Garry Breitkreuz

[Government Contracts, May 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it gets even worse. We have documents from the minister's own department which show that Groupaction was getting government firearms contracts after the Auditor General blew the whistle on the first $330,000 bogus contract.

For years, the minister has repeatedly said she was fully accountable and responsible for the firearms program. Why does she not finally accept some responsibility instead of claiming ignorance every time a new scandal in the gun registry is exposed?

[Government Contracts, May 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the public safety minister's firearms office said it has no knowledge and no records of a mystery $150,000 firearms communications contract that is the subject of fraud charges against Chuck Guité and Jean Brault. The minister even said that this contract had nothing to do with the operation of the gun registry.

This does not pass the smell test. How is it possible that the minister who was responsible for the gun registry for so many years knows nothing about these mystery contracts?

[Petitions, May 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I would like to present is with regard to preserving the traditional definition of marriage. These petitioners point out that in 1999 Parliament voted to preserve the traditional definition of marriage, and a recent court decision has redefined marriage contrary to the wishes of Parliament. Now the government wants Parliament to vote on new legislation, but only after it has been approved by the Supreme Court. This is a dangerous new precedent for democracy in Canada. Elected members of Parliament should decide the marriage issue, not appointed judges. The petitioners are calling on Parliament to hold a renewed debate on the definition of marriage and to reaffirm, as it did in 1999, the traditional definition.

[Petitions, May 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the first petition that I would like to present concerns my woman's right to know act. I am presenting petitions signed by 3,263 concerned Canadians from across Canada who support my woman's right to know act. These petitioners support my bill because it would guarantee that all expectant mothers considering an abortion would be given complete information by their physician about all the risks of the procedure before being referred for an abortion and would provide penalties for doctors who perform an abortion without the fully informed consent of the mother and penalties for doctors who perform a medically unnecessary abortion.

On Thursday of this week, thousands of people will gather on Parliament Hill for the annual March for Life. They march every year to mourn the death of more than 100,000 unborn children in Canada through medically unnecessary abortions. As you can see, Mr. Speaker, there is quite a number of petitioners.

[Question No. 76, May 5th, 2004]

For each year since 1995: ( a ) what is the total number of firearm prohibition orders issued under sections 109, 110 and 111 of the Criminal Code; ( b ) what is the total number of charges and disposition of charges laid under section 117.01(1) of the Criminal Code; and ( c ) what is the total number of persons who have been charged with any other firearms offence or criminal offence while in possession of a firearm since the firearms prohibition order took effect?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, May 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Once a member has made a motion like that, he cannot continue to speak according to the rules of the House.

[Fishing Industry, May 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, men and women who enjoy fishing are on the Liberal hit list. Decades of Liberal red tape has been killing hunting and shooting sports in Canada. Now the Liberals have picked the fishing industry as their next target.

A few weeks ago the environment minister tried to quietly announce his proposal to ban all lead sinkers and brass fishing lures. He plans to put his plan into place in October, after the election. There are about eight million men and women in Canada who enjoy fishing and the Liberal government is going after them just like it went after firearms owners.

The Liberals have driven hundreds of thousands of responsible firearms owners out of their sports and have cost the Canadian economy more than 10,000 businesses and the thousands of jobs that go with them.

Now they have a plan to do the same thing to the fishing industry by banning fishing tackle. All this is being done without sufficient scientific evidence that there is even a problem. It is about time we gave Liberals the hook.

[The Environment, April 28th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, have you heard the latest emanation from Ottawa? The government is launching a $50,000 study to find out how much methane is coming out of both ends of Canada's cows. This is not a joke.

This supposedly is to help the Liberals meet their promised greenhouse gas quota in their useless Kyoto accord.

What are they going to do, tell farmers to get rid of their cows if they burp and pass gas too much? Like the Liberal government has not done enough to harm the cattle industry by mismanaging the BSE crisis.

Before the Liberals waste another fifty grand, maybe they should do a study of Ottawa's gaseous output, especially the amount of hot gas coming off the Liberal's front bench when they criss-cross the country spending billions of taxpayer money making announcement after announcement, while at the same insisting they are not campaigning. Now that is a lot of hot air.

[Taxation, April 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the release of Monday's Statistics Canada report on the birth rate in the country should send a loud, clear message to the Liberal government.

Families are being forced to have fewer children because they cannot afford to be a single income family and cannot afford day care or even find day care.

The solution is simple: provide equal tax breaks for parents who choose to raise their own children. Parents should be given the option to raise their children at home without incurring a financial penalty.

Do we not trust parents to make the right choices for the children they love? The benefits would be astounding if we did. We could see the job market open as parents leave formal employment in favour of raising their children, waiting lists at day care centres would evaporate, and the birth rate would most certainly increase.

Our children, however, would receive the greatest benefit, as they would be brought up in the most nurturing environment, their own homes.

Instead of punishing stay at home parents, why not provide equal tax treatment to those who choose their families over their careers?

[Westbank First Nation Self-Government Act, April 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-11, the Westbank first nation agreement.

My frustration with the entire bill and the debate is the fact that most of the discussions that centre on aboriginal affairs really do not deal with the fundamentals or the basic principles involved.

I would like to thank both the MP from Delta and the MP for Vancouver Island North for promoting discussion on this issue. I have noticed that it is primarily the Conservative Party that is discussing the pros and cons of it. However I think we need a bit more discussion on some of the basic principles that have to form the foundation for our dealings with aboriginal people.

The Prime Minister made some grand pronouncements in the last day or two about the need to address aboriginal concerns but he still refuses to get the basics right. I would like to explain what I mean by that.

Before I go ahead with that, I would like to read a bit of our party policy because it forms the basis for what I am going to say today.

The Conservative Party of Canada believes that self-government must occur within the context of the Constitution of Canada. To ensure fairness and equality, a Conservative government will ensure that the charter will apply to aboriginal self-government. Aboriginal self-government must not create a sovereign, third order of government.

The Conservative Party of Canada believes giving aboriginal government the power to raise their own revenues will reduce the cycle of dependency; and that the performance and accountability of aboriginal self-government is enhanced when those who receive services contribute to the cost of those services.

I will discuss the amendments put forward by my colleague from Delta in regard to that.

One amendment was disallowed, and that is primarily the one I want to discuss today. It was an important amendment and we should have taken another look at it.

Our policy statement says that the charter should apply and that aboriginal governments should have the power to raise their own revenues. We need to reduce the cycle of dependency. Let me focus in on that.

It is quite obvious that anyone who has been involved in this debate today cares about the aboriginal people. That is why we are here and that is why we are debating this. Except for some personal slurs by the NDP, I think we have stuck basically to the issues, and I appreciate that.

The point was made previously that there is within the bill the wording that the charter applies with due regard to section 25. That is a major concern for many of us who have looked at this.

I want to focus on the fact that our Charter of Rights and Freedoms is flawed because it omits one of the key essential rights needed in Canada and especially by those who are caught in the cycle of poverty and those who are living on reserves.

Poverty on reserves across Canada is a huge problem. I lived on a reserve for a couple of years so I have firsthand knowledge of how devastating this is to our aboriginal people.

The Department of Indian Affairs spends between $7 billion and $8 billion. If we were to divide this amount of money by the number of aboriginal people covered, it would likely come to more than $15,000 for every man, woman and child. What we need to know is where the money is going.

Aside from that, do we have the fundamental principles, on which these agreements should be based, right? I would argue that is not the case because we have omitted a very key element from our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What is that key element? We have not included property rights in the charter. In 1982, when Mr. Trudeau brought the charter in, he intentionally omitted it. I think that is a huge flaw and I will explain why. I am going to explain how important that is.

In arguing my case, I will turn to one of the world's leading experts on this issue who, by the way, has the support of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister underscored the fact that the principles enunciated by this man needed to be brought to Canada and implemented in Canada. This man is also supported by another prominent person in the western world, Mr. Bill Clinton. So these principles are not to be dismissed quickly as principles enunciated by someone of a certain partisan persuasion.

The man's name is Hernando de Soto. He is head of the Peru based Institute for Liberty and Democracy. He has authored some excellent books which I would recommend people read who are in involved in the discussion on this Westbank agreement. Time Magazine and The Economist have all explained and pegged Mr. de Soto as one of the emerging voices of influence and someone whose ideas will form the basis for future agreements. His ideas are having a huge influence on the world. It is about time we got some of those principles right here in Canada.

In simple terms, Mr. de Soto argues that property conquers poverty and it is the poor people who benefit most from property rights. “A poor person's land assets should be identified and should be registered”, he argues, “and then they would have the assets on which to build wealth”.

I do not have time in 10 minutes to explain that in detail but if members would like to get more information on this, I would suggest people who are arguing this issue do that because they will see that what I am saying is essential in getting our fundamentals right.

Mr. de Soto's ideas have been called innovative but they have been around for a long time. I think they are innovative simply because they fly in the face of traditional ideas about battling third world poverty. We see that third world poverty on our aboriginal reserves. The notion, for instance, that capitalism is a bad word and that the market economy is the enemy of the disadvantaged is something that he clearly disputes and shows that is not the case.

Mr. de Soto's ideas have been tested in his native Peru. They helped to enact property registration laws and systems in the Peruvian government during the 1990s. He still oversees that whole program in Peru. It is a very successful program and one that we should take a close look at.

Let me read some of the things that he has said.

Mr. de Soto said:

These people should be able to produce wealth. It means that you've got to ask, like we ask, what happens to the property rights, have they really got the tools to produce capital? What can we do about getting banks, which are not interested in them, interested in them--not because their hearts are going to palpitate for the poor, but because they're going to become a lot more interesting.

So much of traditional aid programs rest on paternalism and condescension...

That would describe what is happening in Canada today.

Mr. de Soto went on to say:

The traditional thing, Canadian aid, is about saying, 'Oh my God, there's four billion starving out there, let's go and make a difference among 10 million of them.' In other words, nothing that's really leveraged, nothing that really allows you to bring in anything new.

I would like to say that we should take this man's ideas and build some proper agreements on which to deal with the aboriginal situation in our country.

I want to conclude by saying that about 30 aboriginal women visited Parliament Hill recently but, unfortunately, there was very little media attention or coverage of this event. However one of the things they said is that property rights was one of the key issues that needed to be addressed in Canada.

Dawn Harvard, who was the Ontario president of the Native Women's Association, questioned whether the cases would get more attention about abuse of aboriginal people if they were not poor, drug addicted or working in the sex trade.

A key thing she said was that provincial property rights that govern fair distribution of assets during divorce disputes are not enforced on the more than 600 reserves in Canada. I would argue by extension that we need property rights right across the reserves. It has to happen.

In conclusion, other MPs have made it clear that this agreement is a lawyer's dream because we will turn over to the courts the big issue, such as defining self-government and inherent rights. Before we pass this piece of legislation, let us get our Charter of Rights and Freedoms right. Let us include property rights. It is the most important right needed for our aboriginal people.