Dave MacKenzie

[National Defence, December 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we have yet another example of the Liberals jeopardizing our military personnel. Like the submarine acquisition, we set the rules so that only one bid fit the criteria for new army utility vehicles. The G Wagon is less than a year old and isi falling apart. Nearly 85% of the vehicles in service have multiple cracks in their floors.

Why do we continually purchase second rate equipment for the first rate men and women of our Canadian Forces?

[National Defence, November 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on February 19, 2004 the Minister of National Defence announced that Canadian Forces members who took part in chemical warfare testing would be compensated for their injuries. Our inquiries reveal that 20 applicants who should be entitled to the compensation have been disqualified because the members did not have a legal will at the time of their death.

This is clearly unfair and unjust. What legal reason would there be to exclude the estates of these honourable Canadian Forces volunteers from receiving this compensation?

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

It is not being used for that purpose. You did not expropriate the land for that purpose.

My friend from the Bloc is absolutely right. I would say in answer to the question from my friend from the Bloc that the leases are for a certain purpose. If they are not being used for that certain purpose, then the lease is not being fulfilled. He is absolutely right.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Bloc friend from Mirabel. He certainly understands the situation far better than the government side does. There are agreements that have been signed for purposes--

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

The fact of the matter is, if he would pay attention, we are asking him to do the right thing today. We are not talking about 20 years ago. We are talking about 2004. We are asking him to do the right thing now because wrong things may or may not have been done, and it is not for me to judge whether they were. It does not really matter: do the right thing now. That is no reason to hold on to the property now to keep it out of the hands of the people who rightfully own it. Give it back to those people. They will buy it. They want it back. They are farmers.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for whatever the question was, dealing with some time in the past. I appreciate that he has been here a long time and has a lot more experience than I do, and I give him a lot of credit for that, again for whatever that means.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin I should advise the House that I will be sharing my time with the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam.

It has been an interesting day as members of the House have stood and asked the government to do the right thing, which seems to have been the message throughout the day.

Today we are talking about Mirabel airport. I have listened to the minister on the other side. On the one hand he tells us that they may need the land for future industrial development. On the other hand, and more so, I have heard him talk about contracts that were signed by a former Progressive Conservative government dealing with the leasing of the land.

We accept that those do exist. However it is not a big stretch of the imagination and somewhat farcical that the government would use that argument. When the Liberals took power back in 1993 they had no problems in tearing up some contracts with suppliers of helicopters and an agreement that was going to take place with respect to another airport in Toronto. Breaking contracts is not new to them. We are not asking the government to break a contract. Contracts can be negotiated and changes made.

Interestingly, on this particular issue I would like to draw the government's attention to a quote from the current Minister of Public Works who said back in September, “The truth is that being a landlord is not a core business of government, nor should it be”.

We agree with that with respect to this land.

The former prime minister, the Right Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, used to speak of his desire to create a just society in Canada. If the expropriation of land around Mirabel airport and the accompanying blatant disregard for the population of this region is representative of that idea of justice, then it is unfortunate that Dorval airport and not the Mirabel airport was named after him.

Mirabel airport, which is located about 55 kilometres northeast of Montreal, is a prime example of the incompetence of the Liberal government spending spree this country has had to endure over the years. It is a white elephant that must be laid to rest. It remains nothing more than a testament to Liberal arrogance, waste and mismanagement of taxpayer money.

Of the 97,000 acres, and that is a huge expanse of land, that were expropriated, only 5% has been used for the actual airport. Eleven thousand acres sit unused. Six thousand acres are fenced in and this part alone could accommodate two airports the size of the current Dorval airport. Current forecasts show that it may not come to anyone's use until the year 2030-35.

In 1969 the Liberal government demonstrated a callous disregard for the population of this region when it failed to properly inform them of the decision to expropriate their lands. This was a first in a series of draconian measures initiated by that Liberal government, which included the unnecessary destruction of property and the maintenance of land which was not being used for the airport and probably never will be used by the airport.

What is truly astonishing is the fact the government paid the land occupants a mere $210 an acre in 1969.

Then in 1970, only a year later, the same government offered to pay $2,000 per acre to expropriate land for the airport they were planning to construct in Pickering, Ontario. I ask the House: Is that equality?

We sit here today as parliamentarians and wonder why our relationship with Quebec is in trouble. Over 3,000 families were affected by the initial expropriation. That is a truly astounding number of families to be expropriated in one region of our country.

Even worse, these families found out by a news flash on the radio. Can anyone Imagine hearing on the radio that one's property has been expropriated. Many of these families saw their houses needlessly destroyed, along with most of the area's infrastructure. During the moving period many people were victims of looting or saw their family homes set on fire so that local firefighters could practise their firefighting skills. Compensation was not only inadequate but it was often involuntarily accepted. Little compensation was offered for the upheaval this created in people's lives.

As a result, many people in the area suffered from depression, alcohol abuse and suicides were not uncommon. Most of this land, however, was never used by the airport.

Despite all the suffering this community endured in the early 1970s, it is now showing signs of population growth. People are returning. Hope is growing that farming families will get ownership of their land back.

I come from a riding of considerable rural farmland. I can fully appreciate the passion farmers have for their land. Farmland in my riding is passed down through the generations. This is no different for the people of Mirabel. They take pride in their land and work it with their blood, sweat and tears.

In my riding farmers are the best stewards of the land. It would be incomprehensible to imagine politicians expropriating them from their land and then lease it back to them so they can continue to earn a livelihood.

Why should the people affected by the Mirabel airport be expected to feel any different?

Unfortunately, despite the unnecessary sacrifice of these people, it was not until Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government that any of the excess expropriations were returned.

Rather than admit it had made a mistake in taking so much land, the Liberal government has needlessly insisted on holding on to this land, thereby perpetuating its mistreatment of these people. The Liberal-Bloc-Liberal Minister of Transport has demonstrated his particular version of support for the people of Mirabel this morning. He has failed to demonstrate why he wants to hold onto this land. He prefers to be a landlord and collect the lease payments many farmers are paying today.

Pearson airport in Toronto, we have heard, operates a world class facility on a mere 4,200 acres. Heathrow in London, England operates on 2,700. Los Angeles operates with 3,500. Yet the Minister of Transport feels the need to hang on to 11,000 acres for a cargo facility.

The agricultural value of this region of Quebec is at risk. It is time to stop leasing the land to farmers and give them their rightful ownership of the land.

My party continues to fight for the rights of rural Canadians on many different fronts. In a time of such sensitivity to equal rights for all Canadians, I am saddened to see such a stubborn attitude being shown by the party opposite.

Perhaps it is time that I turn our attention to another minister. I have already indicated the Minister of Public Works who, in his own words, supports our party's position. On September 21, as I have already said, the Minister of Public Works stated:

The truth is, being a landlord is not a core business of government, nor should it be.

The Minister of Public Works clearly supports what we are saying today, as he has always agreed with us in the past. His Conservative values occasionally shine through the rainbow of despair found on the government side of the House. He fully understands the dignity and value of property rights; at times it is as though he never really left.

At a time when we are asking Canadian farmers not to give up on farming, it is downright pitiful to watch a tired old Liberal government hold onto its dreams of the past. If there is anything the government should recognize, it is that farmers are always in need of prosperous land. Here is an opportunity to do the right thing.

Perhaps reluctance to do the right thing in this particular situation and return ownership of the land to the people of Mirabel is a form of punishment for the less than favourable election results the Liberals received last summer.

The bottom line is that the Government of Canada should not be a landlord. If the government supports Canadian farmers as it claims, it should return the land to the farmers of the Mirabel region. After all, this land is not being used by the airport and has never been used by the airport. Because the government has no future plan for the land, it does make one speculate as to what it wants this land for in the future.

What do the Liberals hope to do with it? Use it as a landfill site for Montreal or Toronto? Who knows? We on this side of the House know the land is better off in the hands of farmers who have fought for this land and worked this land for generations and continue to hold out hope that ownership will be returned to them and their children.

Selling this land back to these families does not make up for over 30 years of psychological trauma and the Liberal Party's inability to admit to its errors. It does not restore valued possessions and souvenirs to these families. It does not make up for the years of mistreatment and abuse. It is, however, the least the government can do to rectify its abominable treatment of these Canadian citizens.

It is a sad spectacle for Canadians to again watch their government fail to demonstrate leadership and instead have to be shamed into doing the right thing. As I stand here today before the House, the Government of Canada is leasing land to the farmers it took it from. If the Government of Canada is not in the landlord business, it should demonstrate that by making the return of ownership of this farmland a priority.

From what the House has heard today from the government, it is clearly in denial. Mirabel is closed to passenger traffic. It will never expand. However, it can become a vital benchmark in reversing the mistakes of governments past. Land rights are something that all Canadians accept as a basic right.

We should assure Canadians of the future that we can never make these types of mistakes again. I therefore call upon all members of the House to do the right thing and support the motion.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I must say to the member opposite that I enjoyed her history lesson. The background to this topic was obviously very clear. I think we understand that.

The problem comes when she starts to talk about unholy alliances between political parties in the House. It has been made very clear that this side of the House, and hopefully some on her side, would agree that we will support each other when it is appropriate to do so. In this case, if the Bloc finds it is appropriate to support us, I think that Canadians will welcome that.

The issue that we have brought forward asks that land be returned to the rightful owners. The rightful owners were those people who had the land expropriated from them 30 some odd years ago for needs that are now no longer existent.

The minister has talked about whether or not the lands need to be retained for future industrial use. I would suggest to members that when weather forecasters are out in 30 years of forecasting weather, and in this case their forecast for the land that they required was wrong. People say they were wrong and move on.

We have had 30 years to find a use for the land and we have not found it. The minister talks about the possibility in the next few months, and perhaps not. The next issue is whether or not we can return the land because we have a lease on it. It has either got to be one or the other. If we have a lease on the land, after all who owns ADM? Leases have been bought and sold in the past. The rightful thing to do is to return the land to those people from whom it was unnecessarily expropriated.

I would like to hear the member justify why we want to retain that land for the future for goodness knows what reason.

[Food and Drugs Act, November 24th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I have listened to the debate this afternoon, and I would like to compliment the member opposite. As an old police chief and someone who has seen all the issues he has brought forward here today to the House firsthand, whether they be deaths from traffic accidents caused by impaired drivers or the result of fetal alcohol syndrome with young children through into adulthood, I have great sympathy and support for the intent of the bill, which is to bring forward labelling.

All these things are incremental. It is a little here and a little there. My friend on this side has his concerns about whether it is enough. At the end of the day, we will question whether is it enough, but at some point we have to take that first step, which this is. It gives us the opportunity to make people more aware of the danger. It is not that we are without awareness of the dangers of alcohol and all the inherent dangers that come with it.

Whether we can put an end to fetal alcohol syndrome with labelling, I rather doubt it. At the same time, if we do not begin that process, if we do not make some effort, we will not get to the final analysis and put it to rest. It does us no harm to label. It may give some in the industry some difficulty, but I suspect, at the end of the day, equally it will do them no harm to have the mandatory labelling, which will occur if the bill is passed.

At this point in time, I would like to compliment the member for bringing the legislation forward. There is absolutely no doubt he has done a tremendous amount of work in this whole field, and he deserves a lot accolades for that. When this comes to a vote at some time in the future, I am sure many on this side of the House will support the legislation, and perhaps all will support it.

I think it will be talked out. We will go through different stages in this process. At the end of the day, I think we will all agree that it was a good bill to bring forward.

[Riding of Oxford, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as one of the first members of the 38th Parliament to be sworn into office, I am extremely honoured to stand before this House today as the member of Parliament for Oxford.

The riding of Oxford is a prime example of the fabric that makes up this great nation of Canada. It is filled with urban centres like Woodstock, Ingersoll, Norwich, Tavistock, and Stompin' Tom Connors' favourite, Tillsonburg.

During the election campaign and since then I have travelled to every corner of the riding. I can assure the House that the people of Oxford share many of the same values and concerns as those of their fellow Canadians.

I am pleased to report that the following mayors are present in Ottawa today taking part in the Ontario auto industry meetings: Mr. Paul Holbrough, Mayor of the Town of Ingersoll; Mr. Michael Harding, Mayor of the City of Woodstock; and Mr. Steven Molnar, Mayor of the Town of Tillsonburg.

I urge my fellow colleagues to welcome their presence here with us today.