Dick Harris

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, October 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think that the member for Sherbrooke owes the member for Okanagan—Shuswap an apology. We do banter back and forth here but we try to stay for the most part away from personal comments that are meant to be slighted to the—

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, October 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not want to defend the Liberal Party on its proposals for reforming the CPP.

I would like to ask the member from the NDP a question. He appears to believe that this plan can go on indefinitely without some sort of a restructuring of how to finance it. He spoke about what is wrong with the government plan and that it is using pessimistic figures. I am really quite surprised. Usually when forecasting revenue and doing a business plan, one usually likes to use some very conservative numbers. If conservative numbers are used, then it is usually safer ground if things happen to not be as bright as one would hope. be.

A good example is that when the plan was brought in in 1965, the government could see nothing but a bright future for the Canada pension plan. In reality it should have been looking at it more pessimistically given the input it got from its own financial actuaries who said that under the Canada pension plan structure it was doomed to failure by the end of this century.

Is the member suggesting that we should continue with a blindfold on in the fervent hope that things will be so bright that we will be able to offer all kinds of benefits and provisions under the Canada pension plan and nobody is really going to have to pay for it?

[Speech From The Throne, September 25th, 1997]

First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me assure the member from Thunder Bay that he will never ever find a Reformer kissing a Tory. That is a certain thing.

Second, I have nothing against seniors having fun. My parents are seniors and they are always happy, so obviously they do not need any books.

There is an interesting point about reducing the deficit though. Yes, we have been talking about this Liberal government getting the deficit reduced. The difference is that we wanted the government to reduce it by cutting its insatiable spending appetite, by cutting the grants and handouts that are rampant throughout the waste reports, by cutting the patronage organizations, such as the western economic diversification fund and the economic development funds that are in eastern Canada, all the hundreds of millions of dollars that it gives to Quebec companies to keep the Bloc off its back.

We ask the government to be more prudent and reduce its spending. That is something that is foreign to a Liberal government. Yes, it may get to a balanced budget but it has done it, as I said, by wrenching an additional over $25 billion out of Canadian taxpayers, Canadian workers and Canadian business. That is why the government is having such a hard time getting the unemployment rate down. It knows, though it will never admit it, that taxes kill jobs.

[Speech From The Throne, September 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak today in response to the throne speech.

I want to thank the constituents of Prince George—Bulkley Valley who in the June election gave me a huge victory. I want to commit to them, as I have in the past, that my task here is to represent their voices and concerns to this Parliament. My promise to them was to keep the Liberals accountable for every single thing they try to do, and I will do that.

It is predicted that the Liberal government will in 1998-99 achieve a balanced budget, using Liberal numbers. I do not know whether we can trust Liberal numbers, but let us say they are fairly accurate. It must be remembered that this could be the first balanced budget that we have had in some 30 years. It is sort of ironic considering that some members of the government are the same members who sat in previous Liberal governments which helped to run up our massive debt and helped to create our deficits which occurred year upon year. It is surprising but at the same time I suppose somewhat remarkable.

Before anyone decides to heap any praise on the Liberal Party for this predicted balanced budget it is important to clearly identify the reasons why this balanced budget may be occurring.

I do not think the Liberals should be expecting any praise for the prediction of a balanced budget. I suggest that this Liberal government should be giving thanks to the millions of Canadian taxpayers who have been taking all the hits over the last three and a half years as the Liberals have attempted to dig themselves out of this massive financial pit that they along with the Tories, cheered on by the NDP, have created for Canadians.

I would like to give the House some examples. I am talking about the employers and the employees of the country who have contributed significantly to the reduction of the deficit through employment insurance overpayments. Let us make it clear that the Liberals have been treating the EI surplus as if it were their own money to put toward deficit reduction and to cover their wasteful spending. Everyone who can think clearly has to consider the EI overpayments as being simply another tax. That is what it is, another tax.

Would it not be preferable to let Canadian workers keep the amount of this EI overpayment and let them have the freedom to spend, invest or save? All these things would create jobs in this country and would help to get a more buoyant economy.

Would it not be preferable to let Canadian businesses and employers keep their overpayment to the EI fund as well so they could invest in their businesses and hire more people, which would also lead to the creation of a more buoyant economy?

Talking about people who have taken hits, let us not forget the public servants in this country who have been working since 1990 without a raise. They have also been forced to make a tremendous sacrifice because of previous Liberal-Tory overspending.

I also believe the Liberals should give thanks for their deficit reduction prediction to the people in Canada's poorer provinces who have had to bear the brunt of Liberal offloading because of reduced equalization payments.

This is my favourite one. Let us not forget that during the last three and a half years of Parliament this Liberal government, this very Liberal government that is going around looking for pats on the back for its balanced budget prediction, increased taxes in this country in 36 different areas. There were 36 individual tax increases brought in by this government. It wrenched out of the pockets of ordinary Canadians, Canadian businesses and Canadian investors over $25 billion in increased tax revenue. Let us not forget that.

Is the government heading for a balanced budget because it has been prudent in saving money? Mr. Speaker, I know you will agree with me that is not the case. Let us not forget how the Liberals got there. Let us not be too anxious to go over and pat them on the backs as they are expecting. We see the Liberals running around seeking praise for such a great job they say that they have done but, to use the famous phrase of the finance minister, the fact is what they have really been doing is pulling on their magic tax lever to fill their coffers while Canadian businesses and Canadian workers have had less and less to spend, less and less to invest and less and less to save.

In the throne speech they mentioned the word partnership many times, over 10 times. Given the Liberals' performance one can only assume that the Liberal definition of partnership means “you work, send us most of your wages and hey, we're partners”. The sad part of this is that despite all the taxes Canadians are paying, by the end of the century we will still only be getting about 68 percent in services for every dollar they send to this place.

Let us also remember that these tax and spend Liberals are not as compassionate as they like to appear. They took little or no notice of the pain they were inflicting on Canadian families, Canadian workers and Canadian businesses over these last three and a half years as they grabbed this tax lever and over and over again pulled it and pulled billions of dollars more into their coffers.

To add insult to injury, at the same time these Liberals were heaping tax upon tax on the Canadian people, they were still pursuing their insatiable appetite for spending money in ridiculous and wasteful ways. Our member for St. Albert has a weekly waste report. I would like to read a few of the ways the Liberals have spent some of the money so that people can get this into perspective.

The Liberals thought it prudent to give the multibillion dollar company American Express $17,000. One has to ask did they get any flyer points for that. How about Big Bill's furniture and appliance store, $176,000. I wonder if that is a relative of one of the Liberal ministers. How about Nothing Fancy stores, $89,000. Here is one that I should not be upset about but I am. A golf tournament for literacy received $85,000.

Literacy is a good cause. However, I would like to remind the House that I host an annual golf tournament for the special Olympics organization in my riding. I do not get any grant. I raise $25,000 a year on that one-day golf tournament. I do not ask the government for a grant. I go out and look for sponsors, supporters and people who believe in the cause. I do not look to the Canadian taxpayer for money.

It goes on and on. One hundred and sixteen thousand dollars was given to a committee to study the sexual habits of seniors. One has to assume that by the time someone gets to be a senior he or she probably has his or her sex life figured out pretty well.

The throne speech is like a shell game. I am glad that we are the official opposition because without the Reform Party here the Liberals would not even be talking about reducing the deficit. I assure the House that we are going to keep the pressure on.

Our approach to ensuring responsible future spending will include asking Canadians what their priorities are. Do they want debt retirement, tax relief, reinvestment in health and education or a combination of all of these?

With the Reform Party as the official opposition, and these Liberals know it, the government is finally going to learn the difference between good spending and bad spending. I know the difference, Reformers know the difference and ordinary Canadians know the difference. By the time this Parliament is through, the Liberals are going to know the difference.

[Speech From The Throne, September 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member from the Liberal Party talk about how the Liberal Party should be getting a lot of praise and pats on the back for finally doing something right after the last 30 years.

Let us look at what the Liberals have done right. What they have been practising for 30 years along with their friends in the Tory party and their friends in the NDP is more effective ways of wrenching dollars out of the taxpayers' pockets. They not only got it right during the 35th Parliament, but they have perfected it. They have wrenched an extra $25 billion out of the pockets of Canadian businesses and Canadian workers by raising taxes in more than 36 different areas. They got it right all right, but let us not let them take any praise for it because the Canadian taxpayers are the ones who had to bear the brunt of that tax torture.

I am certain that the member has read the throne speech and he has a good handle on the economic numbers, better than the finance minister had yesterday. I would like to ask the member the question the finance minister could not answer. When exactly can we expect the first surplus after the balanced budget, and exactly according to the Liberal numbers, how much is that surplus going to be? When and how much?

[Speech From The Throne, September 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to inquire—and I believe this is a point of order—whether it is customary for an official opposition member who is standing to receive the first question following a debate or whether it is up to the Speaker's discretion. Could you clarify that for me? I was standing in my place.

[Speech From The Throne, September 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the compassion in the speech of the member for Kamloops as he talked about the people living at the poverty line, the unemployed and the seniors who are scraping to get buy.

I have to ask the member for Kamloops, who is looking forward to his $1 million gold plated MPs pension, where his compassion was when he had the opportunity to say “No thanks. I have a conscience. I can't accept that gold plated pension”. Where was his compassion then, when he gets a pension five, six or seven times richer than the union members who have to work 30 years to get one-fifth of that? Where was his compassion? He is no different from the Liberals. He is no different from the Tories.

The Reform Party gave $30 million back to the Canadian people by giving up their gold plated pensions. We did it because we care about Canadians. We care about the debt and we care about taxes. Where is the compassion?

[Speech From The Throne, September 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I took great pleasure in listening to the hon. government member talk about the beauty and the uniqueness of the part of the country she is from. Certainly I agree with her.

What is really interesting is that she basically confirmed everything the Reform Party has been saying for so many years, that every part of this great country of ours is unique and distinct and has its own unique and distinct character. It is very refreshing to hear a Liberal member agree with the Reform Party and take a route other than saying how unique and distinct the province of Quebec is. I thank the hon. member for bringing that up.

[Prince George Cougars, April 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Prince George, B.C. is the greatest hockey town in Canada, maybe the whole world.

I would like to draw the attention of the House to the Prince George Cougars of the Western Hockey League. A second miracle on ice is happening and it is happening in Prince George. It is not the result of divine intervention but the result of the heart, the determination and the drive of the players of the Prince George Cougars as they have success after success in the Western Hockey League's divisional playoffs.

After grabbing the last spot they have just smoked the other teams as they passed through the second round of playoffs, heading for the top.

Here's to the Cougars and the great hockey mecca of Prince George. I want to congratulate the Cougars organization, the players, the coaches and the fans of Prince George.

Look out, Memorial Cup, here we come.

[Criminal Code, April 8th, 1997]

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice is heckling me. At that time he had a chance to give us one shred of evidence and could not do it. Now he can heckle while he is off camera. He had his chance. We even had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General stand in the House during debate and say that n Canada people must consider it a privilege to own a firearm. We are talking about legal property.

We could embellish on that. If it is a privilege to own a firearm which is legal property, is it also their opinion it is a privilege to own a car or a house or any other kind of private property?

Reading from the Constitution, 1982, which Mr. Trudeau put in place, one wonders whether there are any rights of individual Canadian citizens to own property anyway: "not to be derived thereof without due compensation or process of law". The Constitution took care of that in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so to speak. That is an oxymoron.

In the same way the Minister of Justice failed in respect to the amendment being debated today, he failed in Bill C-68 miserably. Let him try to sell that on the election trail, particularly in the Prince Albert-Churchill River riding.

The Liberal government and the Minister of Justice failed on Bill C-226, a private member's bill put forward by the Liberal member at the time for York South-Weston who was kicked out of the party because he would not toe the party line. We do not blame him on this side of the House.

Bill C-226 was unanimously adopted in the House. It was a private member's bill that would abolish section 745 of the Criminal Code. It would ensure that life meant life for someone convicted of the highest crime in the land, the crime of murder. The bill would suspend the Liberal version of life imprisonment with 25 years without chance of parole.

We have introduced the Reform version of life imprisonment in the House in which life means life. We have also introduced a private member's bill to allow the people of Canada to debate, to have a referendum on the return of capital punishment. The Liberal government shot that one down even though a huge majority of Canadian people would not only like to see the return of capital punishment in Canada but would like the chance to voice an opinion on it. The Liberal government would not allow that to happen because it did not fit into its philosophy.

What is the job of members of the Liberal Party opposite? Is it to represent their constituencies or to represent the philosophy of the Liberal Party? One wonders what is more important to Liberal members. There are some Liberal members in the House who have their heads on straight and are very sensible when it comes to criminal justice. Unfortunately the member for Kent is not running for the Liberal Party in the next election. We are very sorry to see him leave the House because when it came to justice issues there were at least two or three sound thinking Liberals on the other side. We are very sorry to see that.

I would encourage the Liberal government and the member from Prince Albert to go to the polls tomorrow, try to run on their justice positions, and let the Canadian people decide who they want to choose. I think they will be in for a big shock.