Dan McTeague

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to hear that the hon. member and her party support the initiative of so many members of our caucus as well.

It will not be a surprise that in the 1950s the Canadian government concluded an agreement with western Canada, particularly with the province of Alberta, to provide an extra 5¢ a gallon to ensure we could develop the infrastructure in Alberta, which would be good not only for Alberta but for the entire country.

That government and successive governments never abrogated that agreement, recognizing at the same time that the revenues would flow to the provinces and at the same time there would be a subsidy in order to make this infrastructure a reality that we are benefiting from today.

I have a question for the hon. member. Given the success we have seen in western Canada, and a good number of members of Parliament can speak to this very well, what would be the overall impact of a respected Atlantic accord in terms of bolstering the economy of Atlantic Canada for her constituents and the Maritimes in general simply because the Prime Minister had the temerity to break a promise? What does that mean in terms of lost opportunities for the people of Atlantic Canada?

[Canadian Forces, May 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, that minister can then produce the document proving that direction, here and now in this House of Commons.

The Dinning family is here today. However, the family should not have to come to Ottawa with cap in hand to look after something that our soldiers clearly deserve. Their son gave his life for this country. Paying for the funeral should have been very obvious.

However, the defence minister chose to mislead this House and today, at a hastily arranged press conference, he tried to cover up his incompetence and transfer the blame to DND officials.

Why do the Conservatives move to correct their bungling only when their incompetence and misleading statements finally catch up with them?

[National Defence, May 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, either the minister has no idea what is going on in his own department or he misled the House. Which is it?

Is the minister ready to admit that this fiasco is a shameful insult to all the families involved and to all Canadians who believed that the government would have the decency and the ability to pay for the funerals of our brave soldiers, yes or no?

[National Defence, May 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of National Defence said that upon attaining office he directed his department to pay the full burial costs for fallen soldiers and to review the existing Treasury Board policy.

Would the minister like to correct another in his series of errors now that the families and his own officials say that he is wrong? Will he now admit that at least two families have not received assistance to cover the full cost of these funerals? Will he, as minister, also explain why his department is only now going to the Treasury Board for more funds when the minister in fact said that he undertook these measures a year ago?

[National Defence, May 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is fairly clear that Canadians do not care about bureaucratic submissions to the Treasury Board, as we learned yesterday, asking for more funds. Canadians want funeral cost aid in full right now.

Will the Prime Minister give a personal guarantee—which we have not heard—here and now, that effective immediately, the Government of Canada will pay the full costs of the funerals for our soldiers who have paid the ultimate price? Yes or no?

[National Defence, May 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, every member of Parliament in this House supports our troops in Afghanistan. Now the Government of Canada must support our fallen soldiers and their families.

Clearly I want to ask the Prime Minister, will he now inform this House that effective immediately this government will now pay the full costs of the funerals for our Canadian fallen heroes?

[Gasoline Prices, May 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will give the hon. member a bit of math. What he is talking about is a savings that was lost in these increases of 1¢ a litre. What he forgot to tell Canadians is that the Conservatives are ripping them off by 3.2¢ a litre based on a promise that they made.

Will the Prime Minister finally keep his promise? Will he finally level with Canadians and tell them that his government will do nothing to limit the huge amounts of money that the government and oil companies are taking out of the pockets of Canadians, as requested today by the Quebec minister of natural resources?

[Gasoline Prices, May 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, during the 2004 election campaign, the then leader of the opposition said that a Conservative government would offer Canadians relief from the high prices of gasoline by removing the so-called tax on tax and by not charging the GST on gasoline over 85¢ per litre.

He also said that revenues generated on high prices of gasoline were “revenues that no one foresaw even a few months ago”, and that a Conservative government would only be “depriving Ottawa of a massive windfall it did not count on and that it did not need”.

Will the Prime Minister finally honour his promise on gasoline now that it has been well over a year and gasoline is well over $1 a litre, or will he admit that this is just another promise that looks a whole lot like old-fashioned Conservative electioneering?

[Canada Elections Act, May 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member who just spoke.

I heard the hon. member for Abbotsford make a few statements on certain candidates who ran in our party's leadership race.

Perhaps I could ask the hon. member if she would want to ask, in regard to the 2005 convention which the Conservative Party refused to declare, or in regard to the leadership supporters of the Prime Minister, whether or not she believes this bill should be expanded and indeed made retroactive. We would then catch what happened with the Conservative Party when it in fact used $2 million that should have been declared and should have been considered an election expense.

Does the hon. member believe that? In terms of making this a situation that the member for Abbotsford would like as a trap for the Liberal Party, maybe she would want to ask for full disclosure from the governing party for who in fact contributed to them and, more importantly, whether or not the 2005 convention should in fact be part of that retroactive net that we want to put in place.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to acknowledge the member who just spoke.

I was going to raise my comments on a point of order. I want the member for Cambridge to understand that tomorrow morning his constituents will face yet another increase in the price of gasoline by 0.7¢ a litre. I was quite willing to kick this around his riding at any given time and debate it with him on a radio station, if he wishes, as I have done in the past.

I know there are a number of companies, such as the Challenger Motor Freight Inc., who have appeared before our committee. They are going to be badly affected by the government's inability to decide right now to deal with the fundamental need to change the Competition Act, which is exactly what the hon. member from the Bloc Québécois has been proposing.

Tomorrow his community will see a 0.2¢ a litre increase because the wholesale price just went up two-tenths of a cent, which again put us in a situation where we are in fact 3¢ above wholesale prices than in the United States.

I would like to point out to the member that there remain only two refineries in Montreal and that both are controlled by companies whose prices are exactly the same.

I want to point out very clearly, so the hon. member knows, that there is not a single difference in the wholesale price. At 4:00 p.m. the leaders, Ultramar and Petro-Canada, just set their prices. They are identical. That is not an example of competition.

In the United States there are several variance points at which companies set their prices. There is usually a 5¢ to 10¢ a gallon difference. In Canada they are identical. We have no refineries left in Toronto and now we are on the verge of a crisis that is hurting the entire economy.

Would it be possible for the member to name the specific areas of competition that he would like the Commissioner of Competition to examine?