Gary Goodyear

[Pacific Gateway Act, November 16th, 2005]

Madam Chair, I must congratulate my colleague for an absolutely brilliant presentation on this issue. Clearly we want to move forward and help out Canadians as much as we can.

I want to pose this question. In my riding of Cambridge, the government continues to come in and make announcement after announcement. In fact, it makes the same announcement two, three and four times. I suppose that if we added it all up it would be some meaningful money.

My concern is that again we are seeing what appears to be a promise with no end result. If we are going to underfund a project, how does anyone buy into that? Clearly our mayors are extremely happy with any dollar they get because they are so strapped. My concern is that this is just another announcement that will never go anywhere because it is underfunded.

[Pacific Gateway Act, November 16th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask for clarification from the hon. member.

The member for Yukon seems to be encouraged about getting some of his resources out of Yukon. The way the government takes money, for every dollar in diamonds he gets out of Yukon, his own party will probably take $1.25, so it is probably better to just leave them there.

There was a question earlier regarding selling the port. If we are to sell the port, have contracts been tendered out?

[Pacific Gateway Act, November 16th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, clearly this is a great project that Canada needs and the west needs. In my research on this, it seems to me that some experts in the British Columbia area suggested that to do this project correctly it would cost about $4 billion. Therefore, the federal commitment would be 50% or about $2 billion.

It seems to me that the federal government is committing $400 million. That is a complete underfunding of an initiative. Here is where my concern lies. We have consistently heard from this government about funding initiatives that ultimately end up being underfunded.

We had that problem during the BSE crisis. Even in my own riding of Cambridge, this infrastructure money that we get from the government ultimately amounts to paving a couple of blocks on a street in my community. It is complete underfunding.

I wonder if what we are really hearing from the government is just another initiative that the Liberal government has become well known for, which is a lot of talk and ultimately no action.

[Cambridge Memorial Hospital, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to pay tribute to the Cambridge Memorial Hospital and its inspiring group of hard-working, dedicated staff and volunteers. The hospital is a credit and an asset to the entire Waterloo region. It is a prime example of how a publicly funded health care facility should operate.

This Saturday there will be in excess of 40,000 people lining the streets of Cambridge. A group of citizens will collect signatures protesting the backroom “who you know” deals of the provincial Liberals, deals that have taken away $70 million funding for our hospital.

For me, it is not about “who you know” but “who you serve”.

Today, I implore the provincial health minister to listen to these citizens and for once keep a promise. I implore him to stand up for Cambridge and North Dumfries. I implore him to stand up for Ayr and Branchton. I implore him to stand up for the whole Waterloo region, and serve.

[Justice, November 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in my riding of Cambridge a man was chased down in the street and hacked to death with a machete. It was a brutal and bloody slaying that shocked the region. One of those involved was just sentenced to 19 months of house arrest.

After participating in what the minister must agree is an exceptionally serious and violent murder, he was sent home to watch DVDs.

When will the Liberal government learn that a warm couch, a night of movies and popcorn, is not punishment? It is not rehabilitation. It is not justice. It is plain and simple stupidity.

[Official Languages Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I realize that my time has just been cut in half so that will give me half the time to praise the good work of this committee.

Like my colleagues, I am pleased to speak tonight in the House on Bill S-3, an act to amend the Official Languages Act. Its main purpose is to ensure that the commitments set out in part VII of the Official Languages Act are binding on the government. The bill will also ensure that the Department of Canadian Heritage takes the necessary measures to carry on through the commitments set out in part VII of the Official Language Act.

Just this morning, in fact, the commissioner did not have very good things to say about how the government is handling the commitment it says it has. The Conservative Party has succeeded in forcing the government to modify Bill S-3, amending the Official Languages Act so that respect for provincial areas of jurisdiction will be safeguarded when the act is applied.

The amendments proposed by our party stipulate that Bill S-3 will not undermine or interfere with provincial jurisdiction. Respect for provincial jurisdiction is a priority for this party and is embedded in all of our policies. It is a principle that is dear to the Conservative Party.

The work done on the committee by the Conservative team in considering and finalizing the bill to amend the Official Languages Act clearly demonstrates the Conservative Party's commitment to defending and promoting both Canada's official languages and provincial jurisdiction. Canada's linguistic duality is one of our country's greatest assets.

I was new to the committee. I was asked to join the committee after the first few weeks of this session. As many will know, I am from Cambridge, where there are a number of great minority groups. There are Portuguese, Italian, Croatian, Punjabi and Chinese communities, but I can tell members that our French community is extremely strong and very vital. In Cambridge, there is a beautiful mosaic of these different cultures.

I am pleased to say that we on the committee, including me, took this job very seriously when preparing for a clause by clause study of this bill while it was in front of the committee. Upon joining this committee, I was surprised when we spent the entire first committee meeting arguing about late Liberal amendments. In fact, I understand that there was ample warning for all parties to submit their amendments. I have in front of me the agenda for that first meeting and there are no Liberal amendments on it, just Conservative and Bloc amendments. I notice as well that there are no NDP amendments.

I bring that up simply because the Liberals continue to say that they and only they care about this, but they could not even take the time to meet the deadline and get their amendments in place. It was a Liberal senator who brought this before the House in the first place. There were four attempts to get this passed and still the government is not taking this issue seriously.

Many of the amendments that we proposed were in order to clarify the government's responsibilities in this piece of legislation. We needed to firm that up and make it more clear. We wanted to protect the rights and jurisdictions of the promises and it was of utmost importance that we do that. However, it is also extremely important that legislation is kept to by the government. Unfortunately, the only motivator, and perhaps not even a good motivator, is a lawsuit. I certainly hope that we do not sue the government as a result of firming this up and forcing them to keep their commitments.

My four minutes are up, Mr. Speaker. I know that you would have liked the other half of my remarks.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

It's a tax.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I keep hearing about this $100 billion fictional tax cut. I wonder if the member opposite is aware that this so-called tax cut was really simply the elimination of future tax increases. That is not what I would call a tax cut, but I know the member opposite may want to clarify the difference between manipulating the message and actually giving us a real tax cut.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

I do not think it was. You guys would do a lot better if he phoned you up.

I would like to ask the hon. member how much he figures it is going to cost Canadians to get the $1.25 in an envelope considering that government spending has increased by 52%. Can anyone imagine the size of the surplus if the government would actually do what it says and efficiently spend all those tax dollars? I would like to know what the member feels the cost is going to be to write out those $1.25 cheques and put them in envelopes.

It must have cost $20 or $30 to claim that chocolate bar. How much is it going to cost to get $1.25 back?

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I was wondering what that ringing was in my ear. I was getting concerned.