Bob Rae

[National Defence, April 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that is the same government that vilified the Parliamentary Budget Officer for his report and for his numbers, which have been completely vindicated by what the Auditor General had to say. It is the same government that denied the veracity of what was going on with the Congressional Budget Office in the United States.

When we asked the Prime Minister questions about what the Dutch prime minister was doing, he told everyone not to worry because we had a contract in Canada that would protect us from the rising costs, which would prove to be simply untrue.

When did the Prime Minister finally become aware of the fact that the information he had been giving the House of Commons was completely and utterly--

[National Defence, April 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the government is accepting the recommendations but it is not accepting responsibility. The Prime Minister is directly avoiding his responsibilities.

A $10 billion piece of misinformation does not happen by immaculate conception. Somebody misinformed somebody else. It happened.

When will the Prime Minister of Canada take clear responsibility for what took place? When will that happen?

[Pensions, April 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that this small-mindedness and mean-spiritedness has not left the government for one second with respect to what has taken place.

I would like to ask the minister one final question. One other comment the Minister of Finance made was that old age security was not a pension but a social program. I would like to ask the minister about another social program, the special allowance for the Prime Minister that comes, not out of any pension contribution, but out of general revenues. I would like to ask the minister, is the Prime Minister going to raise the age of that special allowance to age 67?

[Intergovernmental Affairs, April 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the question remains. The minister who just spoke is the same one who described the Premier of Ontario as the small man of Confederation. We are still seeing the same divisive spirit.

I will ask my question, which is very clear, once again: why attack one province and not others, such as British Columbia, Quebec or New Brunswick? Why is he attacking only Ontario? Why is he attacking the Ontario government like that?

[Intergovernmental Affairs, April 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Minister of Finance could explain to us why, when he was in Toronto on Friday, he took the opportunity to single out the Province of Ontario, accusing it of mismanaging its finances precisely at a time when it is the responsibility of the Minister of Finance to be speaking for all of Canada?

When are you going to speak for all of Canada and not just for the Conservatives?

[Public Safety, March 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety received a letter from the mother of student who goes to Canterbury High School in Ottawa. She says the member for Yorkton—Melville said some extraordinary things about giving people the right to carry arms and bear firearms and how that was good for public safety. He denied the statement, but now the woman in question has insisted that that is exactly what he said.

We also have the member for Calgary West who just put out an article saying “Where do we aim our guns now”, calling for even further weakening of our gun control legislation.

I would like to ask the minister, is it the policy of his government to encourage these expressions of vigilantism?

[41st General Election, March 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, one small item that struck me in the budget was that of all the cuts that were put forward, most were what we would call back-end loaded. That is to say, their full impact would take place in the next two or three years. The one exception to this was the cuts to Elections Canada which are up front in the first year, $7.5 million.

At a time when the Chief Electoral Officer has told us he has to deal with 800 complaints in 200 ridings, an unprecedented investigation is under way and never before in the history of the country have we had such an investigation, why would the government be cutting that budget?

[Pensions, March 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is giving examples of countries that have done the same thing. The problem with the minister's argument is that he is the one who is most likely to tell Canadians bluntly that there is no crisis in Canada, that the deficit has been taken care of, that we have no deficit problem, that there is no budget crisis, that we are different than other countries and that we lead the G7.

If that is all true, why punish the poorest Canadians? Why punish those who are most vulnerable?

[Pensions, March 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of the change in the old age security, the government never told the Canadian people that this was in its plans a year ago. If there was a demographic crisis, which the Conservatives are now pointing to, they would have known about it six months or a year ago. Why would the government introduce this change which is going to cost those who are eligible to receive OAS and GIS $30,000 for each person who qualifies? Why would the government do that, flying in the face of every major study which says Canada has—

[Ethics, March 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, when a Liberal government minister went to a fishing camp, the Prime Minister, who was then an opposition member, was the first one to demand that minister's resignation. He asked why the minister would not do the honourable thing under the circumstances.

Therefore, we should put the very same question to the Prime Minister. What has changed? We now have two clear examples of ethics issues involving the Minister of Industry. Why is he still in cabinet?