Dick Harris

[Petitions, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, hundreds of the residents of Prince George are concerned that the Supreme Court of Canada and the Government of Canada will fail to protect the rights of disabled Canadian citizens and in some way alter the sentence that Mr. Latimer received for the murder of his daughter.

They call upon parliament to ensure that this sentence is not lightened in any way.

The final petition concerns the same subject. The petitioners call upon the Parliament of Canada, under section 15(1) of the charter of rights and freedoms, to uphold the Latimer decision in the Supreme Court of Canada.

[Petitions, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition brings to the House that the practice of abortion is taking over 110,000 innocent human lives each year. The petitioners call upon parliament to enact legislation against causing the death of an unborn child by abortion at any stage along the continuum of prenatal life.

[Petitions, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present four petitions on behalf of the people of Prince George--Bulkley Valley.

The first petition contains thousands of names of people who are tired of watching the current government fail to protect children. They call upon parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials that promote or glorify pedophilia or sadomasochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough has become the latest apologist for the Liberal government. I am sure it will welcome him with open arms.

Obviously he was not listening because I did talk about the requests that the province of B.C. had made to the federal government to assist with its plan to fight the mountain pine beetle. It is a $500 million five year plan that would include salvaging whatever wood is salvageable in that infested area, and cleaning out and trimming old growth pines, which are the most attractive tree for pine beetles.

The federal government has received billions of dollars in tax money from the forest industry over the last several decades. Yet now in a time of need when the forest industry is suffering, workers are out of work and families are suffering, and despite the fact that we have the senior minister from British Columbia here who knows well the beetle infestation problem in British Columbia, the federal government has not lifted a finger to respond to the request that the B.C. government has made for assistance in fighting the mountain pine beetle.

Earlier I talked about the need for the federal government to have people negotiating with the Americans who actually knew what they were talking about and who knew the severity of the crisis that the softwood lumber impasse was causing working Canadians. The member down there did not hear that as well.

I talked about the 30,000 British Columbia forest workers and workers in related industries who are out of work. I talked about the fact that the Minister for International Trade has failed to recognize this problem and has instead simply said that is the way it goes.

There are a number of ways the government could address the problems of rural Canadians. It simply has not done it, and that is too bad.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

I will, Mr. Speaker, and I apologize. That is why the constituents of Prince George--Bulkley Valley do not believe the hollow promises that come from Liberal and Tory candidates at election time.

Another example of how the government holds in contempt rural Canada, particularly British Columbia, is by ignoring the massive pine beetle infestation in central British Columbia. This could be consider equal to a natural disaster and the government knows that. The government of British Columbia has made a formal request for help with its five year plan to try and salvage whatever wood it can from this mega area of British Columbia. The area of infestation is three times the size of Vancouver Island.

The government has done nothing. It has stood by and ignored this problem despite requests in the House from myself and the members for Cariboo--Chilcotin, Prince George--Peace River, Skeena, North Vancouver and my colleague from Kamloops. The government has ignored requests from the province of British Columbia itself. Billions of dollars in taxes have gone into the federal coffers from the forest industry in British Columbia and the government has simply not responded to the plea for help from the province and the people who depend on the forest industry for their livelihood. That is another example of the contempt the government has for rural Canadians.

The Minister for International Trade has called the tariff duty slapped on us by the softwood lumber people in the United States obscene. He blamed the breakdown of talks on cynical U.S. lobbyists. The Prime Minister said that he is disappointed that the softwood lumber talks have failed. They are using words like obscene, cynical and disappointed, but let me use those same words. It is obscene the contempt that the government has for rural Canadians. I am disappointed it has treated rural Canadians this way. I am very cynical in any belief that it will recognize the importance of rural Canadians and the contribution they have made to this country.

The government has brought in the endangered species bill. This bill would put rural Canadians at risk of being charged with perhaps accidentally stepping on a wild seed plant that has grown onto their territory. They are apt to have land seized by the government and quarantined without compensation.

The government has brought in Bill C-15B, the cruelty to animals bill. This bill will put farmers, dairy people, horse breeders and medical researchers at risk of harassment charges brought forward by some of the more wacko animal rights groups that run around this country.

All of this flies in the face of rural Canadians. If this government were ever to expect to have any type of respect from rural Canadians, it would have to start recognizing that rural Canada is an important part of this country. It should not throw all of its eggs into the baskets of Metro Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal or Vancouver.

It is unfortunate that our party's motion is not votable because it would be supported by large numbers in the House. It would also be supported by massive numbers of rural Canadians who refuse to believe the hollow promises of the Liberal government. Rural Canadians have demonstrated their refusal to believe those hollow promises by their lack of support at the polls and the support will continue to fall for that party.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion put forward by my hon. colleague.

We have been debating in the House today the request and demand that the government cease and desist its direct attacks on rural Canadians and rural Canada in general. Those attacks can take place either through action, bad legislation that is aimed to benefit the large urban areas at the expense of the less populated smaller rural areas, or no action at all where rural areas of Canada can suffer economically and socially for whatever reason. Because the Liberals do not see the massive amount of votes that they do in Toronto, for example, they simply choose to ignore the problems that are happening in parts of rural Canada.

I only need to speak to two issues to make my case on this. The first issue of course is the government's gross mismanagement of the softwood lumber issue. In 1996 the government entered into a softwood lumber agreement with the United States. We find that it had no action plan ready when the five year plan was to expire.

We discovered last Friday that the government signed and entered into a five year agreement, in a sector of international trade with the United States that produces the largest balance of payment benefit to Canada of any other industry in Canada, without doing a cost benefit analysis to ascertain whether or not it would be good for Canada.

The member for Okanagan--Shuswap and I went through access to information and asked for all the documents that showed a cost benefit analysis done by the government before signing the softwood lumber agreement. There was not one. On top of that there was no plan on how Canadian softwood lumber producers would carry on after the softwood lumber agreement expired in 2001.

The government watched the SLA merrily go along, oblivious to the warnings of this party. Our members spoke constantly over the last five years about the dangers of the SLA and what to expect at the end. The government walked blindfolded through the cemetery whistling while the SLA was about to expire and the Americans were rattling their sabres. We knew our softwood lumber people were in trouble, but the government did not do a single thing until it was crisis time and then there was a knee-jerk reaction trying to put a band-aid on a massive wound that started five years earlier.

We have talked about how the government can discriminate against rural Canada. This has caused massive layoffs in the forest industry, primarily people who work in rural Canada, in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, parts of Ontario and the maritimes where they have softwood logs. The government has virtually paralyzed many communities in rural Canada that depend on the forest industry for their livelihood because of its inaction.

This inaction displays nothing more than the contempt that the government has for rural Canadians. Why? Because the government considers anything out of the big, mass voting areas as simply not important. The Liberals have looked at rural Canada and seen no fertile ground for votes out there so why give them a hand?

It is so funny. Every election the candidates from the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party say if constituents vote for them, they will make sure that the area of Prince George--Bulkley Valley is well looked after. Both parties had their chance and neither one of them has given any type of recognition to Prince George--Bulkley Valley. That is why the residents in my riding do not really believe the nonsense and the out and out lies that come from the candidates--

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough did not answer the question regarding Alfonso Gagliano and whether he is allowed to be prosecuted, probed or charged under diplomatic immunity. The hon. member from Nova Scotia chose instead to personally attack me and my integrity.

He wonders why I have no time for the remnants of the Tory Party in terms of getting together in some sort of Alliance. It is because of insults and personal attacks like this which go on all the time, particularly from the more mouthy members like the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, listening to my friend from Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough talk about the corruption that is present within the Liberal government is no surprise to us because we have been talking about that for some time now. Finally the media is starting to see it and write about it.

This talk of corruption should be no stranger to the Conservative member because when his party was in power there was example after example of corruption within the Progressive Conservative Party. I do not know who is teaching who to be more corrupt, the Liberals or the Tories, but neither has an exclusive right to practise open corruption within the politics of our country.

It is fun to talk about corruption with the government. When the former Liberal minister, Alfonso Gagliano, was quickly shuffled off to a diplomatic post in Denmark, I wondered whether there was more than one reason. Can the member tell me whether a Canadian diplomat who has diplomatic immunity in the country that he or she is serving have diplomatic immunity of some sort in Canada? Is that why our Prime Minister shuffled Mr. Gagliano off to a diplomatic post, so that he could avoid an RCMP probe or maybe charges being brought forward in this country? Can the member enlighten me on that and perhaps the House as well?

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, in reply to my colleague from Cypress--Grasslands the hon. member made a statement earlier in regard to the percentage of farmers who want the freedom to market on their own the products that they work so hard to grow, exclusive of the dictatorial powers that the Canadian Wheat Board has placed on our farmers. The member from Saskatchewan said he did not know what survey my colleague from Cypress--Grasslands was looking at but that 90% of the farmers want to continue to embrace the wheat board. In fact, a recent survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business disputes that number and shows that there is a full 80% of farmers who want a voluntary way to market their products, either by themselves or through some sort of wheat board. Also what is interesting is that an internal survey done by the Canadian Wheat Board itself clearly showed that 66% to 70% of the farmers want the freedom to market the products themselves, exclusive of the wheat board.

That flies in the face of that 90% “rally round and hug the wheat board” number that the member from Saskatchewan just put forward in the House. It is wrong.

[Ethics Counsellor, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it was the Minister of Finance who told the House that he discussed with the ethics counsellor his connection with Jim Palmer, the bagman who was out tax consulting in the oil patch and at the same time asking for contributions to the finance minister's secret leadership campaign.

Will the minister do the right thing and list all the people that Mr. Palmer talked to on his behalf and also a list of all people who contributed to the finance minister's leadership campaign who Mr. Palmer talked to on his behalf?