House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 69% of the vote.
Extension of Sitting Period June 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is our understanding that the speeches are supposed to be relevant to the subject being discussed. It seems like the member is far off track. He does not seem to understand that we are not talking about Bill C-48 right now. We are talking about the motion.
If you could help him understand that, Mr. Speaker, it would be appreciated.
Extension of Sitting Period June 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, we need to straighten something out. The members for Yukon and Davenport should apologize to Canadians for misleading them about the contents of Bill C-48.
I have the bill right here. It is a page and a half long. We have $2.5 billion per page. It is probably the most expensive bill that has ever been brought into the House of Commons and there is absolutely nothing in here about mayors, urban transit or cities.
If members opposite want to talk about a bill, let us talk about Bill C-43, which does talk about mayors, urban transit, cities and the Atlantic accord. It is the government that is holding up the passing of Bill C-43. The government has held it up in the Senate. It refuses to let it go ahead. The Conservative Senators have offered to fast track that bill. The government refuses to do that.
These two members should stand up and apologize to Canadians for misleading them. I will let the member do that at this moment.
Extension of Sitting Period June 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I want to point out a couple of errors in the member's statement and then I would like to ask him a question or get a commitment from him if I can.
First, he said Bill C-48 needs to be passed because it delivers urgent funding. I do not think he has read the bill because it cannot deliver the funding until next year when the government determines whether or not it has a surplus, a surplus of a particular amount. Not only that, there is no commitment within those four areas to spend anything. I hope he reads through the bill, so he will find the accurate information.
Second, Bill C-38 is not about human rights, as he said. It is about the redefinition of a traditional institution which the majority of Canadians still defend. He said we cannot possibly adjourn with such important legislation before us. I want to point out that this morning the House leader said that we are here for debate. That is actually true except he is cutting off debate. The government is trying to have it both ways and, as usual, it will blame other people for this.
I expect the government members, once they have been here for a couple of extra days, will get tired of being here. I would not be the least bit surprised if they played around with closure on these two bills.
Since the member said that we cannot adjourn with such important legislation before us, will he commit right now to refuse to go along with closure if it is brought in on both Bill C-48 and Bill C-38?
Extension of Sitting Period June 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, as members have pointed out so well, there is no national agenda. That is not why we are talking about extending the hours.
I had a couple of thoughts, as I listened to the House leader this morning. It seemed to me there was hardly a discussion, out of the normal discussion we have in June about staying or going or whatever, until about a week ago. The House leader had newspapers interviews and committed himself to a couple of positions, which I do not think even the Prime Minister knew he was being committed to it. That included passing Bill C-48 and Bill C-38.
This was the first time any of us had heard that had to happen or else we would not be leaving this place. He probably was so far out on a limb that he did not saw the branch off behind him. I would think this is one of the reasons we find ourselves in the situation we are in today.
The second reason we find ourselves debating Motion No. 17, which will allow the government to force Bill C-38 through, is the government does not want to take this home for the summer. The Liberals do not want to debate the issue over the summer. They feel if they go home with this issue, they will be hammered on it. I think they think, rather than allow us to come back in the fall and fully debate the issue, if they can ram it through as quickly as possible, then Canadians will forget about it. I would suggest Canadians will not forget about it.
To demonstrate that the government does not have a national agenda and that there is not an urgency in this, as it proclaims there is, in the other place the government has been delaying the implementation of Bill C-43. When the bill was in the House, at different times, particularly with the Atlantic accord, we tried get it accelerated so the government could begin disbursing money to Atlantic Canada.
On every occasion we tried to do that, the Liberal government stopped it from happening. Now that it is in the Senate, the government is once again trying to stop the passage of the bill. The Conservative senators have asked for this to be fast-tracked and they have offered to do that, but the Liberal government, which is in the business of blaming everyone else, has to take responsibility for this. It has refused to allow the bill to be fast-tracked.
I would like the member's comments on a couple of those observations?
Extension of Sitting Period June 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to what the member said about not being able to connect the dots between Bill C-38, Bill C-43, and Bill C-48. There is a connection. The only way to stop Bill C-38 is to bring down the government.
Why does the member insist on speaking against some of these motions? He may vote against the one before us today. He knows it is going to pass. If he were to vote against Bill C-38, it would help him out at home. He knows, with the way the present situation sits, it is likely going to pass. Yet, when we actually need him to step forward and say it is important to stop the government with respect to Bill C-38 and Bill C-48, he does not appear.
He has that opportunity on Bill C-48. Tonight is not a confidence motion, but we certainly expect to see him. Hopefully, with him and enough of his other colleagues we could defeat that legislation and then we would not be faced with this foolishness that the government is trying to play on Canadians.
Extension of Sitting Period June 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's stand on this motion as well as his stand on some of the other issues. Liberal backbenchers do occasionally oppose motions like this. Some of them actually oppose Bill C-38 and we applaud that. However, one of the things that concerns me about them is the fact that it really just amounts to rhetoric. When we really need them to stand up and help us out, they disappear on us.
Whenever there has been a confidence vote, those members have supported the government. We have tried to take this issue back to the people because we think that is a good place for it. That would allow those members to say they oppose the legislation, which would help them out at home apparently, but would also allow them to support the government so they do not have to do anything about that.
Is the member not just posturing unless he actually supports us on a confidence motion to bring the government down in order to bring a stop to Bill C-38? When will he step forward and do that, so that he can represent the majority of his constituents who want him to oppose Bill C-38?
Petitions June 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I have another series of petitions on an issue that is very important to many of the people in small towns in my riding and that is the issue of post offices and their desire to keep their local post office open.
The petitioners want to point out that Canada Post has closed a number of rural post offices already where it does not consider a community with less than 700 points of call to be a viable location, and whereas the closure of those post offices would hurt the communities, they are calling on Parliament to keep the post offices open and to retain a moratorium on post office closures.
Petitions June 23rd, 2005
Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege today to present two petitions. The first petition deals with an issue that has been brought many times before the House and that is the issue of marriage.
The petitioners are calling on Parliament to pass legislation to recognize the institution of marriage as being the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.
An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments June 16th, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I want to build a little on what the member just said. The bill actually does talk about how the government may spend. Does he have any comments about how the NDP has been sucked into this? We have talked all night about this cute little deal that they made in the no-tell-motel. The parliamentary secretary stood and basically said to the NDP, “You don't have the deal you thought you did”.
Would the member talk a little about the integrity, not only of the government but of the NDP for being so foolish as to get into bed with a corrupt Liberal government.
An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments June 16th, 2005
Mr. Speaker, in his excellent speech, my colleague mentioned that the government has no plan. That is very clear in a number of areas. One of the big issues in my riding right now has to do with safety and security.
We just found out in the last couple of days that five RCMP detachments in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan are going to be closed. These are detachments along the border. We have about 150 miles of border with Montana. The RCMP have decided that they are not going to put resources into that area any more. They are going to pull out.
There will be 100 miles of border that will be basically undefended. There will not be an RCMP officer stationed within 50 miles of the border. Each of the three points have multiple intersections to highways and as people come away from the border, it is a long time before they get to a place where there is an RCMP detachment. I just wanted to point that out.
In terms of no plan, it is kind of interesting as I have called around and brought this up in the House. The Liberal government said, “It is not our fault. We do not have anything to do with this. It is the province's fault”. When I called the provincial justice minister, he told me, “It is not our fault. We work with the RCMP, but it is really their fault. They allocate the resources”. I spoke to the RCMP and they said, “We really don't make those decisions. We kind of leave that up to the local detachment”. I pointed out to them that I was sure that the detachments could make the decisions to reduce staffing but they sure could not make decisions to increase staffing.
A large area of our province is being left completely unprotected along the border. It is interesting that the Liberals seem to have no plan there, but they do have pretty specific plans in other areas.
We heard this afternoon in question period that the industry minister's official agent has been appointed as a director of the Business Development Bank. It seems the Liberals were able to plan that very well. I have been involved in Wheat Board issues. It is interesting that the campaign manager of the minister in charge of the Wheat Board has been appointed as the lobbyist for the Canadian Wheat Board.
I would like the member to comment on why the Liberals seem to be so well organized and so able to plan when it is to their own benefit, but they are so unable to plan when it is to Canadians' benefit.