Dick Harris

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, May 10th, 2005]

It was a stand-alone deal, but suddenly we find that this deal is included in a very large omnibus bill and we will have to vote for all the other things in order to get this bill through. This is not the budget of February 2005 that the government brought in, so how on earth can we support it?

This government is guilty of nothing less than reckless spending, deceptive practices and misrepresentation of surpluses it projected for the coming years. Worst of all, the government is in violation of the principles of running a good and honest government, because what the Liberals are doing with Bill C-48 is nothing less than making a deal that is costing billions of dollars of unscheduled spending. The government is on the road spending $1.3 billion or so a day in unscheduled spending for no reason other than that of trying to save the Liberals' sorry butts from going down as they become known as the worst and most corrupt government in the history of Canadian politics. That will be their legacy.

Claim what they may about past governments, the Liberals are part of the worst and most corrupt government in the history of Canadian politics. They think nothing of spending billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money in order to somehow salvage their fortunes. Canadians will not be blackmailed. Canadians will not be extorted. Canadians will not have any part of the corruption of this government and they will bring it down in the next election when it happens. We will listen to Canadians on this one.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, May 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill C-48.

There is one thing that Canadians need to know, which the Liberals have not answered yet. They put forward their budget in February of this year. It was a budget that we in the Conservative Party could support. We could support it, but what we have now is a budget that is totally different from the one they put forward in February. This is a budget that was created by the NDP. The only reason these items are in this budget is that the Liberal government has chosen to climb into bed with the NDP.

Let me say that I do not fault the NDP members. They have the principles and the things they believe on how money should be spent. Good for them. We do disagree on how we get to certain goals, but that is fine. We have different philosophies.

What is really shameful about the Liberal government is that prior to making the deal with the NDP, it did not think those things were important. Suddenly, now that the Liberal government is falling quickly and the Liberals are drowning in their own cesspool of corruption, they find a lifesaver with the NDP. They say to the NDP, “Bring on those spending proposals and we will support them because we can make people think they are important to us now”.

In fact, if these proposals were as important to the Liberals in February 2005, why on earth were they not in the budget back then instead of us seeing the Liberals wait until they are drowning in their own corruption to climb into bed with the NDP? What we have here is a pirate ship that is sinking fast. The Liberal members, the Prime Minister and the government are spending like drunken sailors to try to keep that pirate ship afloat.

Let us be clear about where this money is coming from. There is only one source of revenue for the government and that is the Canadian taxpayer. This government over the last 12 years has plundered the hard-working Canadian taxpayer through tax increases, through government fee increases and through the pillaging of the $40 billion-plus EI surplus. I do not see anywhere in this budget that the Liberals are going to put any of that money back.

As my colleague from Peace River pointed out earlier, this is the third budget revision since February. We now know that the government is doling out $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion a day in new spending announcements since the budget came out. This is money that was not accounted for in the budget. It was not accounted for in February. It was not accounted for a couple of weeks ago, but suddenly the government has all kinds of money.

What the Liberals are saying is that they found unplanned surpluses, but really what they are not saying is that they are going to use the money that they purposely did not make public, on the surpluses that are coming.

Which word is best to use here, Mr. Speaker, fibbing or fudging? This is like fudging the budget in saying that we are going to get so much money less than what the reality of the income is going to be, and then standing up and spending like drunken sailors because suddenly they found a big bag of extra money.

They ask why we do not support this budget. We cannot because it is not the same budget that the Liberals presented in February. Since then, as my colleague pointed out, they have added Kyoto to the budget in an effort to try to plant the seed so they could have a lever to somehow begin taxing fossil fuels when they decide they want to pull the cash lever a little more. We cannot support that; we all know about the Liberals' national energy program that devastated the west some years ago.

One of the members mentioned the $100 million for pine beetles. On this $100 million that the government promised to B.C. for pine beetles, let us be truthful: this represents only 10% of what the province asked the federal government for. It represents only one year of the commitment that the province asked the government for. The province asked for a commitment of 10 to 15 years. The government would not commit past one year. The government gave the province less than 10% of what was asked for.

While we in B.C. are certainly happy to get the $100 million, the government and this parliamentary secretary know that the provinces cannot operate on short term planning, especially when they have a crisis in their lifeblood industries. The Liberals know that.

We cannot support the budget or this bill. We understood from the government that in 2005 a deal had been made with the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador on the offshore oil resources. That was debated in the House. Everyone had the understanding, including the provinces, that this was a stand-alone deal cut with the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador and the government of Nova Scotia. We were happy with that. Our colleagues who represent ridings in those parts of the country were happy with that.

[Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act, May 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure that you would want to know if there has been a breaking of the rules when it comes to voting. I know that all members who make an effort to come to the House on time for the vote would like to see members opposite do the same.

The Minister of State for Public Health was not in her chair when the motion was read and in fact only took her chair as the Minister for State for Infrastructure and Communities who sits next to her was about to rise to cast his vote. Therefore, I think that she made herself ineligible for the last vote we held.

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2005]

I would like to ask the government whip, is she serious? Is this going to be a motion that we will have an opportunity to debate in the House right now for the full period of the debate?

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2005]

--and we will be, Mr. Speaker, if we are allowed to.

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have been around here for about 12 years and have never seen a performance like this. When the first member spoke on this motion, we asked if this was just a ploy to block the putting forward of a motion by our House leader. She assured us that it was not. We thought that perhaps we were going to have some debate on it.

Our House leader again asked the question of that member and she assured us that this was a legitimate motion. Then the first thing that happened when the time switched over to the government whip was that she stood up and made a motion that the question be put.

I feel as if my parliamentary privileges are being usurped by the government whip. I was prepared to debate this motion on aboriginal affairs--

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the member talk about the motion that the government wants to debate today, or maybe not.

I would ask the member whether her heart is really into debating this motion or whether this is just another attempt to shut down the motion that our House leader is trying to put forward and have a vote on.

This has been going on for far too long. I think it is becoming quite obvious to Canadians that the constant actions of the Liberal government in putting forward motions such as this is nothing more than an attempt to suppress democracy in this House. I would like to ask if this is another attempt.

[Committees of the House, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to encapsulate the deal with the devil the hon. member made. The fact is that in the two weeks preceding the deal that was made, the NDP socialists voted against the government on two occasions. It was only when the corrupt Liberals promised to pay them off in some way that they agreed to support the government.

Just because the NDP got paid off does not make the government any more honest. That fact has to come out. The NDP socialists have made a deal with a dishonest and corrupt Liberal government. One has to ask the question, does this speak to the integrity of the leader of the NDP and the members of the NDP caucus when they are willing to sell out their integrity, sell out their principles in order to climb into bed with a corrupt Liberal government?

I want to make it clear that the Conservative Party was prepared to work with the government. We supported it on two occasions. It was when the Liberals tried to renege once again on the offshore oil revenue plan with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia that we became angry at the them. That would have been the second time they had reneged on the plan and Atlantic Canadians who relied on those resources did not deserve that dishonesty from the government.

[Committees of the House, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want a clarification from the hon. member for Niagara Falls. In the preceding two weeks up to the time the deal with the devil was made between the socialists and minority Liberals, am I not correct in understanding that the socialist NDP voted twice against the budget to bring down the very party that it has now climbed into bed with? Have the NDP members not actually said to the Liberals, “Okay, we know that you are corrupt. We know that you are a bad government. But if you pay us off, we will climb into bed with you?” That is something like political prostitution. Is it correct to say that?

[Civil Marriage Act, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today in defence of the traditional definition of marriage.

I was pleased a couple of weeks ago to join some 15,000 to 20,000 Canadians on the lawns of this great Parliament to say in a very loud and clear voice that the traditional definition of marriage, and that is the union of a man and a woman in marriage to the exclusion of all others, is the right thing to maintain.

I, like many on this side of the House, and indeed, I am joined by a huge segment of our society, millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast who are supporting the retention of the traditional definition of marriage, that of a man and a woman. Any comments to the contrary are simply not realistic.

Marriage and the family based on marriage are the basic institutions of our society. We must not, we should not change these kinds of foundations lightly or easily. I do not believe that the government or those who are proposing to change the traditional definition of marriage have been able in any way to make a compelling case that would cause Canadians and this Parliament to consider changing that definition. That case simply has not been made.

At least one of the major purposes of marriage historically has been to provide a stable environment for the procreation and the raising and nurturing of children. That does not mean that other kinds of relationships are not loving and valuable, nor does it mean that heterosexual married couples who cannot or do not have children are less married than anyone else. What it does mean is that marriage as a social institution has as one of its goals the nurturing of children in the care of a mother and a father. That is the fundamental.

If we change the definition of marriage to end the opposite sex requirement, we will be saying in fact that the nurturing of children in the care of a mother and a father, that this goal of marriage is no longer important. We cannot say that.

The central question we are wrestling with is whether marriage is still connected to this potential to have and raise children and to provide a stable environment for those children, or whether it is simply connected with the personal needs of two adults in a close relationship.

McGill University medical and legal ethicist Margaret Somerville made the point so clear and eloquent in a recent book called Divorcing Marriage . She said:

“The crucial question is: should marriage be primarily a child-centred institution or an adult-centred one? The answer will decide who takes priority when there is an irreconcilable conflict between the interests of a child and the claims of adults. Those who believe that children need and have a right to both a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents, oppose same sex marriage because...it would mean that marriage could not continue to institutionalize and symbolize the inherently procreative capacity between the partners; that is, it could not be primarily child centred. In short...accepting same sex marriage...means abolishing the norm”--the accepted value--“that children...have a prima facie right to know and be reared within their own biological family by their father and mother. Carefully restricted, governed, and justified exceptions to this norm, such as adoption, are essential. But abolishing the norm would have a far-reaching impact”.

This belief that marriage is inherently connected with procreation until recently was upheld as the reason for marriage by the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1995 Supreme Court Justice La Forest, speaking on behalf of four judges in the majority in the Egan case rendered a decision. This is absolutely important because this kind of decision still holds strong and reigns in the Supreme Court of Canada. It has not been changed. We cannot accept the arguments of the Liberals that the Supreme Court is wavering on this because it is not. Justice La Forest 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.

That decision still stands in the Supreme Court of Canada and nothing that the Liberals or the Bloc or the NDP say has any basis in fact to refute that. It simply does not alter what the Supreme Court of Canada has said. This statement remains the only commentary on the basic meaning of marriage in any Supreme Court decision.

The House, including the current Prime Minister, voted to uphold the definition of marriage in 1999 and in the amendments to Bill C-23 in 2000 with the Deputy Prime Minister, who was then justice minister, leading the defence of marriage from the government side. Here is what the Deputy Prime Minister said in 1999 as she so clearly and eloquently made her defence of the traditional definition of marriage speaking on behalf of the government. She said:

We on this side agree that the institution of marriage is a central and important institution in the lives of many Canadians. It plays an important part in all societies worldwide, second only to the fundamental importance of family to all of us--

The definition of marriage, which has been consistently applied in Canada, comes from an 1866 British case which holds that marriage is ‘‘the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others’’. That case and that definition are considered clear law by ordinary Canadians, by academics and by the courts.

Marriage has fundamental value and importance to Canadians--

As we know, the government voted to defend the traditional definition of marriage at that time. We do not know what happened to change its mind. It was not a Supreme Court decision.

Nothing that she said then was out of date. All that has happened is that several provincial courts have overruled the long standing common law definition of marriage, but the Supreme Court itself has still not addressed this issue, despite a clear request to do so by the government.

We do not believe, on the basis of provincial court decisions which the government refused to appeal to the Supreme Court, that a fundamental centuries old institution should be abolished or radically changed.

No matter what all the Liberals are talking about, save some of them who support marriage, that institution stands strong today, both in the Supreme Court, and in the hearts and minds and souls of millions upon millions of Canadians.

We believe that marriage should continue to be what it has always been, what the courts and the government accepted it to be until a very few years ago, an institution which is by nature heterosexual and has as one of its main purposes the procreation and nurturing of children in the care of a mother and a father.

I think I speak for a vast majority of Canadians regarding that definition. I will stand in defence of that in the House, on the street, and wherever I travel in this country.