David Anderson

[Committees of the House, April 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Red Deer for his impassioned defence of the environment and the concern that he has showed over this appointment. It is bad enough that Mr. Murray is a failed Liberal candidate and that he was unable to succeed at becoming an MP. Because of that, he is looking for something else.

However, the blame really needs to fall on the Liberal government. Once again, Mr. Murray is a pawn. It is true he is a Liberal and he has tried to run for the Liberal Party, but he has not been successful. However, the blame has to fall in the Prime Minister's Office.

I want to make a couple of comments and then ask the member for his reflections.

We see a history of manipulation from the government frontbench. We saw it last week with the Senate appointments, particularly Alberta Senate appointments. Elections have been held in Alberta to elect senators to come to Ottawa. The Prime Minister has blatantly spit in their faces by saying that he will not abide by that. He will not pay any attention to them.

We see a history of manipulation with the ongoing inquiry. We are going to see more shenanigans this afternoon with the federal government's attempt to derail the Gomery inquiry as the Liberals panic over the revelations that are taking place with their involvement in Quebec and the sponsorship scandal.

We have also seen a history of manipulation with the environment file, particularly with Kyoto. It has been very frustrating. We are how far into Kyoto now and we have no plan. We still have nothing announced. It just does not take place. The member talked about the cost of electricity and fuel going up if we were to implement the plan.

Earlier on the former environment minister left the impression that fuel would have to be in the range of $1.40 to $1.45 in order to change consumer activity enough so the government could implement a plan. That was bad enough at the time. Now it looks like it will be quite a bit higher than that.

We see manipulation on the issue of carbon sequestration where the government has stepped forward and said that it wants to take those carbon credits for itself.

I am from a rural area. Carbon sequestration is important to farmers and to agriculture. They were hoping they would have some opportunity to claim those carbon credits for their farms. It looks like the government has stepped in with its manipulation to try to take that away from the farmers as well.

We have seen the manipulation on this issue, particularly with the budget that has arisen in the last week. The government is trying to change the definition of toxicity in a sneaky way by sliding it into a budget bill so it can manipulate the Canadian people once again.

Does the member think that the reason the Prime Minister has appointed such a weak candidate is so the government can continue this history of manipulation in the environmental file and so it can manipulate Mr. Murray in the ways it needs to go in order to achieve some of the dishonourable goals it has set for itself?

[Committees of the House, April 4th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, last week it seemed there was an orgy of spending going on across the country. We saw it when the Prime Minister visited B.C. in particular, throwing money around left, right and centre. We heard the agriculture minister announce spending for agriculture. It was a strange way to announce it because there was no plan behind it. A large amount of money was announced with very little plan or direction behind it. My colleague told me earlier he saw that in eastern Canada as well.

Could he comment on why he thinks the government finds it so easy to throw money around, almost as if it had no end to it, and yet when it comes to compensating these hepatitis C victims, it is difficult for the government to step forward and actually deliver the money to these innocent people?

[Civil Marriage Act, March 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Miramichi for his strong defence of traditional marriage. We have heard a number of speeches in the House about that and appreciate him taking a stand on that.

Before we get into the issue at hand, I would like to talk a bit about something that happened today, and that is the Senate appointments that have been made. Once again we have seen the Prime Minister dither for months. We have had multiple announcements that he was about to make these appointments and he has finally done that. Today he has truly buried the promise that was made that he would be the person to bring in reform. We see another promise made and another promise broken by the Liberal government.

Basically the appointments today are a slap in the face for Canadians who have stood up for fairness. We are used to hearing the term with regard to some of these appointments as being hacks, flacks and quacks. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister has turned to old political cronies and those kinds of people rather than listening to the democratic will of the people.

Alberta MPs and the people of Alberta in particular are the ones who should be upset because they held elections and committed themselves to the process of trying to pick their senators fairly. The Prime Minister has said that he will absolutely refuse to abide by those results, which is an insult to Albertans and an insult to all Canadians who have a concern about this.

In my own province of Saskatchewan we thought it was interesting that as the MPs sat down to discuss the two appointments that were made, none of us had ever heard of these folks before. Apparently one of them was a campaigner in that extremely successful Liberal campaign in Saskatchewan in 2004 when the Liberals lost virtually all the ground they had and were only able to keep the finance minister's seat. I guess this is a reward for working for him, but we will try to make sure that campaign is even less successful next time than it was this time.

I wanted to make that comment. It is important we talk about the fact that democracy has once again been subverted by the Prime Minister and that yet again we see a promise made and a promise broken.

With regard to Bill C-38, I want to make a point of thanking the folks across the nation who have been defending marriage. In particular I think of the Defend Marriage Coalition that has been put together and which has been very strong in its defence of traditional marriage. It is probably no surprise to anyone to hear that I will be supporting the traditional definition of marriage.

I will read a statement made by an MP made because I think he states fairly well the position that is important. He stated:

Moreover, many MPs, reflecting the commonly held view of the vast majority of their constituents, maintain that marriage cannot be treated like any other invention or program of government. Marriage serves as the basis for social organization; it is not a consequence of it. Marriage signifies a particular relationship among the many unions that individuals freely enter; it's the one between a man and a woman that has two obvious goals: mutual support and procreation of children (barring a medical anomaly or will). No other type of relationship, by definition, can fulfill both goals without the direct or indirect involvement of a third party.

I would back that up and I wish the member who said it would back it up because he is currently the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, who has completely changed his position.

One of the frustrations for me is to see the Liberal leadership flipping and flopping on this issue. Many of the members held the position fairly strongly just a few years ago that they would support the traditional definition of marriage and protect it but we see now that they have completely flopped.

I would like to read a few comments that were made by some of the present Liberal cabinet ministers to point out how inconsistent they actually are. I have a further comment by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration who now says that he will oppose the traditional definition of marriage. In July 2003 he said that the majority of the Liberal caucus members supported the traditional definition of marriage.

In March 2005 he said, “The court decided that the definition of marriage should be changed, wrongly in my view. I need to have your support”. I think he was talking to a church group at the time saying that he needed to have the group's support to ensure the error would not continue. Some time between March and now he has changed his mind.

He also told churchgoers in 2003 that the court judgment legalizing same sex marriage was an error that he needed help to correct. He also pointed out, and the Supreme Court actually also noted this, that in not appealing the Ontario Court of Appeal decision the Prime Minister broke his covenant with the House and the Liberal caucus. I would agree with him. I believe the court also said that the government had abdicated its responsibility when it did not appeal the decisions that were made early on.

Other Liberal cabinet ministers have made some of the same points. I want to read something which the present Deputy Prime Minister wrote in 1998. It is pretty definite. She stated, “No marriage can exist between two persons of the same sex. For us and this government, marriage is a unique institution.

She went on to say, “The definition of marriage is already clear in the law in Canada as the union of two persons of the opposition sex. Counsels from my department have successfully defended and will continue to defend this concept of marriage in court“. Obviously she has not kept her word because the government has not done that.

In March 2000 she said, “For us in this government, marriage is a unique institution; it is one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”. Unfortunately, today she does not take that same position.

In 1999 she said, “The institution of marriage is of great importance to large numbers of Canadians, and the definition of marriage as found in the hon. member's motion is clear in law”.

She was referring to a motion that was made then and backed up the idea that traditional marriage should be defended and needed to be defended.

In another statement, which I am sure we have all heard, but probably her most definitive statement, she said, “Let me state again for the record that the government has no intention of changing the definition of marriage or of legislating same sex marriage”.

We have seen a poll in the last few days that ranks our profession as one of the lowest, if not the lowest, in Canada in terms of credibility with the public. It is when statements like that are made and then people completely change their positions that cause people to wonder why they should believe anything a politician says. It is a good question and actually an accurate one when someone has completely flip-flopped on an issue like this.

Other members of the government have also changed their positions. However if I were to go into all of that we would be here for a lot longer than 10 minutes The question is whether those people can be trusted. The answer is obviously no.

It has been more than just the ministers. The Prime Minister himself has dithered and flip-flopped on the issue. When he finally decided which way he would go he decided to make this an issue of human rights. It is interesting. If it were an issue of human rights, one would think that he would force his entire caucus to vote with him or else free them to vote their conscience. However he has not done that so it cannot be that big an issue of rights. It may be that it is a half issue of rights because he is only holding the cabinet captive and apparently freeing the backbench. However when they see how the cabinet votes they will know which way to vote if they want to protect their careers.

There really is no freedom over there. We are glad to have it over here and are able to vote according to our constituents' wishes.

I just heard a member of the NDP say that the majority of his constituents were not with him but that it did not matter because he was going to vote against them anyway. Hopefully they will show that kind of enthusiasm for him at the next election by carrying that out to its logical conclusion.

One of the things that really concerned me were the comments that were made by the foreign affairs minister in late December when he basically told the churches and the people of faith that they should completely butt out of this debate. I have to very vociferously disagree with him. The quote was that the separation of church and state is a beautiful invention, but he completely misunderstood what he was talking about. The separation of church and state of course means that the state will not establish a specific church as the state religion. It does not mean that people of faith cannot have opinions and cannot come into the public forum and discuss those opinions.

I was also concerned when I heard the Liberal deputy government House leader make the statement that if marriage commissioners did not fulfill their duties they should be sanctioned and disciplined. I have great concerns with the government's attitude toward religious freedoms. It talks a lot about this being an issue of human rights but on the other hand it does not seem to be all that interested in protecting religious freedoms.

I wish I had longer to speak today but I will conclude with the words that Justice La Forest read in the Egan decision. He said:

Marriage has from time immemorial been firmly grounded in our legal tradition, one that is itself a reflection of long-standing philosophical and religious traditions. But its ultimate raison d'être transcends all of these and is firmly anchored in the biological and social realities that heterosexual couples have the unique ability to procreate, that most children are the product of these relationships, and that they are generally cared for and nurtured by those who live in that relationship. In this sense, marriage is by nature heterosexual. It would be possible to legally define marriage to include homosexual couples, but this would not change the biological and social realities that underlie the traditional marriage.

Because of its importance, legal marriage may properly be viewed as fundamental to the stability and well-being of the family and, as such...Parliament may quite properly give special support to the institution of marriage.

We can only pray that this misguided and wandering Liberal government will finally hear and apply these words.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I do not have the list of the committee members with me. It is in my office and I would be glad to supply it to my colleague and anyone else who is interested in it.

In order to make the Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia agreement, no legislative changes were required. It did not have to be made to the Atlantic accord or to the equalization program. These payments are being made under the offshore revenue agreement and separate from the other accord. There is nothing stopping the finance minister from doing this with other provinces.

I want to point out that when the minister said that he has provided an extra $710 million in equalization for Saskatchewan, that number is misleading. Of that $710 million, the government is going to claw back $233 million in equalization payments. It gives with one hand and takes back with another and spends the money. Of that, $120 million was actually owed to us. That is money the Liberal government was supposed to have paid to us and did not. It gives us basically, according to his figures, $350 million when it could have been $8 billion over the last 10 years and it would be $4 billion over the next several years.

The finance minister needs to be held accountable for the fact that he is not representing fairly the people of this country and the people of Saskatchewan.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we are very familiar with the situation, but the Liberal government does not seem to be quite as familiar with it.

The situation on the prairies is desperate for many people who are involved in agriculture. The results of last fall's frozen crop will begin to affect the grain farmers and the people who grow specialty crops. Many of them do not even have the seed money this spring to get their crops into the ground.

The beef industry has been in trouble for the last year and a half. The government has failed in many different areas. Some of us said earlier that we need to put money immediately into processing plants to get them up and running to take care of some of the excess beef. The government has failed in that area. The government has failed in its programs. The CAIS program, as we are all aware, is seen as a universal failure by farmers.

It has been very frustrating. We could have had tremendous fiscal capacity in our province to build processing plants, to move agriculture forward and to provide programs. The crop insurance program is basically broke. The province does not have the money to make it viable. It is frustrating because we see our money going other places. It disappears into a black hole in Ottawa and the people of Saskatchewan are sick and tired of it.

One rancher from my riding actually wrote to me in the last couple of days. Ranchers are not only angry at the federal government but they are angry at the government across the border as well. They are getting desperate. One of the interesting things they are calling for is to put a tax on our energy to try to recover some money for the producers in Saskatchewan. That is an interesting tie that has not been made before. Farmers are desperate. They are getting angry. They want someone to do something that will save them and help them to continue to live the lives they are proud to live.

It is frustrating because the finance minister could very easily make this deal for Saskatchewan, but once again he has failed the people of Saskatchewan. He will not step forward and show the leadership that is needed from him. I really think it is time to make a change in that riding and to elect a Conservative member there so that we do get the representation here.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on a couple of comments made by the member who spoke previously. Like my colleague from Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, I too have a great problem with the fact that the member seems to be driving wedges between our provinces. He wants to compare provinces and how they have done and compare the numbers.

It was interesting to hear him say that equalization is not really about equality. It seems to me that it is. It is about treating people fairly and treating them equitably. Obviously if the idea is that non-renewable resources can be removed from some provinces' formulations in this whole system, it seems to me to say that they can be taken out of everyone else's to make it fair as well.

I want to talk a little about how we came to be here today. I do not really think that we should be here. If the government had been treating people fairly and equitably and dealing fairly with provinces, we would not be in the situation we find ourselves in today.

Basically what this comes out of, unfortunately, is having a political leader, now the Prime Minister, who had no backbone. In the election we saw him travelling around the country into regions that were demanding different things. He got into an area where he felt that he needed to make a huge commitment to try to gain some seats. He made the commitment that he would take the renewable resources out of the funding formula for equalization for eastern Canada, for Newfoundland and Labrador and for Nova Scotia. He made that commitment during the election, with no intention at all, let me add, of keeping it, not that we could tell.

Unfortunately for him and fortunately for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, a number of people from the Conservative Party in this House and the premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia insisted that he be held accountable for the promises he made.

So he was. It was a big struggle for everyone to overcome the objections of the Prime Minister and the finance minister to this plan. They finally went ahead with it and granted Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia what I would see as an exemption, basically; they are taking non-renewable resources out of the formula and have a good deal and a fair deal from that.

It is only reasonable that other provinces affected by that situation would ask for some of the same treatment. That is what we are doing here today.

I particularly want to acknowledge the member for Prince Albert in our caucus, who has been working on this issue for a long time. He was on it before it was popular and before many of the rest of us even realized it was a big issue. He has studied it and understands it well. I also want to thank the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre who moved the motion today to bring this forward in the House.

Equalization, as hon. members and others know, has a long history in this country. It was included in one of the sections of our Constitution when it was repatriated. The Constitution states that we have a commitment to equal opportunities in this country and that parliamentarians, the Government of Canada and the provincial governments are committed to “promoting equal opportunities” for Canadians, “furthering economic development to reduce disparity in opportunities”, and “providing essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians”.

It seems to me that today's request for all provinces to be treated fairly fits in with this.

In the Constitution, a second subsection also talks about how Parliament and the Government of Canada “are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation”.

That is what we are asking for today: that our provinces be allowed to provide those services at reasonably similar levels of taxation and that in doing so they get the same advantages from agreements that are made by the federal government.

Obviously equalization is the federal government's largest program for trying to reduce the fiscal disparities between provinces. Over the years its success has been questioned. Even the Prime Minister felt that there were problems with it as he agreed to change it. I hope to talk about that later.

Equalization payments are paid to less prosperous provincial governments to provide the residents public services comparable to those in other provinces. Equalization payments are unconditional; I do not know if most people know that. The receiving provinces are free to spend the funds on public services according to their own priorities.

In 2004-05 equalization will ensure that all provinces have access to revenues of at least $6,126 per resident to fund those services. I found this interesting. That is a significant amount of money and it is important that the provinces spend it wisely.

The program was renewed in 1999 for five years and has transferred an average of almost $10 billion a year to the provinces over the last several years.

The equalization payments this year are going to be in that range, about $9.7 billion. Saskatchewan actually has been a receiving province of equalization. It is only because of the skyrocketing oil prices over the last year or so that we have moved out of that situation.

Equalization is calculated using a formula that takes into account a number of different things measuring a province's fiscal capacity. There are 30 sources of revenue figured into that. It includes such things as personal income tax, corporate tax, sales tax, property tax and other such sources. The focus of today's discussion is on one issue, which is the role of non-renewable resources in that formula.

There has been a call for years to change that formula. There has been an unwillingness by the government to admit that the formula is actually flawed, but I would suggest the Prime Minister admitted that it was flawed when he agreed to change the formula for two provinces. He changed it not because of a belief that he had to make a change, but because he was put in a situation politically where he had no choice and his feet were held to the fire by Premier Williams, Premier Hamm and the Conservative caucus in this House, which finally forced the deal. I would like to come back to that deal later if I have the time.

I want to talk specifically about Saskatchewan. Because it is a province that is in the same situation as Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, it is important that the finance minister and the Prime Minister realize they need to give the same deal to Saskatchewan as well.

We need to understand that no legislation would be changed. This agreement was made without legislation being changed. Therefore, agreements can be made with the other provinces, including Saskatchewan, without a major change in legislation.

I am disappointed particularly in the finance minister. We have seen before in Saskatchewan that whenever he gets into a tight spot he seems to think if he appoints a committee that somehow it will protect him and keep him out of trouble. It has on occasion, but this time I think everyone is seeing through that.

We recognize that he has appointed a committee. As we look through the structure of that committee, we notice that there are a couple of well connected Liberals there. One in particular has been appointed to other posts by the government. Some Liberal donors are also on the committee. It is interesting how the committee members are selected. Once again, there is really no surprise.

Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster.

Saskatchewan has always been a have not province. Over the years oil prices have changed that. We have suffered from decades of poor management from socialist governments that have almost destroyed our economy. We sit beside Alberta. At one time we had the same population as Alberta. Both provinces had the opportunity to move ahead. We have chosen one direction and it has chosen another.

As we see the markets work in Alberta, it has been able to develop and prosper. In Saskatchewan we have suffered in many ways because of the socialist government philosophy which has kept people back. What is most disappointing to me is that we see in so much of socialism, including across the way, that the real intent of it is to keep people back. It is not to bring everyone ahead at the same pace but to keep those back who would be successful. That has made us rely on equalization payments for a long time.

We know that the current equalization formula is flawed. We agree that Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia deserve to keep their offshore gas and oil revenues. However, we think that what is fair for those provinces is also fair for Saskatchewan.

It is estimated that had Saskatchewan received this deal a decade ago, it would have meant up to an additional $8 billion in the province from non-renewable natural resource revenue. It is interesting because our debt is in the range of $12 billion to $13 billion. We would have been in a very good situation had this deal been made quite a while ago. For much of the past decade, instead of the people in Saskatchewan getting that revenue, the Liberal government has actually clawed back our oil and gas revenues at a rate exceeding 100%. This change should be a slam dunk.

Unfortunately, I am coming to the end of my time and I would like to speak to this issue for quite a while longer. One of our biggest problems has been the finance minister in our province. He has not been a friend for Saskatchewan over the years. He failed on the Crow rate payments. He failed on a number of Canadian Wheat Board issues, which culminated in farmers being locked up in jail because of his action.

Now we are dealing with an equalization situation where he absolutely refuses to do the right thing for his own province. As I mentioned, rather than do the right thing, he has appointed another committee which will not report until the end of the year and then we will discuss it for another year or two. In the meantime, the Saskatchewan economy is not what it should be.

We call on the finance minister to step forward, do the right thing for his province and give Saskatchewan the same deal that he has given to Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. In the interest of fairness, we hope that he will do that.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I take great offence to what the member just said. He needs to understand that Saskatchewan needs this agreement. It needs to be treated equally with the other provinces. We do not need to hear any list of excuses as we heard from the finance minister earlier. He said that we do not have 20% unemployment. I guess that is true but the main reason is that our government, for the most part NDP socialist governments over the last decades, has driven our young people out of our province, to the point where we can hardly maintain our population at this point.

It is imperative that the federal government begins to treat provinces fairly by setting up a deal that can easily apply to Saskatchewan, if the government would be willing to do that. The finance minister, who is from Saskatchewan, should be willing to treat his own province equally with others but he does not seem to be willing to do that.

What is it that is so difficult for this government to understand that it will not treat provinces fairly on this deal?

[Petitions, March 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition as well. People are concerned about child pornography and they call on Parliament to take all necessary measures to ensure protection for children from child pornography and sexual exploitation.

[Petitions, March 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a group of eight petitions containing hundreds of names from people in my riding and across this country who are concerned, as we have heard today, about the definition of marriage. They call on Parliament to preserve and protect the current definition of marriage, which is the lifelong union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Agriculture, March 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, last night we had another emergency agriculture debate in this House. If words were dollars, farming would be profitable by now, but they are not. In fact, we are in a “perfect storm”: a combination of low prices, a weather disaster and serious international trade disruptions.

This government has once again failed agriculture. After 12 years and four terms, it still has no coherent way of dealing with agriculture issues.

One week after the R-CALF debacle there is no plan B. One month before spring seeding there is no plan to help hard hit grain farmers. At the WTO talks we have no clear position that would liberalize trade and make it more transparent and effective.

This government could make a difference. Farm plans do not have to collapse under their own bureaucratic weight. Trade agreements can be reached that are effective. Regulation can be lessened. The markets can work for producers and processors.

However, that would take solid leadership. When will this government quit talking and actually start to bring forward producer oriented solutions?