Dick Harris

[Forest Industry, October 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the government knows very well that the province of British Columbia is facing one of the greatest natural disasters in its history. The mountain pine beetle has infested over 60,000 square kilometres and at this point has caused over $4 billion in lost timber. The government has ignored any and all of B.C.'s calls for help.

I ask the government, when will it come to the aid of the forest industry and the people in B.C. and help them with this fight against the mountain pine beetle? When will it do it?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the Liberal-Tory member; I am not sure exactly what he is. He talked about five years of balanced budgets. Those balanced budgets were created from six years of the highest tax increases in the history of any government. That is how the government balanced the budget: on the backs of Canadians. Now, although the Liberals will not admit it, they are preparing for probably the biggest tax grab in the history of Canada and that is the Kyoto issue.

Kyoto will raise the base price of every drop of oil or gas produced in this country. It will raise the base price of manufactured products in this country. It will raise the base price of every product or service remotely connected to the Kyoto protocol. Guess what? To all these price increases will be added the GST and it will create a windfall, a GST windfall as a result of the implementation of Kyoto. That is what is behind this Kyoto march. It has nothing to do with the environment. It is all about the Liberal government's insatiable appetite for taxes. It is going to try to tax Canadians by stealth through the Kyoto protocol. Will it not just simply admit its real agenda behind Kyoto?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Nanaimo--Cowichan has certainly outlined the chronology of corruption that has been created by the Liberal government since 1993.

He spoke about the new proposed ethics package. I have to ask him this. Can he believe the audacity of the Prime Minister, who has been caught in scandal after scandal, even scandals created by his own hand on the back of a napkin, and the corruption that as gone on in the government, to come here in whatever state of mind and ask the backbenchers of his own party and opposition MPs, who have virtually no decision-making power in this Parliament, to now submit their assets and liabilities and their spouses' as well? This is hypocrisy. Does my hon. colleague not agree with that?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member talk about how the government sets national priorities in the management of this country. She talked about unemployment numbers being up in certain demographic areas of our country. I would like to remind her that unemployment is up significantly in the country's softwood lumber industry because it has not been addressed effectively and in a responsible fashion by the government.

The softwood lumber crisis has resulted from the historical disdain shown by the government and previous governments to people in western Canada. The resulting indifference that has been shown to this crisis is because of the historical disdain for people in western Canada in particular.

If the government talks about its concern for all people in all parts of Canada, when will it demonstrate the real concern for the parts of Canada where softwood lumber is the economic lifeline of the economy? Thousands of softwood lumber employees have been laid off because of the gross mismanagement by the government of the softwood lumber issue.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's comments both here and in the opposition lobby. What is her opinion and the opinion of her party on the subject of how the government recognizes a crisis or concerns that could be termed, in their minds, as regional? I want to speak in particular to the softwood lumber issue.

The government has always claimed to be a national government caring about every part of the country, but in the throne speech, considering we have such a huge crisis in the softwood lumber industry, one would have thought that in recognition of other parts of the country outside the Ottawa area and their local concerns the government would have shown in some way that it cares about crises that are happening outside of its domain here in Ontario. The financial aid package that it is talking about, about $300 million, really is a token amount which, in my opinion, demonstrates clearly its token concern for the softwood lumber crisis.

Does the member and her party get the feeling that the Liberals live in sort of a vacuum when it comes to concerns that are in other parts of the country, such as the softwood lumber industry?

[Points of Order, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that as part of your deliberation you will certainly want to weigh the motives of why the government would put different motions together in somewhat of an omnibus bill. As you know, this practice has been carried on by not only the Liberal government on a regular basis but also its predecessors in the Tory party. They put motions that are mostly distasteful to even their own members, and certainly the opposition, together with motions that are purely acceptable by their own members and the opposition in such a way that it forces the opposition and its own members away from a democratic vote on whether they like the motion or not and forces them to vote for one bill which contains both the distasteful and the acceptable motions.

This is the motive behind it. It has been demonstrated clearly by this party and the Tories before it on many occasions. I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that you have to consider whether this is a democratic thing to do; to take the right away from members on both sides who oppose certain motions in a omnibus bill by forbidding them to vote individually on those motions. I believe that the government's motives behind a bill like this has to be considered as you make your deliberation.

[Privilege, June 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, members of the House cannot possibly consider legislation that affects the CPP under section 115 without having a report from the chief actuary tabled. That is the reason this is put in the act.

The hon. government House leader is using some of his own interpretations noting that because it does not say in the act specifically that it has to be present, it does not have to be. The purpose of that section of the act is to ensure that all members of the House, both government and opposition members, have a basis report from the chief actuary as a resource to proceed on any legislation that may affect the Canada pension plan. That is the purpose of section 115.

He may be right that the finance minister may not be in contempt because he does not have the report, but that does not mean that this House under the act can proceed with this legislation without the opinion or the report from the chief actuary. A lot of the interpretation in the government House leader's argument may be his, and good for him. The fact of the matter is that section 115 was put in the act for a purpose so that all members would have a good resource base to work from, such as the opinion of the chief actuary.

[Privilege, June 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you are aware of the rules but also well aware that precedents have been set in this House by other members of other parties, including the member for Davenport.

[Privilege, June 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. House leader is introducing in his remarks some interpretation of the act because there is no specific wording. The intent of the act is that before parliament proceeds with any piece of legislation--

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the hon. member it is apparent that her speech was handed to her by someone in the department.

She has gone on about a number of different mechanisms. We all know those mechanisms exist but the reason we are in this crisis, which should be made clear, is because of the government's complete and utter mismanagement of the relationship between Canada and the United States.

Regarding the softwood lumber issue, we will get to the mechanism at the WTO and at the NAFTA. However in the meantime we have tens of thousands of softwood lumber workers unemployed. We have mills in a financial crisis and now they are having to face the burden of billions of dollars of tariffs imposed by the United States because of the way the government has confounded friendly relations with the U.S.

The government has mismanaged this portfolio in a huge way. A number of things have happened such as the ambassador from Canada saying during the U.S. elections that he was hoping for an Al Gore democratic win.

Does she not believe that rather than getting into the issue in February 2001 the government could have eased the burden of this crisis if it had dealt with it before the SLA expired?