House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 69% of the vote.
Firearms Act March 13th, 1995
moved:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting the following therefor:
This House declines to give second reading to Bill C-68, an act respecting firearms and other weapons, because the principle of establishing a system for licensing and registration of all firearms and the principle of creating a variety of offences are two unrelated issues that should be addressed separately.
Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96 March 2nd, 1995
Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question. I listened to the preamble and the question had nothing to do with what he was telling me. There was absolutely no relation. It is the typical Liberal approach to a problem.
We have a huge government problem. The Liberals tinker with it a bit, make a few minor cuts and tell everybody how great it is that they are making these cuts. They do not look at the overall picture.
I like his example of cars with carburettors. The government is choking off the economy. If they put in too much gas, if they borrow too much money and have a government that is too big, they choke off the economy. That is what the government is doing. The government really does not have much of an idea about how the economy works.
I also like his analogy of using the colour red, because very often it means bleeding, bleeding, bleeding the taxpayer to death.
In conclusion I say again that the process is undemocratic. When I go home I am overwhelmed and humbled by the support I get. It is dishonest of the government to make fun of us.
Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96 March 2nd, 1995
Madam Speaker, I will be dividing my time with other Reformers.
I really become frustrated every day as I sit in the House. Every time Reformers rise to speak on behalf of average Canadians we are met with laughter, jeers, derisive comments from the Liberal Party. I began to wonder why we are mocked and ridiculed when we have the courage to be up front and honest with Canadians.
I did not come here to be on a power trip. I came here to solve the problems. The biggest problems we face are the national debt, the annual deficits and rising interest costs.
I have four teenage children who will pay over half of their income in taxes for the rest of their lives for the mistakes made by the Liberal Party during the past 25 years. Through my work in this House I hope and pray that my grandchildren will be able to see their taxes go down.
I hear the Liberals already saying it is not their fault, that the Tories were in power for nine years. That is a very lame excuse because not once in those nine years while the Liberals were the official opposition did they tell the Conservatives to get their spending under control, balance the budget and put a cap on increasing interest payments.
The Liberals protested every cut and they wailed for more government spending on social programs that do not work. The Liberals are responsible for the fiscal mess this country is in and even now while they are in power they are unwilling to face the painful truth.
During the 1993 election Reformers told the truth about the state of the country's finances and our zero in three plan. The Liberals put out a red ink book which played politics and ignored the truth.
In the taxpayers' budget we introduced last week Reformers told the truth. This week the Liberals introduced a budget which once again ignores the truth and plays politics. Because this government keeps putting off the inevitable it is slowly destroying the country.
The Liberals keep cutting back on programs and services, increasing taxes. Because they do not cut enough to balance the budget interest costs keep going up and the federal government keeps going deeper into debt.
Reformers have proposed two plans to get off this deficit and debt treadmill and the Liberals ignore the truth when it is as plain as the numbers in the budget in front of them.
This deficit is like a cancerous tumour, eating away at our flesh. It is making us sick and preventing us from living a healthy life. The most compassionate operation one could do is a surgical removal of this deficit tumour. Instead the Liberals operate very year just cutting out a little, letting the cancerous deficit tumour keep growing. As it grows it eats up more and more of pensions, welfare, health care and the programs run by the government. It does not take a rocket surgeon to figure out that the most compassionate thing one can do is undergo the pain of removing the tumourous deficit as quickly as possible.
Bill C-73 is a disgrace. This bill is a confession of failure by this government and past governments. This bill clearly demonstrates how firmly entrenched annual deficits have become to feed the federal government's overspending addiction. This bill provides the evidence that governments past and present have been unable and unwilling to live within their means.
While many Canadians will think we are debating the budget today, I would like to clarify that we are debating a bill which shows the failure of all previous governments during each of the last 20 years to balance their budgets.
Each year we debate a bill like this one to give the federal government the authority to borrow the billions and billions of dollars which it says it needs to make life better. Canadian taxpayers are waiting to elect a government that will tell them the year when there will be no need for the government to introduce a bill giving it authority to borrow money.
This bill asks Parliament to give the government authority to borrow $28,900,000,000. I think it would be very interesting for Canadians to know something about the process. It has become so commonplace, so routine for the government to borrow billions of dollars each year, year after year, that it even has a permanent standing order in the House of Commons which limits debate on this bill to two sitting days during second reading. Not only does the government want Parliament to give it authority to borrow billions of dollars every year, it also does not want to give opposition parties or even taxpayers enough time to properly debate questions or propose alternatives for the government to consider.
The Liberal party says it needs money, fast; do not take too long about it either. Two days of debate is lots. How many
questions can we ask about borrowing $28.9 billion anyway? No amount of debate, no amount of intelligent questions, no amount of committee meetings, votes, amendments or motions to reduce the government's estimates is going to change one thing anyway, so why bother? Why bother debating it?
Liberals think that debating the budget or this borrowing bill is a complete waste of time. They think this because they know that when all is said and done, when the debates, when the questions, when the analysis are over they will not have changed this budget one cent. All this talk that we do in here every day has absolutely no influence on what is decided in those back rooms.
This budget is a disgrace because it spends too much, it cuts too little and it gives no hope to Canadian taxpayers that the Liberal government will ever be able to produce a balanced budget. This budget is a disgrace but this budget process is an even bigger disgrace. The process is a disgrace because it goes against common sense and against democratic principles.
Why can 295 members of Parliament not enter into an intelligent debate? If the majority agrees that there are more or better ways to save taxpayers' money, why would the government not agree to implement the recommendations? Why is the most important piece of legislation which the government brings down every year set in stone? Why will the Liberal government not allow Canadians to have input through their democratically elected representatives at this most critical point in the budget process? Does it honestly believe that this budget is the best there can possibly be? Does it honestly believe that every dollar outlined in the estimates is essential?
New ideas are developed every day, but this government says that it cannot change the budget. It needs to borrow $28.9 billion and nothing we can say or do will ever change its mind. Is that any way to run a country?
Any changes which we as Reformers suggested are scoffed at, even in committee. Not one change took place from all the changes I suggested. Some of the changes were small and none of them took place in that committee, which handles more money than any other committee.
If a Reform government were in power today it would have the budget balanced by 1998 and the Government of Canada would no longer need a borrowing bill. If a Reform government were in power borrowing bills would not be a routine occurrence year after year. A borrowing bill under a Reform government would be a rarity. Under a Reform government a borrowing bill would be such a rarity that taxpayers would want to know what fiscal or natural emergency brought about the occurrence. They would be asking their members of Parliament to rise to ask the government what had happened. It would be a national news story. What we are doing here today will not get any press. I would be surprised if it did.
There are two extremes in this debate. On the one hand the Liberals want to limit debate on borrowing $28.9 billion to two days during second reading in an attempt to circumvent the democratic process.
On the other hand, the Reform Party is proposing to implement a taxpayers protection act that would limit the ability of majority governments to run spending deficits, raise taxes and borrow money. Our taxpayers protection act would force governments to balance their spending and taxes over the course of each business cycle. It would put a cap on government spending and taxation. Eventually our taxpayers protection act would be entrenched in the Constitution to prevent future governments from changing it.
In closing I point out the major failing in the government's budget: the government is actually transferring more to banks in interest payments than it spends on social programs.
In this fiscal year the government will spend $49.5 billion on interest payments and $49.2 billion on social programs, which include old age security and pensions, health transfers, education transfers, welfare programs, and equalization payments to the provinces.
In 1996-97 the Liberals project that interest payments will be over $50 billion a year. Not only do the Liberals have to cut more spending to balance the budget, but every dollar that Liberals spend in interest payments is a dollar they cannot spend on social programs.
This is a failure. The bill is a disgrace. The process is undemocratic. I am frustrated with the House of Commons and what goes on here. We need to be taken more seriously.
Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96 March 2nd, 1995
Madam Speaker, I have two questions for the member for Prince Albert-Churchill River.
The first one is with regard to agriculture. During the election campaign I heard this member and many of his colleagues from Saskatchewan defending agricultural programs, saying they were going to defend the farmers, that these things would not change, that the funds would keep coming.
By what reasoning can he defend his government's actions of drastically reducing the funds farmers receive? We came clearly up front during the election and said that we would take these funds and there would be a reduction. However, those funds would go into an account that would help prepare the farmer and protect him from subsidies by other foreign nations. Now the farmer is left with nothing. How can the member possibly reconcile this new radically different position from what they said during the election?
The second question is with regard to the MP pension plan. I am wondering how this member can justify borrowing money to pay himself and his colleagues a huge pension.
Why is it important to opt out of the MP pension plan, a very extravagant plan? It is important that we set the example. We can always find excuses about why we deserve more and how we ought to have more. If we realize as parliamentarians what a mess this country is in, I am wondering if we do not have to start by setting the example.
I was recently asked a question after this was announced of whether the MP pension plan will hurt me personally. Of course it will. If I opt out, it is as if I had the winning ticket in a lottery and never went to pick up my million dollars. Of course it will hurt. I will always know and live with that fact, that I could have gone back to my constituents and justified the fact that I deserved that money. However, I think there is a time when principles count for something. We are opting out to signal to Canadians how serious our problems are. I am wondering how this hon. member can justify borrowing more money to pay MPs an extravagant pension.
Petitions March 1st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, finally, these 44 or 45 petitions are all rather similar. They come from residents in southern Ontario, the Toronto area and areas surrounding Ottawa.
The petitioners ask that Parliament support laws which severely punish all violent criminals who use weapons in the commission of a crime. They support new Criminal Code firearms control provisions which recognize and protect the right of law-abiding citizens to own and use recreational firearms. Lastly they support legislation which will repeal and modify existing gun control laws which have not improved public safety, have not proven to be cost effective or are overly complex.
I concur with these petitioners.
Petitions March 1st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, the second petition is also from various people in and around Saskatchewan. It asks that Parliament ensure that the present provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada prohibiting assisted suicide be enforced vigorously and that Parliament make no changes in the law which would sanction or allow the aiding or abetting of suicide or active or passive euthanasia.
I concur with these petitioners.
Petitions March 1st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I have several petitions.
The first one is from the men and women of Saskatchewan. They wish to draw to the attention of the House of Commons that the Canadian Wheat Board is vitally important to the grain producers of western Canada. A large majority want to maintain the powers of the Canadian Wheat Board, despite a vocal minority. They therefore request that Parliament continue to give the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly powers in the marketing and export of wheat and barley.
Firearms Act February 27th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I really do not want to pursue this any further.
Is the hon. member going to vote for or against this legislation? Has he consulted his constituents as we have? We have done surveys. We found that initially, over 80 per cent of the people surveyed knew virtually nothing about this legislation. As they became more informed, opposition to this bill rose to as high as 90 per cent.
They realized how this was going to put society more at risk. They realized how this was going to give criminals access to firearms that they did not previously have. They realized how this was going to tie up the police in some useless paperwork. They realized how this was going to be a tax imposition upon them, how it would destroy more jobs and would put more young people out on the streets who probably would get into more trouble and put us more at risk.
They began to see that this was a useless bureaucratic political manoeuvre to try to put something across on the Canadian people. It would make them think the government was doing something to make society safer when in fact it is not.
As the member quotes these polls, he had better go back and find out exactly what he is doing. A very narrow view is being expressed here.
The hon. member just said that only some people of certain race subsistence hunt. That is not true. It is absolutely false. Many people in this country appreciate nature. They use handguns in many ways besides killing people. The allegation he made that guns are only for killing people is absolutely ridiculous. I do not know where this member is coming from. There are many other uses for guns. I do not accept that argument.
The member made many other statements that were not true. I ask the Canadian public to really look at this question in depth. Examine what this government has put forward. It is a convoluted complex bill and cannot be supported in its present form.
Firearms Act February 27th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I strongly object to the allegations made by the hon. member with regard to prejudice. I would ask that he withdraw them. Because we say all Canadians should be treated equally, I do not think that is prejudice. I would ask him to withdraw that.
Firearms Act February 27th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, my apologies. I get involved and forget.
My advice is not to break the law of the land but to work to change it by all legal means possible. Bad laws can be repealed if a truly democratic party is in power. If we have the support of the majority of Canadians we can do it.
I fear a government that will not listen to the people a lot more than I fear a law-abiding citizen with a gun. In conclusion I would like to move the following motion:
That all the words after the word "that" be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
This House decline to give second reading to Bill C-68, an act respecting firearms and other weapons, because the principle of establishing a system for licensing and registration of all firearms and the principle of creating a variety of offences are two unrelated issues that should be addressed separately.
I submit this motion to the House.