Chuck Strahl

[Social Policy, February 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government threw Canada's financial dice for nine years, taking a terrible gamble with our tax money. It bet heavily on a rising economy hoping that the economy would outgrow the deficit and the problem would just somehow go away. As we know the economy did not grow fast enough and the result is today's fiscal disaster.

In the budget to be brought down this month let us hope the government realizes that good intentions, wishful thinking, or hoping that somehow the right cards will turn up will never put anyone to work. Governments should learn from the mistakes of the past.

Reformers have been warning for years that high deficits and high unemployment are directly related. We will seal the fate of our unemployed by allowing deficits to balloon out of control.

Any budgetary plan that trusts in luck as a basis of its fiscal policy will keep the unemployed out of work and that, you can bet on.

[Social Security System, February 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. Most of my discussion tonight was about my concern for families and the tax disincentives. For example, the court decision I quoted was that in the past somehow married couples were not treated the same as couples who decided to live together. That is what the court ruling referred to.

I have been talking about the need for the state through its tax laws and through other means to monetarily encourage families especially while they are raising children. That is basically what I was talking about. We have to find ways to make sure that we do not penalize people for trying to raise a family.

I do not have the motion in front of me, but it refers to children, young adults and families. I do not think anyone will dispute the idea that we need to support families because families are our future.

We see the government's role as supporting the financial needs of people rather than picking a program and stating: "This is the program you have to try to fit into, whether you are a square peg in a round hole". Instead we should say: "If you have a financial need, then the social contract is there to make sure you do not fall through the cracks and be left to your own devices".

[Social Security System, February 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and thank the member for the encouragement. He is taking quite a leap here from my discussion of family into the constitutional swamp, as we have talked about before, of trying to relate that somehow to Quebec and its relationship to Canada.

I would say that for many of us in the west if you are asking for the British Columbia perspective, or the perspective from where I come from and where I have been elected from, in many ways we do see Canada as a family in the sense that we think Canada has 10 parts, 10 equal members, 10 siblings, 10 people, all part of this family that together forms a country.

In many ways there is a support in the west, in B.C. particularly, for the idea that when you have a family everyone is treated equally. No one is put down and no one is elevated because a family works best when 10 provinces or 10 people are treated the same.

Although there are different programs and different priorities in different areas, and that is as it should be just as 10 children are unique, they are not treated specially, they are part of a 10 member family.

I will take the leap with the hon. member and I will talk about the family in that sense. Certainly, as has always been said in a family, all members are always welcome and all members are discouraged from leaving.

[Social Security System, February 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I consider it a privilege to debate the reform of social programs in the country. For many here today, reforming them to ensure both their sustainability and their availability to those who need them is a significant reason to have run for Parliament in 1993.

We feel grateful that the government has given all members a chance to air their views on this issue before legislation is introduced. I am sure that all members share my desire that backbenchers and constructive opposition members alike will be able to see reflections of these debates in the legislative program to come.

Certainly there is general agreement in this country on the need for reform of our social programs. Members on both sides of the House again agree that cosmetic changes are not enough.

Questions are being asked that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Is there a better way to deliver this program or service? Do we need it at all? Are there built-in disincentives to people who need to be fully self-supporting? How much do programs cost? Can we sustain them?

Watching the finance minister's pre-budget consultation in Calgary on the weekend, I was struck by widespread agreement on these issues. Almost everyone said that our current method of funding social programs is killing jobs and export opportunities, that less government intervention is better and that government needs to spend less, spend smarter and tax less.

Spending less does not mean taking Canada back into the dark ages. What it really means is that funding must be refocused and it is incumbent on this House to lay down the principles that will guide a rechannelling of program assistance in a way that is fair, effective and compassionate.

Other speakers have already discussed a number of principles. One of them is that spending in the future must be based on need rather than entitlement. People with high incomes do not need the same kind of help as those with low incomes. Therefore the fact that they belong to a particular ethnic or demographic group should not automatically entitle them to extra government support.

We feel that tomorrow's programs will be delivered more in concert with private groups. People in need will work with a community based network rather than those who are simply paid to supply them a service. These private groups may be part of the answer in helping an individual emerge from this chronic position of need.

There should be also a stated objective of other programs that recipients be required to undertake training or community service that will enable these people to acquire the skills that will reduce their future dependence upon governments.

These principles are significant. I have the privilege of addressing the most important principle this afternoon and this evening. That is the position of the family in relation to the state. This principle is important because it questions the assumption of the welfare state that has become entrenched in the post-war era, the assumption that has spurred this magnificent fiscal situation in which we find ourselves today.

I am speaking of the concept of the paternalistic state, the notion that the state or the government has the capacity or even the duty to somehow replace the family as the basic unit of nurture in our society.

This sentiment, while never accepted by most Canadians, was heralded when Bonnie Kreps announced to Maclean's magazine in 1969 that her group's objectives included getting rid of the conjugal family unit. For decades this idea has occasionally found its way on to the desks of government policy makers. Many feel today that families have been unappreciated and under supported as a result.

While the role of the family has been questioned, the concept of the state is also changing.

People are disillusioned. They no longer believe it is possible for government to provide all of the solutions. Certainly its scope is shrinking because of its financial problems. In a way this could be a positive thing because with a little help human relationships could fill in the gaps left by government programs.

The basic unit of care should not be a government cheque or the department of something or other or a social worker. The

unit must be the family. Society has yet to develop a better way to care for the young, protect the weak and attend to the elderly.

People who come from dysfunctional families need special help at times and then the government must step in to do the best it can for the individual, realizing that it will always be an inferior choice to a functioning and loving family.

In some ways governments have even played a part in encouraging dysfunctional families because they support people without reference to their family ties. An example is a young person who rebels and leaves home only to end up on some kind of government assistance, or the husband who moves to another province to shirk his responsibility to pay for court ordered support.

Governments should require people to demonstrate at least this minimum level of responsibility toward their relationships and this might even lead to an increased incentive to make families work.

There are other positive things government can do to encourage strong families. I would like to see some aspects of our tax structure changed, especially encouraging couples with children. Last year's tax ruling against married couples in an Alberta court sent a mixed message to Canadians. Incredibly, the courts ruled that while married couples have suffered tax discrimination in years past, it is acceptable because families have suffered less discrimination in the past than other stereotyped groups. Surely this was and is wrong.

Another positive change could involve day care. Those who advocate the welfare state would like to see government workers control the care of children. However, the Reform Party prefers a de-institutionalized setting that gives the choice to parents.

As Margaret Wente mentioned in her column in Saturday's Globe and Mail , if we really want to help parents, why not put extra money directly into their pockets and let them figure out how to spend it? The government's role would be relegated to licensing and monitoring day cares, allowing parents to choose their own system, be it a day care, a nanny or some other personalized arrangement.

I want to touch for a moment on the reasoning of the welfare state and why it can be damaging. Advocates of government solutions feel that the government is somehow objective and that families are unobjective, unenlightened bastions of conservatism.

While it is probably true that families are more conservative than your average university professor, I do not believe that there is any such thing as a value neutral objective authority. If the authority of the state replaced that of the family it would simply teach and impose its own values through that system.

It is quite clear to me that the values of big government are frequently a fundamentalist mish-mash of left wing, politically correct dogma that in its own way is far more conservative and legalistic than that held by most families. Any concerted, large scale attempt to replace the authority of the parent with that of the teacher, the social worker or even the courts will be resisted on this side of the House.

Where is this debate going to take us? We have heard some discouraging debates in the last few weeks, talk of maintaining universality regardless of need or broadening the tax base and changing RRSP rules. Each of these proposals would adversely affect families.

How will they hurt them? By maintaining or adding new programs at the urging of special interest groups or failing to address our debt and deficit problem squarely and honestly, by refusing to prioritise the dwindling resources of our government we will harm the most vulnerable in society, including young families, in the years to come.

There have also been glimmers of hope during these debates. Speaker after speaker has begun his or her speech with passionate thanks to the people who count the most to them, their families. During the one minute presentations that precede Question Period, many single out family members for special recognition. Honourable mention for the international year of the family continues to sprinkle our discussions.

The death certificate of the family has been written prematurely. Statistics will show that Canadians, especially our youth, hold a strong family life as a measure of true success. It is my conviction that history will judge legislators, at least in part, by the way we treat our families.

I would like to read a quote from someone who shared this concern: "Men say to us, `there is this problem with the family. How are we to preserve it? It seems to be dissolving before our eyes'. This has been true perhaps always and everywhere. Everywhere good things have seemed to be going. Yet everywhere they are merely struggling to their new birth".

The family has been under many stresses in this generation but it cannot be extinguished. It is merely struggling to its own sort of new birth.

Our social programs as well need to struggle for a new expression in order to serve the needs of Canadians. We have been discussing principles upon which this rebirth can stand. I would suggest to this House that any principle upon which our social programs are reordered must strengthen the social unit which forms the historic bedrock of our nation and that foundation upon which all strong nations are built, the family.

[Social Security System, February 2nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I would like to advise the House that pursuant to Standing Order 43, our speakers on this motion will be dividing their time in half.

[Peacekeeping, January 31st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, since 1947 Canada has distinguished itself among the global family of nations through its involvement in the UN peacekeeping function. One hundred thousand Canadians soldiers have participated in over 23 separate UN missions.

I would draw the attention of the House to the worthy personnel of One Combat Engineers Regiment located in my own constituency of Fraser Valley East. Four hundred and forty of their number have been deployed since 1992 in the former Yugoslavia.

In a short while 125 more will leave for this dangerous theatre. Our thoughts dwell with these men and women and the families they leave behind.

In the last century military conquerors were hailed as heroes. In this closing decade of the 20th century, let it be said that modern military heroes are those who conquer the worst of human nature. The House lauds the heroic and sacrificial efforts of the Canadian Armed Forces. Blessed are the peacemakers.

[Speech From The Throne, January 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed that speech. There were parts that I thought were particularly good. The admonitions to all of us in the House to fight inequality and discrimination are well taken and I think she will find widespread support on all sides of the House for those kinds of sentiments.

Many of us who sit at this end of the House come from a region of Canada that was deliberately populated by an immigration program that brought a lot of immigrants into Canada at a specific time. Therefore there is a lot of support for an immigration program and a wide acceptance of a large variety and degree of different backgrounds. I applaud those sentiments and I think they are well taken.

I particularly liked the comments about no special status. There is a large degree of support in western Canada and in my riding for the idea that there is no special status, that all people are Canadians regardless of their race, colour, language or background. That concept has wide acceptance.

What I would caution the minister about is how we fight inequality and discrimination. She should use with much caution this idea of an affirmative action plan. In Ontario Premier Rae tried to move into a realm where he was going to force something on to people they felt was unacceptable and he had to back down. The reason is that people want to be treated equally, not with special status.

That is my caution to the minister. I would ask her to comment on the idea that affirmative action sometimes does not bring about the result that I know she is trying to achieve.

[Speech From The Throne, January 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, some of the points the hon. member brings forth are valid in the sense that we recognized several years ago the inevitability of the GATT negotiations and the ruling on article XI(2)(c). That was never in question in the Reform Party. In fact we campaigned vigorously on it and took a lot of flak from members of the Liberal Party at the time which said that would never come to pass, that article XI(2)(c) was safe in their bosom.

Really that is what I am arguing about when I talk about order. Farmers were willing and are currently willing to live with the proposed tariffication rules of the GATT. However starting on December 29 and every week since I have asked the Minister of Agriculture for a legal opinion of even why he believes that the GATT ruling will supersede NAFTA because the Americans say otherwise. I have yet to receive a response to my request.

There again, that just creates more indecision and uncertainty in the farming community which is really only looking for that stability. Farmers are willing to work under the new rules but they need to know what the rules are.

Two years ago we proposed that the GATT negotiations should be successfully completed and that we should have negotiated the proper tariffication protection for our farmers at that time. We feel that had we proceeded then while we still had some bargaining chips in our hands we could have made a good deal for Canadian farmers that would have been negotiated rather than brought through the courts.

Really I am not arguing with the completion of GATT. My argument stems from the fact that it should have been planned. I think even at this late date if we can somehow assure our farmers that GATT will proceed, that GATT will supersede NAFTA, then they will proceed with confidence and do the investing, exporting and so on that brings prosperity to that industry.

[Speech From The Throne, January 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my maiden speech by taking a moment to thank the constituents of Fraser Valley East for the trust they have placed in me. I will be doing my utmost to earn their continued confidence in the months and the years ahead.

I also thank my own family for their ongoing sacrifice and support. If, as many people say, a nation is only as strong as its families then in this International Year of the Family we must emphasize the importance of the nuclear family in our own country. My own family, Deb and Karina, Mark, Loni and Kyla, can rest assured that for me every year is the year of the family.

Listening to the speeches in the House during the throne speech debate has been very enlightening. Each member describes their riding as the most beautiful one in all of Canada, representing the best that Canada has to offer. Each of these speeches comes from the heart. They bode well for the future of our country if the members of Parliament will emphasize the positive themes that make us distinctively Canadian.

As a proud Canadian representing a proud area of Canada, I will fulfil my mandate as a positive, constructive opposition member in the 35th Parliament.

I come from a constituency that has given much and yet has even more to offer to the Canadian way of life. We can all take pride in the 1 Combat Engineer Regiment from Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack, a regiment that has represented us so well in Croatia. Often during Tuesday's debate on our peacekeeping role my thoughts were with the soldiers of 1 CER and their families as they prepare to go back into that very dangerous arena. We salute them all.

I could talk for a long time about my riding. Our forest industry has provided jobs for a century and continues to offer exciting opportunities for the future. From farms to flowers, high mountains and hot springs, our area is so colourful that we call it rainbow country. Tourism, fishing, golfing, unmatched scenery and warm weather year round make Fraser Valley East one of the finest places in Canada to live, to work and to play. All members are invited to B.C. to see for themselves.

I want to bring the attention of the House to a matter of great concern for the people who live in B.C.'s beautiful Fraser Valley.

Most Canadians can take satisfaction in the successful conclusion of the recent GATT agreement. The Reform Party believes that much of Canada's future prosperity is dependent upon the security of our export markets. To the extent that the Liberal government has secured this access we commend it. Consumers and western grain producers will benefit. Lowering import barriers will allow in turn our high quality Canadian products into more world markets.

However, in any deal there are winners and losers. I want to express the concern of my constituents especially in the poultry and dairy sectors. They were the losers at the GATT table. They were left swinging in the shifting wind by this deal, uncertain of their future. Many of these hard-working people have invested heavily in land, buildings, equipment and livestock. Most have purchased the right to produce at great cost. However the value of their quota could now drop drastically. It depends on the American response to the proposed Canadian tariffs.

What if the U.S. challenges our tariffs under the NAFTA agreement and wins? It is going to try. Promises that everything will be fine made by the agriculture minister last week in the House ring hollow compared with the stirring election promises that they will go to the wall for our producers in the GATT negotiations. A poet once said that a promise made is a debt unpaid. Many farmers are counting on the government for an IOU given during the election, the promise of a secure future. Many are concerned that a lack of foresight yesterday and wishful thinking today may spell disaster for their system tomorrow.

It is not just a system we are talking about. In Canada, it is an $8 billion a year industry. It is a way of life for 100,000 families who stand to be stripped bare by the global market. They feel they have been left naked by a government spending too much time promoting its much ballyhooed infrastructure program and not enough time tending to the bread and butter businesses that actually generate wealth in this country.

Does the Liberal government have a plan for agriculture? As of last week, we still could not find out who in the Liberal caucus was a member of their own agriculture committee. It is unsettling when a simple request for information from the minister a month ago not only went unanswered but unacknowledged. Worse, we hear that officials in the agriculture department admit there is no contingency plan if Canadian tariffs should fall under a NAFTA ruling.

The Reform Party has had a detailed plan for over three years now. Let me share with this House just a few of the principles from our agricultural program that should guide this government in the months ahead.

The first is summed up in just one word: Order. For all its flaws, supply management ensured a stable, orderly production climate and the government must now work to ensure that the transition from a managed to an unmanaged environment will be orderly. Because of the long cycles of crop yields and livestock renewal, predictability on the part of the government is essential to the farmer.

The throne speech repeated the second important principle and I quote: "The government will assist Canadian companies to translate improved market access into greater export sales". Access to markets is the key to future prosperity and for that we support the successful completion of the GATT negotiations. What we do not need is another level of bureaucracy to grind this search to a halt. Let aggressive companies search out new markets and develop new value-added products.

The third and final principle is the most important. Although the Liberal government expressed a vague intention a few months ago to reduce agricultural input costs, the House will note that Preston Manning delivered a keynote address on this subject over three years ago. Input costs, especially input costs caused by excessive taxation levels is one cost area we can control within Canada.

We envisage a day when the government assists our industry to compete by eliminating the interprovincial trade barriers-recent agreements are a step in the right direction-and by pushing aside antiquated regulations that impede our producers, restrictions that our neighbours to the south do not suffer from, a time when the government levels up the north-south playing field and lets our industries score the goals for Canada.

Our farmers are among the world's most efficient, but even the best farmers cannot overcome taxation levels and costs that are higher than those faced by their American counterparts. The elusive level playing field will never be possible until the government cuts federal spending resulting in a lower level of taxation for all Canadians, including farmers. Our producers can do the job but the government must supply this tool of competitiveness.

Reformers were talking about this for years and marketing boards, farmers and small businesses throughout my riding are in agreement on this issue. They have repeatedly urged governments at all levels to reduce taxes and cut the red tape that impedes growth, to get out of their pockets and off their backs so they can do what they do best: create jobs, create exports, and create wealth for my riding, for all of B.C., and for all of Canada.

We have talked for years about this subject but it is time to actually do something. The Liberals have a clear majority in the House but it remains to be seen if they have the will to push through on these reforms. I remind the minister that the Canadian people are reluctant to accept talk any more. They are

judging this government and all governments every day by their performance.

Over the past two years we have repeatedly invited other party leaders to debate this important subject. We have repeatedly asked them to place their ideas on the table for discussion, to help our industry plan for the future. Those invitations were never accepted. Now we see why. The ideas just were not there. The opposition party of yesterday, today's governing party, did not take the time to develop a well-reasoned agricultural policy.

To conclude, the Liberal red book is over 100 pages in length yet it has devoted a full four sentences to its agricultural agenda. That is all, four sentences. The throne speech did not even mention the word agriculture and I hope along with my riding's farmers that this does not reflect the priority that the government places on our own agriculture ministry.

It is especially unfortunate because the essence of real leadership is setting broad goals with the input of all the stakeholders, making public a detailed agenda to meet those goals and then pressing ahead with the plan. Our producers can run with the best in the world, but they can never win on an undefined course.

If GATT and NAFTA form the new rule book that farmers must take to the field in the next few years they will need the right equipment. Only stability, lower taxes, less red tape and an even chance in the marketplace will equip our industry, including the agriculture industry in Fraser Valley East, to proceed with confidence into the 21st century.

[International Maritime Organization, January 27th, 1994]

I will speak slowly. Will the government move to eliminate this example of triple-dipping from the government as well?