paid by the taxpayers of Canada. She does the shopping. If you do not like my suit, Madam Speaker, it is my wife's fault.

I am very disappointed in the member across the way who portrays his party as so sanctimonious and lily white, as a party that has never done anything the public would disagree with. Meanwhile, the leader of the third party is down at Moore's shopping for free suits at taxpayers' expense.

That is the fun I thought I would have in relating to the people of Canada why the Reform Party is in such disarray. It is pretty obvious to me when we see a motion like this that this party is running out of steam. Its members are looking for things to use to criticize the government, but they cannot find them because things are starting to improve in the economy.

As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development, my role is to talk about job creation and the improvements that occur in the economy because of the economic policies of this government.

The government has had to make some very difficult choices. We admit that. We came in after the right wing government of Brian Mulroney. The folks across the way voted for but did not want to get branded with the mistakes made Brian Mulroney and his Tory party, therefore they started their own party. They do not want to take responsibility for that mess. I can understand that. I would not want to be part of that party either if I had to admit that I voted for those folks on a number of occasions. I can tell members from experience that I never voted any other way, but one way.

I do not have to pretend that I flip-flop on which party I belong to. It is very clear to me that the reason why that party exists is because its members did not want to take responsibility for the Mulroney years and I quite frankly do not blame them.

The Liberals came into a total mess, after a right wing party had said it was going to be fiscally responsible, good managers of the economy, that it would deal with the deficit and the debt. Its biggest issue during the 1984 campaign was that the Liberals could not manage the economy. When we came in there was a $42 billion annual deficit. We have a huge debt. We know we are going to have to deal with that and we are working toward that.

Since coming into power the deficit has been reduced by $25 billion. Members opposite are not saying: "That is pretty darn good". When the right wingers were in power the deficit never went down, it always went up. After three years the government will be able to show the Canadian public at the end of this fiscal year that the deficit is down to $17 billion.

I cannot guarantee this because I do not know how the economy is going to react, but I am very sure that if the economy continues at

the rate it is going by 1998-99 the budget will be balanced. What are those folks across the way going to say then? Are they going to do what they are doing now and say: "They are terrible managers"?

It is because of the policies of this government that we have now proven-

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I do not know whether to cry or to laugh. Today we could have had the opportunity to debate a very serious manner, the business of looking after the Canadian people, and at the same time the opposition could bring forward suggestions and ideas. Instead we have a nonsense motion which really does not do anything except signify to the Canadian public and to members of Parliament, on this side at least, that the old Tory party is back.

There are two children of the Conservative Party on that side of the House. The reason the Bloc was created was because its members were not happy with Brian Mulroney so another party was formed. The reason the Reform Party was created was because its members were not happy with Brian Mulroney's Conservative Party so they created another party.

Only one Reform member was around in the Mulroney years. The Reform movement was very concerned about the Conservative Party and where the right wing was going so it started its own party. During the process of becoming a new party those members said they would be different. That was one of the major promises of the Reform Party during the last election. They said they would come to the House of Commons to change things.

I have been in the House almost eight years and I have seen many interesting politicians come and go. I have seen many interesting motions from the opposition. However, I have never seen a motion as difficult as this one is to be serious about. We should be sad. I will try not to laugh because we have to try to bring some points forward today. I will do that because it is important for the Canadian public to see how ridiculous the reformed Conservative Party has become and how much disarray there is within the party.

I will spend some time talking about the government's record as it relates to job creation and the economy. That is important. The member opposite just finished telling us that the economy has not improved, that the economy is falling apart, that the economy under the government has not made any significant improvements. I want to put on the record some factual information, not simply rhetoric.

Before I do that I would like to have a bit of fun. It is important for people to know just how bad the Reform Party has become as the new child of the Conservative Party.

I recall during the last election campaign, when I ran against the Reform Party for the first time, that its members said they would come to the House to be different. They were going to represent their constituents and they were going to have all sorts of free votes. We know that the leader of the third party does not allow free votes. They pretend they do, but you never see any major free votes over there. You get the odd person who votes against the party. When a member votes against the party, their seats keep going backward.