Chuck Strahl

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected and I will make no further reference to the boots.

However it does appear that taking the boots to some of these representations appears to be the purpose of this bill. While I originally prepared a 20 minute presentation detailing the entire pros and cons of a review process, I find now that it has unfortunately been reduced to 10 minutes because of this idea that closure somehow is in the best interest of democracy.

I think I need to summarize it in this way, since I have been restricted in my time. First, this thwarts the purpose of Parliament. Parliament is not to set boundaries to just jump in when members do not like what they see. Parliament is to set up a process. The process is in place. When it continually gets put off year after year it does nothing to enhance people's impression that this is truly a democratic and hands off process. That is the first principle, the principle that alarms me the most.

Second, as I mentioned, is this lack of proportional representation. I know the government says it is going to review it. It may have more, it may have less. Who knows what the review will come up with when the Liberals come up with these proposals? The fact is that we will go into the next election in British Columbia with fewer representatives than we deserve.

That has been going on since 1981. It appears it will go on through to the turn of the century with the same disproportionate representation that we had to go with this last time.

That is the second principle that is undesirable, the increased costs, the $5 million down the drain and the fact that we will not be able to use the extensive advertising. I have with me the sheet that describes the new boundaries which was delivered through the paper system to every household in Canada. Those costs are all for naught. Many of us prepared briefs and speeches for these advertised meetings. Our work is all for naught.

The fact is it is no longer an open process but instead, when things are not going their way, the process has been cut off. Another nail in the coffin of openness. In conclusion, I have a couple of proposals that I would like to make to the government.

First of all I would ask them to reconsider this whole idea of closure. I have sheets of Hansard that I dug up that I do not have time to read out today. I have almost three pages in the indexes from the last Parliament. It took three pages just to list the names of the speakers on the other side of the House that rose to speak against closure and time limitation.

It is a shame that when something that should be impartial and above reproach that government members, many of whom are listed in the three index pages, have chosen instead to clamp down on democratic discussion on this judicial process. It is a shame.

I cannot believe the government would use this bill to invoke closure to stifle free speech in the House. If it were not for the time constraints of Easter coming up the government would probably go on. It is a shame that to get a holiday they are going to invoke closure and clamp down on democratic free speech.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as many of my colleagues have to raise some concerns about the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act that we are debating in Parliament.

My own riding like everyone else's has come up for boundary readjustment under the current proposals. I saw a couple of weekends ago in the newspaper the boundary proposals. The changes to my boundaries are not putting a big smile on my face. I have an extension of the boundaries, way up into the Merritt-Princeton area. I now have a riding that encompasses everything from urban commuters to Vancouver, loggers and farmers in the middle of my riding, right up into Merritt-Princeton which is into ranching and mining and interior towns that have very little to do with the current constituency of Fraser Valley East.

I have some problems. I have made presentations in writing to the electoral boundaries people to tell them that I will be making presentations to them when the opportunity arises to try and persuade them that perhaps those cities are better served in the Kamloops riding.

I am not willing to suspend the boundaries readjustment just because my own personal boundary is not to my liking. There are several important principles involved here that need to be addressed and that have been neglected by the government.

The first reason I object to the suspension act is that it thwarts the purpose of Parliament in the electoral process. The Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act requires the readjustment of federal electoral boundaries every 10 years. There is a commission made up of three people. Three people form this commission. The chief justice of each province appoints a chairperson and the Speaker of the House of Commons, someone who sits in your chair, appoints the other two.

Both authorities who make up these commissions, the chief justice and the Speaker, share the characteristic of total impartiality. The commission that we are considering suspending is a completely impartial commission. We have to be careful in whatever deliberations we make in this House that we do not take away from impartiality where impartiality is necessary. We must make sure that any commission is not politically motivated in any way.

My first concern is about this purpose of Parliament. What is the purpose of Parliament?

I would put to you, Mr. Speaker, that the purpose of Parliament is not to interfere in independent judicial type bodies just because we do not happen to agree with the outcome. There is ample opportunity to make presentation to these boundaries commissions and I plan to do that, as I encourage every member to do. However, to step in at this stage and say that because some of the members of the government do not like the boundaries they are willing to thwart the entire purpose of the act is unconscionable.

Nowhere in the red book is there any mention that this act needed to be amended. Nowhere in the speech from the throne is there any idea or thought that this needed to be adjusted. The first whisper of this that came out was when the boundary readjustments came to the members opposite. Suddenly a crisis of monumental importance hit this House. It must be changed, it must be suspended, the judicial process must be set aside. Members opposite for some reason feel that they have to step in and somehow make it right.

I believe the public is going to see this very cynically. Why was this not an issue before? The reason, of course, is obvious. There is going to be political meddling in a judicial process and this political meddling is unconscionable.

Second, this matter has already been thwarted once before. Already we have had suspensions on this. Every 10 years we are supposed to have new boundary proposals. It has already been suspended once before. Now again we are going to set aside a $5 million commission, having already spent $5 million, when section 14 of the act says that each commission shall prepare with all reasonable dispatch a report setting out its recommendations.

The last instance was in 1991. Here we are in 1994 and we are again not going to have a readjustment. The proposal seems to be to put it off for a couple of more years. We will likely go into the turn of the century running on a 1981 census. That is totally unacceptable, which brings me to my third point, the province of British Columbia.

B.C. is the fastest growing province. Some 40,000 people from within Canada have moved to B.C., mostly from Ontario. The shift in the population is going westward. Thirty-five thousand additional people came from all other countries of the world. We received 20 per cent of Canada's immigration population. B.C. is a thriving region of the country.

By the looks of it we are going to go into the next election, whenever that may be, with the same seat distribution as we had in 1981. That is totally unacceptable. I do not understand, even if they were the best of intentions, which I question, why we would be saddled with inadequate representation going right through to the turn of the century.

There are other problems with this proposal. The proposal will increase the cost. Nowhere in the proposal by the government is there anything that suggests that this new review, another review, will save us money. It is just another review.

Every time politicians get involved in reviews and making proposals and considerations, the costs continue to rise. What will be the possible advantages? There may or may not be. History tells us, precedent has been set, that this is likely to cost us more money. It is a tremendous waste of the commissioners' time and our money.

Another point is the principle of openness. This needs to be dealt with openly. It needs to be seen to be open. It needs to be seen to be fair. It needs to be seen to be impartial. All of those things have been thwarted by this bill. This bill is a behind the scenes, I know better than you do attitude that we have seen, as we talked earlier in question period about business as usual. Instead of bringing this out for open discussion, instead of give and take on the floor of the House of Commons, instead of even bringing forward specific proposals, what we find here instead is a process that says: "We know best. Not only do we know best, we are not willing to allow opposition members to raise their concerns to their own liking. We are going to invoke closure".

I wonder when this government handed the new shoes to Mr. Martin if the new shoes were to step on this, to squelch any ideas of democracy-

[Government Contracts, March 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that the matter is under active review, but I believe there are enough questions of integrity on the particular issue that I would ask the minister, in order to clear this rather confusing and muddling answer, if he would initiate a public inquiry into this advertising contract to see if there has been any improper or political interference in the wording of the particular contract.

[Government Contracts, March 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

On November 4 last year the Prime Minister promised to examine the process of awarding advertising contracts. As yet no guidelines have been produced.

On February 1 a well known Liberal campaign manager who is also a close friend and former employee of the Minister of Human Resources Development became a director and owner of McKim Communications. Just three days later a federal contract worth $5.5 million was extended to him. On the surface this appears to be another example of business as usual. I assume the minister must approve all these contracts.

Besides the ownership of this company is the minister aware of an employee or an officer of McKim Communications who is closely related to a member of his own cabinet, and could he identify that person?

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Portneuf for his question. He raised a couple of interesting points. I am not exactly sure what Mr. Trudeau was thinking when he started us down this path. Perhaps it is just a Liberal frame of mind. I am not sure but time will tell.

I realize I am stretching it, but Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Mulroney have a similar problem or similar disease that afflicts new governments. It is called missed opportunities. When a new government takes the reins in Parliament it has a window of opportunity, which lasts a few months while the honeymoon period is on and while government members are glowing from ear to ear and from coast to coast, to make significant changes in the way that Parliament and Canada are run.

Both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Mulroney had a similar disease in that they missed opportunities. I am not sure exactly what the perception of Mr. Mulroney was in Quebec where he won a huge number of seats, but we voted for him in the west in 1984 because we thought we were electing a fiscally responsible voice that would ensure our concerns were upheld in Parliament.

During his first budget Mr. Mulroney missed a tremendous opportunity. People wanted a fiscally responsible budget brought down, but because of some vocal people who were naysayers he folded the tents and went scurrying with his tail between his legs.

If I could come now to the 35th Parliament, I fear from looking at the budget that we have a similar phenomenon. We have a populace leader of the government who seems to be very much in tune with people. He seems on the outside to be one of the little guys from Shawinigan, just a regular guy, but he missed an opportunity in the budget to change the course of the 35th Parliament. It will not get easier. If the hon. Minister of Finance thinks it will get easier as we get near the next election, he is totally wrong.

As the hon. member said, whether they received bad advice or did not catch the full vision of what people were sending them to Ottawa to do, I am not sure. Regardless of what it was, if an opportunity is missed at the start of a parliament to set the tone for what the government is trying to accomplish the opportunity will never come back.

Perhaps the government wonders why we make such a fuss about the borrowing authority, the budget and so on. It tells us to wait until next year, but we have heard this wait until next year stuff for at least 10 years and it never comes because it never gets easier.

Any time we shrug something off and think that a problem will go away on its own it is just wishful thinking and there is a famous road paved with wishful thinking.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak again on this bill. I spoke at second reading. I raised some concerns at that time, concerns that have been expressed to me not only in post budget days but during the lead-up and the entire campaign period last fall, even during the time I was nominated before I entered into the campaign mode.

This whole issue of deficit financing, the national debt, having to borrow and the fact that we are placing not only this nation and ourselves into a tremendous debt hole but are asking our children to try to dig us back out is an issue for which many of us in the Reform Party have become standard bearers.

One of the major concerns that brought the Reform Party into being was the fact that the fiscal mismanagement of successive federal governments has placed us in an untenable position for which we will be paying for generations.

When I first sought the nomination for Fraser Valley East the size of the deficit was forecast as perhaps going as high as $30 billion. This was a couple of years ago. At the time I have to admit it was the last straw that catapulted me into the federal election arena. Just the thought that I was going to saddle the nation with a deficit of $30 billion was more than I could stand. I am not sure whether there was a national uproar, but in my area it was such a concern that many of us joined the Reform Party and said that we would try to do something to turn the tide so that our children would not be adversely affected.

Thirty billion dollars is looking better every day. We are approaching a $45 billion deficit. By the government's own admission the best that it can hope for this year is in excess of $40 billion. Every day that the interest rate fluctuates or the dollar drops or the Minister of Finance has some musings, it changes the rates and the figures once again.

It was a real concern at $30 billion. Now that it is $40 billion or $45 billion, depending on who one wants to believe, it is even more of a concern. I would suggest it has gone from a concern to a pending and possibly imminent disaster.

Since it is bad and is getting worse we should describe, as the member did previously I think a little bit, the size of the debt and what it will mean to Canadians in the years to come. The debt is in excess of $500 billion, depending on the figures that were bandied about here a little bit earlier. Whether it is $16,000 per person or whatever, that only shows part of the picture. The other half of the picture, of course, is the added debt from the provinces, because there is only one taxpayer. Canadians are going to have to finance somehow by increased taxes, increased deficit, and more and more of these types of bills, borrowing authority acts, in all legislatures and Parliaments and that will continue to add to this burden for successive generations.

The deficit, which is a year to year accumulation of the shortfall in the revenues from expenditures, is going to be at least $40 billion this year. That alone is going to add increased burdens on all the people who can least afford it. I seldom see people worth $10 million or $20 million running for cover when these figures are bandied about. What bothers me and concerns me the most is that the people who are least able to shoulder this type of load, those on fixed incomes, the people who are relying on a government pension that they have faithfully paid into and expect to reap some benefit from, the people who are needing some temporary help from a temporary loss of employment through a UI program, no matter how it is revised, will have to pay the price and pay increased taxes and will in the long run experience decreased services.

I have a lot of concerns about that. These concerns have not gone away since I have come to Parliament. Over the last couple of months the concerns I think have been exacerbated by the signals being sent from the government side of the House.

It seems there is no concept of fiscal restraint. The budget papers states: "We will no longer nibble around the edges and just fuss with the minor details of the budget. This budget contains real cutbacks". That is what the government would have us believe. When I turn the page I see that the total expenditures of the federal government have increased from $160 billion to $163 billion.

How is that a cutback? It is not a cutback. It is increased spending. Our borrowing has increased, our taxes inevitably will go up, and our service inevitably will go down. That is a

problem. It is a concern to all of us. It certainly should be even more of a concern to the government side.

If that is the problem, and I believe the problem is what I have described, we are going to pass this problem on to successive generations. What can we possibly do to control the deficit? What can we do to bring under control the year to year deficit so that this borrowing authority that we are debating today will no longer be necessary?

We are not without examples of what can be done even within the Canadian jurisdiction, leaving New Zealand out of it for a moment. I know that is often bandied about. Within the Canadian jurisdiction there have been some examples of what can be done to control excessive spending by governments.

We have an example from Alberta in which the provincial government has grabbed the bull by the horns, if I may use a western expression, and has said that enough is enough, we can no longer afford to continue to spend and tax and spend, and expect to maintain services and a business environment that will assure prosperity in the future.

The premier of Alberta did the unthinkable in Canadian politics. He decided to get tough with some spending, and indeed he did get tough. Some people have done analyses on this and have suggested that if the federal government were to exercise as many spending cuts as the Alberta government proportionately, then it would have to slice $19 billion from its spending just to match the precedent set by Premier Klein in his budget. I am not saying Premier Klein's budget is perfect, but I use that as an example to show that it is possible to realize the severity of the problem. It is possible to reduce one's spending in real terms. It is possible to offer a light at the end of the tunnel for those Canadians concerned about the size of deficits, debts and the borrowing that is associated with it.

Of all things, and I never thought I would say this, there is even an example in my own province of British Columbia. I hate to think that the federal government cannot match an NDP budget, but the B.C. budget brought down yesterday announces tax cuts of $112 million. It will reduce its deficit this year to $189 million which is a tremendous step in the right direction for a government not known for its fiscal responsibility. It is offering certain tangible benefits to businesses and some of that famous light at the end of that famous tunnel.

For example, the Vancouver international airport, which is competing as all of B.C. must for Pacific rim business, is a big winner. The jet fuel taxes are being rolled back one cent to four cents a litre. Air cargo gets another boost. Last year's budget removed fuel taxes from cargo carriers altogether. There are ways to help businesses, consumers and people who are concerned about taxes, deficits and everything that just seems to snowball together. We can specifically reduce spending and by reducing that spending we can offer tax breaks to businesses, consumers and people on fixed incomes.

For instance, in the B.C. budget there were the mining tax breaks estimated to be worth $18 million. This is unprecedented in B.C. recent budgetary history. The people are concerned about increased taxes, increased borrowing and the never ending spiral of hopelessness that involves. Now that the government has seen the light, if I can use that expression again, it has actually reduced taxes in specific areas to help businesses help themselves. These businesses are not going to receive a grant, a handout, regional development aid or anything else. These businesses are going to receive tax breaks which is all that businesses require.

How many times have we heard small and medium sized businesses say that all they ask of government is to get out of their way and get off their backs so they can get on doing the job that they do best which is create jobs for Canadians?

As I said, I did not know that I would ever compliment the B.C. government on its ability to bring in a budget, but I am not going to be totally complimentary to it either. The B.C. budget also brought in some total budgetary spending increases of 3.5 per cent.

What would have happened in B.C. if instead of bringing in increased budgetary spending it had brought in a zero increase in budgetary spending? All of the similar cuts that I talked about earlier could have gone on. The cuts in overall taxation levels could have gone on. The reduction in the taxation for jet fuel and so on and so forth could have gone on. What if, instead of increasing the spending in other areas by 3.5 per cent, the B.C. government had brought in a zero increase budget? Instead of predicting a balanced budget by 1997 it could have brought in a balanced budget within its term, within the next year or two. That would have been a tremendous feather in its cap and may have turned the tide in the popularity contest which it seems to be losing at the current time.

Those are precedents that are within the Canadian round. If the federal government had brought in a zero increase budget and had just held flat at $160 billion, which is incredible as it is, but even if it had brought in that much without an extra $3 billion or $4 billion in spending, then this government I think would have been perceived by the Canadian people as being serious about addressing what may be a crisis problem of deficits, debt and borrowing.

My riding extends from Boston Bar, which is pre-riding boundary adjustment time, in the north which is basically a one industry town, a lumber town that derives almost its entire economic activity from the forestry industry. It extends down through Hope which starts to diversify a little. There is some mining and basically a lot more forestry activity and a lot of tourism. It extends down through the Chilliwack area where I live and where we diversify into agriculture and again lumbering and forestry continue to be important. There is a Canadian

forces base there. My riding extends right into the Abbotsford area which has almost another flavour unto itself. It has a lot of urban commuters who drive in to Vancouver and work in the big city and it has a lot of retirement people as well.

It does not matter where I go in my riding, whether I am talking to a lumberjack or a logger up in Boston Bar with his red strap suspenders and the whole ball of wax, if I talk to him about the size of the deficit and having to live within your means, that logger knows exactly what I am talking about. He will poke his finger into my chest and tell me to tell this government to quit spending money it does not have just like he has to manage things in his own household.

If I extend down into Hope and into Chilliwack where I live and talk to a dairy farmer there who is worried about GATT and NAFTA and all sorts of things, he will tell me again as he sticks his finger into my chest: "You tell that government to quit spending money it does not have. Quit borrowing money to spend on things we do not even need. Quit obligating my children to pay your debts. Tell that government to quit spending money".

If I go into Abbotsford where people live on a fixed income they will come up to me at a public meeting and tell me the same story. It does not matter what you do or where you live, the people know you have to live within your means.

As soon as you get an allowance of two bucks a week when you are 10 years old, you know you have to live within your means. This government has not learned this lesson yet. This is why this government's borrowing authority act is asking for an unprecedented amount of money to keep government going. It has not learned the lessons it should have learned by watching, if I may be so bold, the PC government of the last eight, nine or ten years.

If the government continues to spend this sort of money in the dollar amounts it is proposing, the electorate will turf it out at the next election with such a vengeance that we may again find a party decimated to the ranks with one or two people left. It has to listen to the Canadian people. The Canadian people want restraint. They want budgetary sanity brought back into government and they expect this government to do its part by restricting spending, bringing in a budget that does not include increased spending measures. Do it now. Do it not only for the people sitting here today but, more important, do it for the people of Canada who are demanding it.

I ask the government to reconsider this bill. Do not pass it. Do not ask for this amount of money. Bring in a budget that we can support, something with a cap on spending, and do it now.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member from Swift Current again for his presentation on the borrowing authority bill and to get away a little bit from the side issues. I guess they are all important, but to me it is a side issue, whether it affects agriculture per se or affects one region of the country more than another.

I would like to focus on the borrowing aspect of this bill, the authority that it is giving the Government of Canada to borrow

tens of billions of dollars at unknown interest rates, apparently ever on the increase, and the effect that is going to have on the government's budgetary predictions.

I wonder if the member from Swift Current would comment on yesterday's announcement of the three-quarter per cent jump in the Canadian prime and the effect he feels this will have on the government's budgetary predictions.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Portneuf for his speech.

That is as much as I can get out at this time, but it is going to come.

I would like to thank the member for his remarks. I am glad to see that he is concerned as many of us are with the size of not only the deficit but the size of the debt. The debt we all realize is driving this deficit problem that many of us at least on this side of the House seem to be quite concerned about.

I am also very pleased that he used the example of a national highway from sea to sea as an example of the size of the national debt. It is perhaps a symbolic gesture on his part of that continuity from ocean to ocean. I am glad he was willing to use that.

I know the previous speaker gave some detailed examples of what he thought should happen in order to address the size of the debt and the deficit, specifically the year to year deficit. Other than some duplication of services which I know can be streamlined, with the size of the debt surely the hon. member has some specific ideas for saving significant amounts of dollars in order to bring this deficit more in line.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on his maiden speech. I enjoyed it. I

thought he had a lot to say. I also enjoyed the fact that he put the details to his theories so that we could tell exactly what kind of budgetary savings were possible with his suggestions.

A while ago there was a comment in the editorial section of the Globe and Mail . It went something along the lines that sustained profligate borrowing by several generations of politicians is committing not only this generation but future generations of Canadians to a lower standard of living.

In the last few days we have seen some real interest rate fluctuations and so on. People are theorising that there has been not only a run on the Canadian dollar but a huge jump in interest rates because the government has been unable to control its profligate spending.

Could the member for Kootenay East give his opinion on the relationship between the growing size of our deficit and debt and the future of interest rates as he see them?

[Tariffs, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Prime Minister for his assurances and I ask for a further clarification.

If American negotiators attempt in these negotiations, in this bargaining, to pit Canadian grain farmers against Canadian producers of poultry, eggs and dairy products, will the government tell the Americans to take a flying leap?