Gary Goodyear

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Come on.

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, I ask the hon. minister if I could hear her conclusion please.

[Committees of the House, May 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very sincere on this because I have received emails from my Portuguese community. The emails are actually from members of the community who are asking me to please not support this because they waited in line. They did everything the right way. Despite the fact that after a decade of Liberals, we have something like 700,000 immigrants trying to get into this country the proper way. I would really like to know, what shall I tell the folks in my riding who have asked me--

[Committees of the House, May 11th, 2007]

Never once in the House.

[Committees of the House, May 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to partly agree with the member opposite. I have a large population of Portuguese people in my riding who are absolutely some of the most vibrant, hard-working, intelligent and proud people in this country.

However, I have to tell this hon. member that these are not only living, breathing, proud, wonderful and vibrant people; they have suffered from a decade of delay under the Liberals. Hundreds of thousands of people were thrown out under the Liberal regime. The immigration department is a mess because of the decade of delay and the decade of disgrace.

Here is my question. I would like to ask the member if she can point to one incident, one time that she spoke on this issue when she was in government? Not once.

[Committees of the House, May 11th, 2007]

Tell the truth.

[International Trade, May 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, free trade agreements can encourage economic prosperity and raise the standard of living for citizens in the countries involved.

Whereas the Liberals paid no attention to emerging trade opportunities for Canada, this new government has already demonstrated great forward thinking through initiatives such as the Asia-Pacific gateway.

Last week, the Minister of International Trade was in Washington, D.C., at the Council of the Americas. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary would share with us what this new government is doing to improve our economic relations with our partners in the region.

[Canada Elections Act, May 9th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I was actually trying not to smile because this is serious business, but I do remember when we put in place the rule that one could only contribute $5,400 to a candidate. Of course, then there were those creative thinkers who decided they would shovel the money to their children's trust funds and get little kids to donate their money.

Then we had this issue. Does the member know how to get an $800,000 donation to his campaign? I thought this was extremely creative. How one would do it is to get a friend to co-sign a loan at the bank. The bank would give me the $800,000 as a loan and then I would renege on the loan. The bank would go back to my friend who would pay the bank. Ultimately, my friend never gave me any money. I think that is creative. That is how we skirt the law.

I do not see the bill as piecemeal. I actually see this as continually chasing those creative folks who are intent on bending and violating the rules. I would agree. We have a lot of work to do on this stuff, but I suspect we are going to be doing it again in two years. I just want to get confirmation from the member that he is going to support the bill wholeheartedly and continue to work with us to make sure that we are ahead of these creative thinkers who want to skirt the law and not abide by the law.

[Canada Elections Act, May 9th, 2007]

Is it a prepared question?

[Canada Elections Act, May 9th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have nothing but the greatest of respect for the hon. member. I understand the member will not be running in the next election which will be a great loss for this House.

Does the member not see the purpose of the bill? I will use an example without mentioning names. One of the runners in the past Liberal leadership convention actually raised almost $800,000 from one individual and he received that money through a loan. The rules suggest that a candidate can raise a maximum of $1,000. If that individual had 800 donors giving him $1,000 that would represent a much greater amount of people and hence, in my view, democracy would have played out.

What we are trying to avoid with this bill is an individual going to the bank and asking for $800,000 which would be guaranteed by another individual. Now whether the individual won or lost, what we are trying to avoid is that individual declining to pay the bank back and the bank then going to the individual who guaranteed the loan and calling it in. We see that clearly as one individual paying $800,000 to a bank, which is skirting around the contribution limits by Elections Canada. I wish that kind of creative intelligence was used to solve the problems in Canada, not used to skirt the law. Does the member not see that singular advantage of simply saying that the rules are $1,000? We need to play catch-up and make these laws.

Does the member not agree that it would be much more advantageous to just play by the rules? The full intent of the law is that a person can only contribute $1,000. Simply borrowing through the bank and paying the bank and not the person is just creative thinking and it skirts the law.