Deepak Obhrai

[Supply, April 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I was actually amazed to hear the member's reasons for opposing fixed election dates. His reasons of procedural matters were just amazing. When we talk about fixed election dates we are talking about giving people the choice of fixed election dates, not his party the choice.

Does the member not remember that his own prime minister used the threat of an election to make backbenchers do what he wanted them to do to have his bill passed? How does that serve the Canadian people? Has he forgotten that his own prime minister threatened an election to keep the backbenchers in line?

[Supply, April 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Fraser Valley for raising that point. He is absolutely right.

We were sitting here when the Prime Minister used the threat of an election to keep the backbenchers in line so that his bill could go through. Forget about all the other business. That is why we need to give this power back to the people, away from the PMO and the Prime Minister. That can only happen if there are fixed election dates. Then the people of Canada will be able to take back the power to where it belongs, to the people of Canada.

[Supply, April 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the supply day motion put forward by my party regarding fixed election dates.

I have been in Parliament for the last two terms, six years. I am one of those members who originally came here with good ideas and with all kinds of energy. My constituents were looking at me to bring initiatives to the floor of Parliament and talk about what concerns them. I thought that I had finally come to a place where we could debate, where we could talk, where we could put forward issues, where we could do many things, but lo and behold, like everyone else, I hit the wall, what everyone now calls the democratic deficit. Over a period of time it has taken away the power of this Parliament and slowly has put it into the PMO.

The PMO has become a bigger entity than the Parliament of Canada. That erosion has been going on and on for many years. The Liberals call themselves the natural governing party of Canada. Why do we have a democratic deficit? Because those members started the erosion of parliamentary privileges.

When members go back to their ridings, people ask, “Why are you not doing something? Why can there not be effective change?” We tell them what is happening. We see time after time when Canadians vote that they are becoming cynical. They are asking why they should vote when there is going to be no change, when their members of Parliament do not have the right or the authority to bring issues forward that are important to them.

The tragedy of the whole situation in Parliament is that it not only affects the opposition party, it affects the government backbenchers. What do we see now? We see a little change here; some of the backbenchers have moved to the front and some of the other guys have moved to the back.

The motion put forward today is to improve one of the major democratic deficits. The motion suggests that there be fixed election dates. When I returned after the 2000 election and we were at the Governor General's ball on the evening of the opening of Parliament, the former prime minister looked at me and said, “We pulled the rug out from under your feet”. I said, “No, you did not pull the rug out from under our feet. You manipulated the system to your advantage. You called an election after three and a half years. You felt that things were in your favour, so you manipulated the system to win an election. You did not pull the rug out from under our feet”.

If we have fixed elections dates, then Canadians will make the real choice, not the Prime Minister. That is the difference. Canadians will make the real choice. They will then see that they are connected to this House which sets the rules under which they are governed.

Look at the spectacle that has been going on. Since coming back, what have we seen in the last two or three weeks? Every day we read in the newspapers that there is going to be an election or there is not going to be an election. There was a dinner yesterday at 24 Sussex Drive where they talked about whether we are going to have an election or not going to have an election. They look at the polls and decide whether we are going to have an election or not going to have an election.

What nonsense. The Liberals are supposed to be governing the country, not spending their time talking about whether or not we are going to have an election. That is all they do. In the last three weeks, nothing has happened in Parliament, as my colleague pointed out.

There is only one question, will we or will we not have an election? Nothing else. In the meantime, the country is drifting. The vision from the throne speech has gone out the window. The vision is still hanging in the air because the question is, will we or will we not have an election? That is all.

It is becoming pretty obvious that time, energy and everything this country has spent are being wasted on this one little question, will we or will we not have an election? If we were to have a fixed date, then we would know when elections would be held. The government would be able to plan its agenda. Everybody could plan. Everybody would know what is out there. The bureaucrats would know. Right now, I am sure most bureaucrats and most government agencies are now in limbo waiting for the answer to the question, will we or will we not have an election?

Look at the cost to the country of this ridiculous notion that the only person who can call the election is the Prime Minister and he will only call it when it suits him. We have to give the power back to the people. By having a fixed election date, we would be giving the power back to the people. We would be telling them, this is how it will be and they would decide, not us.

This motion that we have brought forward today on the eve of this same question, will we or will we not have an election, is pointing out to Canadians that it is time for them to take back the power and decide. The only way we can do this is if there is a fixed election date.

When I was campaigning on this question, as my friend from Fraser Valley rightly pointed out, the Reform Party put this out as a campaign issue and everybody on the street said yes, they wanted fixed election dates.

I have been here now for two terms. I will be going into my third election in seven years. It costs a huge amount of money to have an election. Sure, money is not the only criteria. The voice of the people is the criteria and that is why we have elections, to let the people decide.

The House leader on the other side raised some questions. I am sure when he was a backbencher, he was totally in agreement with what we were doing. Now that he is the government House leader, of course, why should the government give up its power?

The point is that Canadians need to know. We need to engage Canadians. We need to have them go back to the polls to vote. We do not need them to sit at home and say they will not vote because they feel they have no say in our political institutions. The reason the serious democratic deficit exists is because we do not give the Canadian on the street the opportunity to speak. Where did the democratic deficit come from? It came from the so-called natural governing party. It has taken the power away from this institution.

I am the international development critic and I see what is going on around the world. We tell other nations that they must have democracy, they must have elections, and that we will help them with elections. Elections Canada is a highly respected institution. However, when we go out to preach to somebody else, we need to look back at ourselves and ask, is our house in order before we preach to other people?

Right now, even the Prime Minister is acknowledging that there is a serious democratic deficit. Let us not even talk about the other place that is over there to show how serious is the democratic deficit.

The motion that this party is putting forward is again highlighting the point that Canadians want a fixed election date. Any other argument that the government puts forth is not valid.

[Supply, April 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is serving his fourth mandate in the House. He knows very well about the functioning of the House and he has seen the democratic deficit that has been happening. He has worked diligently to point out that we need to change the democratic deficit that has been identified by the Prime Minister time after time.

The government House leader talked about the whole package. As my friend correctly pointed out, the Liberals twist and change it whenever it suits them to answer this question for not doing anything. If we look at the history, it is the party that has benefited most from this so-called democratic deficit.

I would like to ask my colleague, as a member for the last four Parliaments, what has he noticed that the Liberal Party is willing to do even to change the democratic deficit or give up the power?

[Elections, April 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on the eve of our own federal election, the Conservative Party and Canadians would like to congratulate the people, election organizers and the elected governments of Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Austria and Russia for having successful elections.

We would also like to congratulate those countries either undergoing elections or about to have them in the near future, such as India, the Philippines, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Malawi. These countries are fast closing the democratic deficit in their respective countries. The Liberals need to take notice of this trend.

Canada sends our best wishes.

[Petitions, April 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the residents of Calgary East, I am presenting a petition that states that due to family breakups, more and more grandparents are being denied the right to have access to their grandchildren, that grandchildren suffer unnecessarily as a result of family conflict and that grandparents also suffer and grieve for the loss of these relationships.

Therefore, the petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation allowing grandparents the right to have access to their grandchildren when it is deemed to be in the best interest of these children.

[International Aid, April 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government gave out more than $54 million in international assistance to China in 2002-03. China is now the fourth largest recipient of bilateral international assistance. Out of the top five countries receiving country to country assistance, only one African country, Ethiopia, is in the top five.

Can the minister explain why China is getting more international assistance than developing nations in Africa and Latin America?

[International Aid, April 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday CIDA announced a $3 million contribution for a social work intervention program in China. Canadian tax dollars are now going to an initiative that supports the social services network in China.

Can the Minister for International Cooperation or the foreign affairs minister explain why the Liberal government continues to send Canadian dollars to a regime that sends a man to space? Why?

[Liberal Party of Canada, April 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians in my riding of Calgary East are fed up with the Liberal government's culture of corruption.

What we now have is another abuse of taxpayers' dollars. In recent weeks, Liberal candidates have been spending taxpayers' dollars and not their own to buy votes. Between the turncoat member for Kings--Hants, the environment minister and the finance minister, they have doled out $225,000 so they can get re-elected.

Corruption, abuse of tax dollars and patronage are all becoming synonymous with the Liberal government. Canadians are getting sick of this.

In the upcoming election, it is bon voyage to the scandal plagued Liberal Party.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, April 20th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, as usual when I listen to the member from Scarborough, I find that he must be a lawyer because of the way in which he couches his speech. He speaks like a lawyer. Ordinary Canadians outside of this place cannot even understand what he is talking about with all these great words and great percentages and everything that he puts in. He must be a lawyer.

Let me tell him that as far as Canadians are concerned, they look at what the Auditor General said. Where is the transparency? Where is the accountability? Let him talk about what his government has wasted. The government has wasted billions of dollars on the gun registry. They could do better things here. The member should not try to hide behind the figures out there by talking about the GDP and all those things.

As I was saying yesterday in my speech about this government, the so-called change the Liberals were talking about has not transpired. It is the same old government with the same old policies. There has been no change. There is a lack of vision and a disconnect from Canadians.

We can see what the Liberals are doing on the other side: they are trying to blame it on the Conservative Party now, on Brian Mulroney's party, yet they have been ruling over there for the last ten and a half years. They should forget about Brian Mulroney's record. They should talk about their own record, about what they have done here instead of going back there.

Now, as for their record, the member from Scarborough is absolutely right. The Canadian people will make the choice when they vote at the election. They will say to the government that there is no accountability and they will send the message that the Liberal Party needs to hear from Canadians.

As I said in my speech yesterday, there is a lack of vision and there is a lack of direction in the budget that the Prime Minister has presented, and this is a Prime Minister who was finance minister, the second most powerful man in the last administration. I think we better start using the word “administration”, because it is the same Liberal government doing everything.

Today I want to talk about international assistance. As the senior critic for international development, I noted that this budget has a $248 million increase for international assistance. We noticed the increase, but we do have some very serious concerns about how Canada's international assistance is managed.

The previous government made a commitment of an 8% increase. This $248 million shows that increase. However, when we are talking about figures, we can quite comfortably say that our contribution to international aid has fallen, to .25% of the GDP in 2000, and it remains below .03% of GDP. When we start talking about GDP percentages, it looks very low, but in reality over $2.5 billion is now going to international assistance. That is a huge sum of money.

What we need to know is what is happening with that $2.5 billion that we are allocating to international assistance. Right now we are in 105 countries, giving out money to small projects as band-aids. They are having no impact, no impact at all. I had a meeting with senior officials from CIDA and asked them to give me a success story, to tell me where CIDA has been. The officials have been involved in international development assistance since the 1960s and 1970s and I asked them to give me a success story. They could not give me a success story. Where did they put the money? It is a good question. Where? We do not know.

Let us talk about the countries that were recipients of Canadian aid and what has happened to them. Recipients were the continent of Africa and the continent of Latin America. What happened to the continents of Africa and Latin America? Those two continents today have the largest number of poor countries in the world, so what has happened to all our development assistance?

We were not there to issue development assistance. We were there just to show the Canadian flag. In reality, companies in Canada were the ones that were benefiting from this international development assistance, not the countries to which the aid was supposed to go.

Now, fine, it has been recognized that this was a mistake and the government is trying to address that issue, but I will tell members what the biggest flaw is. We are a country that has absolutely no legislation on determining how to achieve and what are the objectives of our international development assistance. The U.K. has just issued a legislative agenda to tell the bureaucrats where the money should go, but here in Canada the bureaucrats tell us where the money is going. There is an oversight from Parliament, but that does not mean we are telling them where the money should go.

What do we have? We have bureaucrats deciding which countries will get money, where the money will go and how the money will be spent. At the end of the day, it goes in all directions, and as it goes in all directions, there are no concrete results coming out of that kind of thing.

Let me give an example. I stood up in the House two years ago demanding that we stop aid to India and China. Why? Because these were the emerging economies that did not need the small amount of money we were giving them.

What did the minister stand up and say? He said, “No, we have to give the money to them. There are poor people in those countries”. Of course there are poor people in those countries. I agree. But these countries also have governments that should be responsible for their own citizens. What spectacle do we end up with? A year later we have the spectacle of the government of India telling us to pack our bags and leave.

Yet the government did not get that message from China. China sent an astronaut into space. China spent $3 billion dollars on that. Why would the Chinese not worry about their poor while we are saying we are worried about their poor? Even now the aid workers will not move out of China. I do not understand why not. It is not that China is poor. Yes, there are poor people, but the reallocation of resources in China should be the responsibility of the government of China, not the responsibility of the Government of Canada. Still the minister will not agree to that request.

We keep throwing away international assistance money, yet our budget says that we are going to increase our aid spending because we need to help the poor.

I wish to make a small comment on an announcement that the Prime Minister made today. I will say that we were the first to support the initiative of changing the legislation to send cheaper drugs to Africa to fight AIDS. We recognize the importance of this. We recognize the devastation that AIDS is causing. We recognize our commitment. Our party is supporting this legislation and finally we see this legislation moving forward.

Last, I would like to say to my friend on the other side, my friend from Scarborough, that, yes, I also am waiting for an election.