Dick Harris

[Grand Parents' Day Act, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-274, proposing to make the second Sunday of September every year national grandparents day.

When I arrived at the House I had some good feelings about this bill and I was in a good mood. Then I watched as the member for Don Valley North sought unanimous approval to have his bill made votable. I understand the member for Don Valley North first sought in committee to have his bill made votable and was denied. I just wonder what kind of heartless minds exist in the Liberal Party opposite. The member for Don Valley North simply sought to have his bill recognized by a vote in the House, hoping for a majority vote for a bill which would stir the emotions of Canadians and was denied.

I proudly support this bill. It was put forward by a member of the Liberal Party and I am very pleased to support because it does not cost the Canadian taxpayer one red cent. It is very unusual for a bill to come forward from the Liberal Party that is not going to cost the taxpayer some money. I congratulate the member for Don Valley North for putting it forward because it is something we have not been used to in the House.

In the past a number of bills have been forced through the House by the Liberal Party. Bills C-33 and C-34 will cost the taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars. They were rammed through the House using closure. The government tried to put Bill C-22 through the House. It would take away the freedom of private citizens to challenge the government in a court case.

We saw the Liberal government try to put through a budget in the House last February that is going to increase our national debt by $100 billion over a three-year term and add about $10 billion or $12 billion to our annual interest payments. The government is trying to put through Bill C-68 which will cost the Canadian taxpayers perhaps $500 million.

It is a great day in the House of Commons, a great day for the Liberal Party and a great day for Canada to have a member of the Liberal Party try to put through a bill in the House that is not going to cost the taxpayers one red cent. I congratulate the member for Don Valley North for this bill.

That is a celebration in itself, but I have another reason for speaking to this bill. As a member of Parliament I get a special perk today. I can stand up in the House of Commons of Canada and on national television I can announce that yesterday I was informed that I am going to be a grandfather before this year is over. Therefore this is absolutely appropriate. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you do not have to be old to be a grandfather.

I am proud of my daughter, Lisa, in Vancouver. She will be a mother some time later this year and she will make me a grandfather. I am going to be able to realize some of the personal satisfaction that you get from being a grandfather, particularly when I get to babysit and the kids get cranky, I will know the parents are coming home sooner or later that night.

In a more serious vein, it is very important to recognize a day like grandparents day because it not only recognizes the important role that grandparents play in the lives of families, but it also recognizes the tremendous contribution that our ancestors have played in the building of the country.

I am a firm believer that it is the family unit; the mother, the father, the children, the grandparents, the aunts and the uncles who built this country as strong as it is now. I also believe above all else that this Parliament has a responsibility to ensure that the family unit is not broken down any more than it is already. Parliament has a responsibility to try and rebuild the family unit as it was prior to the 1960s.

The taxation levels since the mid-sixties have risen to a point where it is almost a demand that the mother of a family go out to work in order for the household to have enough disposable income to support the family. That is a tragedy and is one of the things that has broken down the family unit.

Grandparents can and do play an important role when the two spouses in a household are working. It is an absolutely critical time in the lives of children who become, through no wish of their own, latchkey kids. The parents of these kids, because of their jobs, are too busy to spend time with them. This makes the grandparents' role even more important.

I want Parliament to recognize that grandparents are part of the formula for making a family unit strong. For that reason alone, just that one reason, we should support this bill.

Another thing about grandparents that I find very important is they tend to pass down family values and history from one generation to another. Grandparents who spend a lot of time with their grandchildren generally have more time to talk to the kids about how their parents are working so hard to try to provide a home for them, to try to provide an education for them, something the parents often do not have time to do. This is a very important role for grandparents and they should be recognized for that as well.

A huge number of grandparents have also played an important part in the protection of democracy. They fought in the wars. They fought against fascism and communism in order to preserve the democracy we hold in such high value. They should be recognized for this as well.

I can speak from experience because I was a child in a one parent home. My mother worked every day while we were being brought up. Many times the only people I had to turn to for help with problems were my grandparents. I am eternally grateful for

the role they played in my life and the values they tried to instil in me that became beneficial when I grew up and started a career.

Grandparents day would provide an excellent opportunity for all Canadians to recognize the very important role grandparents play in a family.

I move that the House respond in a fashion that would come from the heart and not from instructions received from a committee and that unanimous consent could be given today that Bill C-274 become a votable motion.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's concurrence with my remarks.

In order to obtain the integrity of this House and the transparency and the visibility the Canadian people are looking for one has to have a truly independent ethics counsellor.

Perhaps I can give this example. It is almost like two baseball teams playing a game of baseball. If the umpire is chosen by both teams to be independent then it is a fine game. However, if the umpire is chosen by only one team then how can the other team have any confidence that it will be a fair game?

That is what the Canadian people are saying. How do they have any confidence in what is happening in government when all the rules are determined by the Liberal government and the opposition party and the Reform Party do not have input into some very fundamental elements of fairness and integrity in the House?

The Liberals may say they are the government, they have a majority, a majority of the people voted for them. That is fine, but I would like to remind the Liberal Party that there were several million other people in Canada who did not vote for them, and they are looking very closely at what this government is doing. If the Liberal government wants to try to swing their vote the next time, they are looking for the government to give them some message and some reason to vote for them again.

If the Liberal government carries on the way it has been, not fulfilling its promises, even a good majority of its supporters, those who voted for it the last time, will become disillusioned with the fact that the Liberal government has no more intention of delivering visibility in the way it operates than the previous Tory government had.

I hope to remind the Liberal government of what happened to the previous Tory government when it did all its business behind closed doors. That should be a good lesson for this government.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this bill today.

I listened carefully to the hon. member from the Bloc. When he started talking about the non-partisan way that the Bloc was speaking to the bill, I thought I might have to leave the room for fear that lightning would strike through the ceiling at any time. However we are far enough apart that perhaps it would not have affected me.

I spoke to some amendments to this bill a short time ago and outlined some of the things I felt the bill lacked. The Liberal red book made a promise on which all Liberals ran in the election. That promise basically said that a Liberal government wanted most desperately to return integrity to our political institution and that such integrity had to be restored.

That is a heck of a statement and it played well with many Canadians. Canadians had lost much confidence and trust in the way government did business. Canada was in a very sorry state. I know I felt apathy from the electors in my election campaign. The most common comment I heard was: "Listen, I hear what you are saying, but politicians are all the same. Once you get there it is a different world. The deals are made behind closed doors. Going there with a noble cause like Don Quixote is not going to do any good because there is no integrity left in that place in Ottawa".

At the same time the Liberals were saying: "We are going there and if we form the government, we are going to restore integrity".

When Bill C-43, an act to control the activities of lobbyists and people that are influenced by lobbyists first became available my first reaction was that the Liberals were to do something. They were to put some visibility into how lobbyists operate within the confines of ministerial and government offices with all bureaucrats alike.

When I picked up the bill and started reading I had great expectations. I thought that finally the Liberals would fulfil a promise of the red book. I almost said blue book because we have made that same promise. When we become the government next time and address the subject of lobbyists, we will do something far better than Bill C-43.

I looked for things like the establishment of an ethics counsellor. This was a tremendous step. Then I started reading about how the ethics counsellor was to be established and was very surprised to see that the counsellor who was to look into the activities of all members of Parliament-Liberal, Bloc, Reform Party and Independents-was to be chosen and appointed not by the members of Parliament, as one would expect for an independent person, but by the Prime Minister.

I said to myself: "This really doesn't sound right. My understanding of an ethics counsellor, who looks after the dealings of Parliament, the people that work in government, should be someone who would come before the entire House of Commons, present his or her credentials and have the approval of Parliament as a whole". This is not the case.

We have an ethics counsellor who is appointed by the Prime Minister. I do not know but perhaps he is a Liberal. The Prime Minister said it is hard to find anyone in the country who is not a Liberal any more because so many people voted for the Liberal Party. Therefore one has to assume this independent ethics counsellor could possibly be a Liberal.

I also looked for comfort in the ethics counsellor. Once I found that he would not be independent I looked for some comfort. I thought: "Even though he was chosen by the Prime Minister, perhaps he may have to report to Parliament". I read the bill looking for these key phrases and I found that he does not have to report to Parliament. He reports directly back to the very person who appointed him in the first place. I thought: "This doesn't sound like an independent ethics counsellor". I was really let down from my great expectations of at least restoring some integrity and honesty to the government and to the way things are done in the House.

One of my colleagues put together an amendment that would bring the ethics counsellor into a true position of independence. The amendment said basically that the ethics counsellor would be approved by Parliament as a whole. The ethics counsellor would create a code of ethics under which lobbyists and government people alike would have to operate. The ethics counsellor would also have to report to Parliament. I thought this was a good amendment.

My hon. colleague spent a lot of time working on this amendment. I was very surprised to see it defeated by the Liberal government, the same government that in the red book said it wanted to return some integrity to government. If its promises could be believed why would it reject an amendment that really created a truly independent ethics counsellor?

I read on a little further and I realized that it was almost like when my wife sets out to make bread. If she uses all the other ingredients but forgets to put some yeast in the dough, we do not have much of a loaf of bread by the time it is cooked. It is very flat. That is what has happened to this bill. It has no yeast in it. It does not have the essential ingredients that will send a clear message to the people of Canada and to the members of other parties that the Liberal government is serious about returning integrity and honesty to government.

When I spoke last week I said, and I may have surprised some of my colleagues, that I do not have too much of a problem personally with the job lobbyists do around here. I know what the game is all about. They are basically marketing people who come to Ottawa on behalf of companies or special interest groups to try to sell their client's point of view to government. It is a job. If they do it well they are very successful. I do not have any problem with someone making a living in the marketing business, lobbyist or otherwise.

I really do have a problem with people in government who are in positions of trust, in positions of power, in positions of influence and how they react to lobbyists. In my opinion it is not so much the lobbyists that the ethnics counsellor should be

concerned with. He or she should be concerned with the people in government.

Without the structure in place, without the independence that the ethics counsellor could freely operate under, basically that person's hands are tied. There is no way that person is going to have independence when it is a personal appointment by the Prime Minister, where the position is not approved by the House of Commons as a whole and where the ethics counsellor would not have to report back to Parliament.

Some instances have come up during this Parliament, some most recently where an independent ethics counsellor could answer questions that are on the minds of the Canadian people. I would like to talk about two of the most recent ones which just came to light the other day about the grant to the port of Belledune.

About two weeks ago the Minister of Transport said to the press very plainly that there would be not one red cent of government grant money going to the port of Belledune as long as he was the Minister of Transport. He said: "I wouldn't even give a dime in grant money for the port of Saint John". That was two weeks ago.

A couple of days ago we found that in fact the Minister of Transport from his own department is granting about $4.5 million to this port project and another $1.5 million is apparently coming from some other department. In that two-week period something happened to facilitate this complete turnaround in the mind of the Minister of Transport. What was that? I suggest someone possibly lobbied the Minister of Transport. When a minister of his stature does a complete turn around in two weeks, I am sure there are a lot of people in the maritimes wondering what happened; he said one thing and then two weeks later said another thing, totally opposite.

That question in the minds of Canadians and in the minds of a lot of members could be answered if we had a true ethics counsellor who represented all members of Parliament. He would be independent to look at that.

As a private member I could go to the ethics counsellor and present a written inquiry: "I am concerned about this. Why did the Minister of Transport say two weeks ago he would give no grant money and then two weeks later he said he would, to the tune of $6 million?"

This is a small amount compared with some others. We can talk about the highways project involving the minister of public works. It appears there was some backroom dealing and now the minister of public works is being questioned about possibly influencing the diversion of some funds allotted to one project over another area of the province. These are questions people of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have. They are asking: "What happened here? The minister of public works said one thing and now he does another thing".

If we had an independent ethics counsellor then private members from all parties in the House would have the freedom to receive inquiries from everywhere in Canada about what government bureaucracy is doing, what ministers are doing, what any other representative of the government is doing with tax dollars, why they are making these decisions. We do not have that freedom now. If integrity, honesty and visibility are ever to be restored to the House then we must have it.

Some parts of the bill I thought were reasonably positive; the part which increases the disclosure requirements for lobbyists, especially to tier two in-house lobbyist. As I have said before, I do not have as much of a problem with lobbyists as some of my colleagues have. I have more problem with the government, but that is a positive.

The bill talks about lobbyists whose clients are coalitions and will have disclose the membership of the coalition. Finally the Canadian people should have the opportunity to see what special interest groups are lobbying the government for special favours or more money.

The bill will add government funding and the subject matter of lobbying proposal to disclosure requirements. That is a good part of the bill. It extends the statute of limitations for investigations from six months to two years. Those are all good things.

All of the good parts of the bill are negated because there is no independence in any type of inquiry that could result from an incident. I listed the positives and I used a very short part of the page to list the negatives. Surprisingly enough it was quite a bit longer. I am sure my colleagues came up with the same results.

I want to talk about some of the negatives. This bill classifies lobbyists not on what they do but whom they work for. Lobbyists should be defined by their activities, not their employers. Who employs them is really of no consequence. The focus should be on what they are doing on the Hill.

In our opinion all professional lobbyists should be treated the same. The red book promises recommendations from the 1992 unanimous Holtmann report would be implemented by the Liberal government. Removal of the tiers was an explicit Holtmann report recommendation. This has not been done.

A lobbyist is defined as someone who lobbies as a significant part of their duties. John Turner, who may only lobby two or three times a year, can make the case that this is not a significant part of his duties, but what he does may have a significant

impact on government. He may be able to have a significant impact on decision making.

We have many cases in which questions have arisen in the House about the activities of government which simply cannot be answered because we do not have a mechanism by which to have an independent inquiry into those questions. Recently we have talked about the direct to home satellite episode. We have talked, as we did today in the House, about the Seagram episode. We have talked about the Pearson episode and now we are having a public inquiry into it. That is good, but a public inquiry may have been averted if we had a position in the House where an independent inquiry could have been made by someone designated by all members of the House.

Probably one of the more questionable policies the government has undertaken is the infamous credit card infrastructure program. We spent day after day as Reformers telling the Canadian people about some of the incredible projects in the infrastructure program. My colleague from Calgary talked about the expensive box seats at the Calgary Saddledome. Could one suspect there was some lobbying done in that instance? What kind of conversations went on behind closed doors? We could even talk about the situation in the Prime Minister's riding of the now infamous canoe hall of fame.

The list goes on and on. One could stand here for a full 20 minutes to bring up circumstances or happenings which have raised questions in the minds of the Canadian people as to how the government does business, why these decisions were made, exactly who were the lobbyists who did the influencing and how much influence they had on government officials who were placed in a position of trust.

There are three words which sum up what Canadian people are looking for in the House not being addressed by this bill: accountability, legitimacy and autonomy: accountability of MPs, ministers and people in positions of trust in government, accountability for their decisions and how they use taxpayers' money, and how they make decisions which influence the society in which we live and the morality of the country; legitimacy in the operation of Parliament. People want to see their members representing them in a responsible and legitimate fashion. With respect to autonomy, I speak of the autonomy of an ethics counsellor. It is imperative to the position. Unfortunately in Bill C-43 these three words and what they mean are missing.

Government members stood on many soapboxes during the campaign and promised the people they were speaking to that a Liberal government would bring honesty, integrity and accountability back to Parliament. If they truly believe Bill C-43 is a step in that direction, they have sadly missed the mark.

I am very disappointed our very commonsensical amendments to the bill were not accepted by the Liberal Party. They were defeated. We will continue to speak about accountability, honesty and integrity in the House until the government gets the message. I hope it does some day.

Reformers like to believe we have brought honesty to Parliament. I cannot support Bill C-43 because the essential ingredients to make it a good bill are simply not there.

[Aboriginal Fishing Strategy, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, consider that these secret documents speak of the detrimental effects of native fishing. Consider that millions of west coast salmon went missing in 1994. Consider that the Fraser River report slams the AFS pilot sales project as not being effectively monitored. Will the minister today take the advice of his own officials and protect our fisheries resource by immediately calling for a suspension of the aboriginal fishing strategy?

[Aboriginal Fishing Strategy, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

I have in my possession a leaked secret document from the minister's department which states: "The fisheries situation has become volatile as more and more aboriginals try to exercise perceived fishing rights to the detriment of a properly regulated fishing industry".

Why does the minister continue to allow the native fishing protest on the east coast and why does he continue to defend the aboriginal fishing strategy on the west coast when his own advisers are confirming that native fishing is not properly monitored and has become a severe threat to Canada's fishing resource?

[Government Spending, April 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the average working Canadian will be very happy with that reply.

While the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans surrounds himself in luxury in Ottawa, he also finds it necessary to move and to upscale his ministerial office in St. John's, Newfoundland. Considering the fact that most Newfoundlanders are being forced to live somewhere near the subsistence level, will the Prime Minister explain to them and all Canadians the rationale in the costs involved in moving the minister of fisheries' office in St. John's to a fully renovated and more opulent surrounding?

[Government Spending, April 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, access to information has just revealed that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has spent over $200,000 for renovations and luxurious items for his Kent Street office in Ottawa, including over $7,000 for art work, $1,800 for a love seat, and some $254 for a brass nameplate.

My question is for the Prime Minister. In view of the economic hardship and belt tightening that most Canadians have to undergo and the Liberal red book promise to cut spending, will the Prime Minister justify the rationale for this outrageous spending by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans?

[Lobbyists Registration Act, April 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for allowing me to speak to the bill and the motions.

We have talked in previous debate about the three-tier registration system for lobbyists. We have talked about increasing the transparency of how lobbyists operate. We have talked about increasing the authority and the autonomy of the ethics counsellor. I should like to focus my input on Motions Nos. 23, 25 and 31.

Reformers were sent to Ottawa to try to influence the way government operates in the House of Commons, a return to ethics, integrity and honesty in the way the House of Commons and different government departments operate.

In the eyes of most Canadians, politicians and government people in this plastic city, as it is called in my riding, are very much in question. The average Canadians has lost trust in government, lost trust in the bureaucracy of the public service and lost trust in the way the people entrusted to operate on their behalf operate.

I will talk about integrity and trust, in particular the portion of the bill that deals with the ethics counsellor. The ethics counsellor, according to Bill C-43, will develop a lobbyists code of conduct. I do not share the same concerns about how lobbyists operate. Having been in the marketing business all my life-and I was a pretty good salesman-I look upon lobbyists as salesmen. They are selling concepts or ideas to the government on

behalf of companies or interest groups. They are there to do a job. If they do a good job I am not uncomfortable with that.

However, the part of the bill I am uncomfortable with is how the people in trusted positions react to lobbyists, whether they be the ethics counsellor, the registrar or employees. Guidelines must be put in place to ensure people in positions of trust are not privately influenced by lobbyists. In other words, it has to be an open and visible process so the people of Canada and parliamentarians are able to see clearly what is going on behind the closed doors of the people in trusted positions.

I refer to the infamous Liberal red book or the red ink book, as we prefer to call it. The red book said that integrity in our political institutions must be restored. That is a very honourable statement but the proof of the statement must be in the pudding. How is integrity in our political institutions to be restored? That is the question people ask. It is fine, in the heat of an election, to make statements and even put them in writing. However following through on the statements is the most important thing a government can do and the most important thing the people of Canada are looking for.

When Canadians see a statement in the Liberal Party red book that it is going to restore integrity in the political institutions, they are looking for some proof of it. The proof is not there.

We have a situation where the Prime Minister can appoint an ethics counsellor. We beg to ask the question: Where is the integrity in that? It opens a door to many conflicts of interest. We in the Reform Party are firmly convinced that the appointment of an ethics counsellor, if integrity in our political institution is to be restored, must be approved by the Parliament of Canada. After all, every MP in this place represents the Canadian people. We were elected to come here and do a job. A position as important as the appointment of an ethics counsellor should be approved by Parliament as a whole.

There are some examples already in the 35th Parliament in support of the Reform Party's demand that an ethics counsellor must be approved after debate in the House of Commons. Let me go through a few.

Patronage is alive and well in the country and in the government. When the Prime Minister appoints another Liberal he says that he has to appoint Liberals. We question every day in question period the qualifications of some of the appointments made by the Prime Minister and his ministers. We say that they have the qualifications but we ask if they happen to be Liberal supporters, long time Liberal friends. That is a small example of patronage being alive and well. It is something the government said it was to do away with.

Let me quote some other examples such as the minister of heritage affair. In October 1994 it was revealed that the minister of heritage wrote a letter to the CRTC on ministerial letterhead in support of one of his constituent's applications. In our opinion it was a clear conflict of interest in as much as the minister of heritage is responsible for the CRTC. The Prime Minister in his wisdom called it an honest mistake. We questioned that. We asked how many more examples of perceived conflicts of interest can be written off by the Prime Minister as honest mistakes.

The Prime Minister refused to ask for the resignation of the minister of heritage as was demanded by many members in the House. He also refused to tell Canadians what the ethics counsellor had advised him to do.

On one occasion the Prime Minister said that he had talked to the ethics counsellor. Then he said he had not talked to him and then a staff member had talked to the ethics counsellor for the Prime Minister.

Under the present guidelines of the ethics counsellor we in the House will never know what happened in the minister of heritage affair. Canadians have seen a perceived conflict of interest swept aside with some talk about an honest mistake, that maybe he should not have done that but should have done this instead.

If we had an ethics counsellor, truly independent and responsible to Parliament rather than the Prime Minister, there would be a clear obligation on the part of the ethics counsellor to report an incident such as I have described to Parliament and there would be no question as to what happened.

We can talk about the post office scandal and the perceived conflict of interest between a Liberal senator and president of Canada Post and a developer. We can talk about the direct to home satellite flip-flop just discussed in the House the other day.

What we want in Motion No. 23 is to force the ethics counsellor appointment to be approved by Parliament and that he or she would serve 10 years. In that case the ethics counsellor would no longer be at the whims of the Prime Minister as to his appointment and removal. Setting a term limit would ensure he does not become entrenched in a self-made empire, which happens all the time in this place.

The red book promises an independent ethics counsellor. Under Bill C-43 he is not independent. This amendment would truly make him independent.

Motions Nos. 25 and 31 would require the counsellor to table his code of conduct to Parliament for approval and for debate. The counsellor would report directly to Parliament, not to the Prime Minister.

Motions Nos. 25 and 31-this is very important-create accountability, legitimacy and autonomy within the ethics counsellor's department. I believe these last three words, accountability, legitimacy and autonomy, are very important to this bill and I urge members to give their support.

[Petitions, April 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present four petitions to the House today from my riding of Prince George-Bulkley Valley containing several hundred names and dealing with the proposals for gun control.

One petition is from Mr. Dan Varma of Prince George, B.C.; two from Mr. Jim Eisert of Fraser Lake, B.C.; and, one from the Prince George branch of the Responsible Firearms Coalition.

All these petitioners request that Parliament support laws which will severely punish all violent criminals who use weapons in the commission of a crime; that Parliament will support new Criminal Code firearms control provisions which recognize and protect the right of law-abiding citizens to own and use recreational firearms; and finally, to support legislation which will repeal and modify existing gun control laws which have not improved public safety or have proven not to be cost effective or have proven to be overly complex so as to be ineffective and/or unenforceable.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995, April 24th, 1995]

Go home.