Dick Harris

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Mississauga South, probably inadvertently, misled the House in his statement. He said the government had paid down $60 billion of debt. That is not true and the member knows that.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Wild Rose tells it like it is in this House. He talked about the inaction of the Liberal government over the last 12 years. It appears to me that the member for Wild Rose has described the stark reality of the Liberal government over the last 12 years.

The Liberals are not in government because they have a concern for the country and a desire to make it better. They are in government, as is evidenced by their lack of attention to the many concerns that were brought up, simply to be in government.

The Liberals have not fixed the justice system in the 12 years they have been in government. The quality of life for the first nations in our country, despite the billions of dollars in programs that they have spent in that area, is no better now than it was 12 years ago. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that the quality of life among first nations in our country is worse now than it was 12 years ago, despite the billions of dollars that were spent, and the NDP has supported the Liberals these last 12 years.

I want to ask the member for Wild Rose if he would comment on the deal that was made on the back of a napkin between the Liberals and the NDP. What possible reasoning could the NDP members have to now support a government that only weeks ago they accused of being corrupt and undermining the well-being of our country? What possible reason could they have to support the Liberals?

[Petitions, June 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, a vast majority of Canadians support the current legal definition of marriage as the voluntary union of a single man and a single woman, including the several hundred from my riding, namely from Quesnel, British Columbia.

The petitioners say that whereas it is the duty of Parliament to ensure that marriage is defined as Canadians wish it to be defined, they petition Parliament to use all possible legislative and administrative measures, including invoking section 33 of the charter if necessary, to preserve and protect the current definition of marriage as between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act, June 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-363. I am always pleased to be in the House at the same time as the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell because he is such a great presenter. He never misses a chance to ensure that in his speech he manages to give the government some credit for jobs that are done actually by people who are at arm's length from the government.

I would like to congratulate the management of the CMHC who has been able to operate that institution despite the bad management of the government. Hats off to the CMHC and thumbs down to the Liberal Government of Canada. That applies in many jurisdictions across this country, in provinces and cities, that manage to operate in a fiscally sound with responsible manner despite the bad management of the Government of Canada.

While Bill C-363, an act to amend the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation with regard to distributing surplus profits from its insurance fund, is a noble bill, my party cannot support it because we think the direction of the CMHC to get into the social housing market is actually a little misguided. We do not believe the CMHC should be directing its surplus funding into the social housing market because it would take the planning by government departments, which are responsible for social housing, out of the picture. It would allow the CMHC to simply turn over surplus funding to social housing programs without having to bring that to Parliament.

I do not think social housing needs should be met by profits generated from the CMHC, particularly profits realized from the CMHC insurance fees. Funds for social housing investments of various types should originate from federal budgets and be appropriated by Parliament giving parliamentarians the right to vote on expenditures as opposed to making the expenditures a statutory requirement. The mortgage fund of course should be operated on a sound commercial basis in accordance with sound actuarial practices, and premiums should be set accordingly.

I noticed my hon. friend made some very nice points, one being that the CMHC had reduced its mortgage premium of 30% about two years ago and that it has another 15% premium reduction on rental development. That is a good thing because what it is doing is operating the CMHC insurance fund using prudence and taking the responsibility to pass those surpluses on to the users of the fund, the people who apply to CMHC to enable them to buy a house with little or no down payment where normally they would not be able to do that.

It is rather coincidental that I am speaking on this today because my son and his new bride who live in Calgary just bought their first house. Without the CMHC and the provisions that were made available to them they would not have been able to buy that house. Hurray for the CMHC again.

I have to do some comparisons. When CMHC applies surpluses to the lowering of premiums, it could teach a lesson to the EI people. It could also teach a lesson to the government. The government should take an example from CMHC and see how it has applied surpluses to a lower premium. If only it would understand that this is the proper way to do things, it might apply reductions to the EI premiums at both the employer and the employee level to bring the premiums down to a level that actually relates to the money needed to sustain EI as well as maintain a rainy day fund in case of a downturn in the economy.

Instead, the government has not done that. Over the past 12 years, because it has refused to lower premiums in the EI program, it has amassed a $40-some billion surplus which did was not returned to the payers of the premium. That $40 billion disappeared into the general revenue of the Liberal government.

Despite calls from every party in the House, working Canadians and employers across the country, the government is still maintaining an abnormally high premium rate and an abnormally high surplus. That is far above the rainy day fund needed in case of an economic downturn. It refuses to acknowledge that the people who are paying the bill deserve to have a break on premiums.

After all these years we, the Bloc and the NDP have been talking about it, but the Liberals in their arrogance and in their desire to have this pot of cash at their fingertips so that they can feed it out to their political whims, have ignored that.

Bill C-363 would impact on general revenues by reducing CMHC profits. It would go into social housing. That is not the place that these surpluses should go. Social housing is part of another department of the government and is accountable to Parliament. That is how it should be. Potentially, by passing this bill, it could easily allow for higher than necessary insurance premiums. That would be unfortunate and it is certainly not what we want in Canada.

CMHC would be allowed to make social housing policy decisions without the input of parliamentarians. It would have the potential to utilize higher than necessary premiums for purposes other than insurance risks. Let us be clear. CMHC has a mandate. It has worked very well, as was indicated by my colleague from Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, and certainly, members of the Bloc know that CMHC is an organization that is capable of generating excess revenue from its operations.

It appears to be prudently run with good management. But what is not realized is that the money should be returned in the form of lower premiums which would be even more help to young people such as my son and my daughter-in-law to enable them to buy their first house.

I spoke about the example that CMHC is setting by returning surplus funds into lower premiums. That is the thing to do. I would just mention again that the Liberals should take a lesson from the way CMHC has been responsible in recognizing who is providing the income to it, the premium payers. If the EI people would recognize that too, and recognize that by keeping artificially high premiums they are in fact decreasing the opportunity for the creation of new jobs, decreasing the opportunity for businesses to have the money to expand and create new jobs, and they are in a way putting blockades on the economy taking some leaps ahead.

We are going to oppose this bill because, while it is a noble thought, it simply does not work with the mandate or the successful operation of CMHC. I am sure that Parliament will see that Bill C-363 is not a bill that we must pass into legislation at this time.

[Marriage, June 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is determined to ram through Bill C-38, the legislation that threatens the traditional definition of marriage.

The Liberals have used threats, coercion and intimidation as tools to get the same sex marriage bill into law before the summer recess. They have threatened religious leaders and the tax status of their churches. They have disallowed any member of the cabinet a free vote and threaten punishment if they disobey. They have threatened marriage commissioners with the loss of their jobs if they refuse to marry same sex couples. The Liberals want to ram Bill C-38 through before an election because they know the vast majority of Canadians do not support it.

If they succeed, I promise them that the people of Canada will never forget what they have done in their attempt to destroy the traditional definition of marriage and the voters will send a clear message of their anger to every Liberal candidate who supports same sex marriage.

There will be a price to pay for the Liberals' obsession with Bill C-38 and they may rest assured that the price will be paid at the polls.

[Budget Implementation Act, May 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we listened to the impassioned plea from the Liberal member who asked the House to put aside differences and pass a budget that now reaches $24 billion more than the budget presented in February, a budget that we in the Conservative Party were prepared to support because at that time it did express interest in the values and the priorities of Canadians. Unfortunately, as the NDP portion was added onto that budget plus another $24 billion in election promises, we have now a budget that expresses the interest of a corrupt and sinking Liberal Party that will do or say anything to stay in power. That $24 billion extra in promises may never be kept.

Let us be clear. The history that I have seen in the House is that truth has never stood in the way of a Liberal election promise.

We were prepared to support that February budget. As a matter of fact on two occasions we did when it came to a vote in this House. We kept the Liberal ship alive when the NDP and their new-found friends and bedmates, the Bloc, were prepared to vote against the budget and bring the government down. We supported the budget on those two occasions because we wanted this Parliament to work.

Then the Liberals decided they were going to start to play games with the budget. They played games with the offshore oil resources deal, the stand alone deal that was made with the Premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, a deal to which the Liberals were committed, and we were happy with that. Then they decided to throw it into a large omnibus type bill and bury it in with a bunch of things that were unacceptable to us and that were never present when the deal was made.

I have to ask the question as have my colleagues. Given the way the Liberals have jumped into bed with the NDP, they have now reached spending of $24 billion in pre-election promises that may never be kept and likely will not be, and given the 12 years of broken promises of the government, how on earth could any Canadian believe that corrupt Liberal government now?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know that there is some sort of rule in this House that when we are debating or responding to a question, we should try to stay with the theme of the question.

My question was distinctly about pine beetles--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in the minister's list of spending he talked about the Asian longhorn beetle, and the word beetle is quite personal to me. Over the last 10 years or more the province of British Columbia has had a natural disaster occur in its forests as a result of the mountain pine beetle. The Liberals are aware of the devastation it has caused. Their record is not something of which they should be proud.

In 2002 the British Columbia minister of forestry was in Ottawa. He told the government that the province had a five year, billion dollar plan to mitigate and try to arrest the damage that had been caused by the mountain pine beetle. There was no response to that. The federal government said that it would contribute $40 million to B.C., less than 10% of the province's five year plan.

In 2004 the province asked the federal government to be partners in a 10 to 15 year plan. It wanted $1 billion plus a long term commitment while the job was being done. The government offered the province 10% of that, $100 million, with no commitment to the future.

Why does the government seem to have so much indifference about the problems of British Columbia?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is particularly appropriate that the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla is speaking on the budget bill given his experience in provincial politics as a provincial cabinet minister and in the area of finance in the Alberta government.

I have a question that the member could help me with. Over the last 23 or 24 days since the infamous deal was made between the NDP and the Liberals and since the 2005 budget in February, it appears to me that there have promises made for somewhere in the neighbourhood of $23 billion or $24 billion in increased spending. The Liberals are saying they are able to do this because of the unplanned surpluses they have suddenly found.

If unplanned surpluses become unplanned shortages, what happens to all these promises? Is it the Liberals' intention to say some day down the road in the very near future, if they hang around, that they have unplanned shortages so those promises cannot be kept? How drastically does this $23 billion or $24 billion affect the normal operation of government, given prudence in a budget? How dramatic an effect could it have on these promises they have made if the revenue comes in, unplanned, at far lower than they are saying it could?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I imagine members of the NDP are probably doing a little gloating these days considering they somehow made a deal with the Liberals to include an extra $4.8 billion into the budget on items that are somewhere off in the future. Much of the increased spending that was in the NDP induced budget will in fact not kick in for another year or year and a half.

Given the history of the Liberal government of making promises and not keeping them, going right back to 1993 in the infamous red book, which I think made something like 21 or 22 promises that were not kept, and given the performance of the government over the last 12 years of making billion dollar promises just before an election or before a crisis in the party, how on earth can that member or any member of the NDP have any confidence that the Liberals will keep their promise?

Members of the NDP have to be pretty naive to believe what the Liberals are saying today given their record over the last 12 years of breaking promises.