House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2019, with 50% of the vote.
Afghanistan May 4th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, Colonel Noonan also swears that soldiers have had to exercise their own discretion and halt transfers of specific detainees when they felt they might be at risk at the hands of Afghan guards.
Will the government halt all transfers until it can guarantee no detainee transferred by Canadians will be beaten or tortured, or will it continue to deceive the Canadian public?
The Environment May 2nd, 2007
Mr. Speaker, that hot air balloon has no credibility whatsoever on climate change. He has a bogus plan that will lead to increased emissions. Not one climate change expert has endorsed the plan and the list of those denouncing it is growing.
If the minister had the courage of his convictions, he would bring back Bill C-30. When will we get a real environment minister instead of that Chicken Little?
The Environment May 2nd, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the list of experts who have no faith in the Conservative climate change plan grows longer by the day: it includes David Suzuki, Al Gore, and many more. The plan is a trick and a fraud and it is misleading Canadians. Bill C-30 is a real plan for fighting climate change, and we can pass it today.
When will the government bring back Bill C-30?
The Environment April 25th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the government's greenhouse gas targets are a recipe for cooking this planet. They leave Canada 10% above our Kyoto commitments eight years after the due date.
If every country modelled its anti-global warming plan on the plan of the minister of hot air over there, world temperatures would rise disastrously by the end of the century.
Why is the government choosing to measure itself against 2006 emission levels when every other Kyoto signatory uses 1990 levels?
Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 23rd, 2007
Mr. Speaker, obviously in the budget a year ago the Conservatives raised income taxes on people in the lowest income bracket. It was an outrageous thing and I have no excuse for it.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 23rd, 2007
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Trinity--Spadina raises an important issue. It certainly was not one that I had a chance to address in my comments, but she is entitled to raise it.
All of us are concerned, I think, about the rising cost of prescription drugs and the need to provide for that. My hon. colleague seems to forget, when she talks about the 12 years and two months that the Liberals were in government, that when we arrived in government there was a $42 billion deficit.
I know that never was an issue of concern to the NDP members and that they never supported any of the measures taken to deal with that deficit, get it under control, and put our country and its economy on a much better basis, on a basis that provided thousands and millions of jobs across this country.
We can recall the 1993 election when Kim Campbell, then leader of the of the Conservatives and then prime minister, said there would be no jobs created until the year 2000. As it turned out, under a Liberal government between 1993 and 2000, there were two million jobs created because the economy was put in a better position. The economy reduced poverty, it allowed us to put money into health care, and it allowed us to do all kinds of good things. There were not many of those that the NDP members supported but there were one or two of those they actually supported, but never any of the efforts to get us in the place to do it.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 23rd, 2007
Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague knows, my comments have an entire basis in fact.
The first question I would have for him when he poses this kind of comment, is how is it that he did not make those same complaints about a policy of not allowing income trusts when his party promised it during the election? Why did he not object then? Where were his objections? Where were these strong and vehement opposition comments in relation to this issue when his own party was promising it would not tax income trusts?
Suddenly, he has a totally different point of view. However, I am glad he brought it up because it gives me the chance to remind members that when Nova Scotians talked about what happened in our province as a betrayal, the minister for the province said to get over it and “We'll see you in court”. What kind of an attitude is that? It is a shameful response.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 23rd, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your attentiveness. I will certainly take your advice, as always.
Let me just say that the decision by my hon. colleague for South Shore—St. Margaret's was a deliberate decision. It was disappointing and it was deceitful.
Here is what the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley said in 2004.
I call on the government to... just get down to the point and say, “We made a promise. Now we are going to keep it”.
Now he has changed his mind. He decided to say that the important thing was Nova Scotia could choose. I have already explained what this choice is about. It is not the deal we made. This choosing nonsense is not the deal that he and his colleagues insisted that our province deserved. That was disappointing, deceitful and deliberate.
In March of last year, the new finance minister, although after 15 months we can hardly call him new, said that equalization had been made a mess because of these deals with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The Conservative members of Parliament from those two provinces made the decision, the deliberate decision to say nothing then. This is plain disappointing.
What is the part time ACOA minister saying today? The poor member for Central Nova is so despondent about this betrayal that there are unsubstantiated reports that he spent the weekend after the budget planting potatoes, but he got over it because when Nova Scotians said it was a betrayal—
Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 23rd, 2007
Yes, it is disingenuous for the government to say that it will not tax income trusts and then to do it, or to say it will respect the offshore accords, knowing what they contain, and then not do it. That is absolutely disingenuous.
I believe Canadians across the country, certainly in my province and in Newfoundland and Labrador, will hold Conservative MPs to account for the promises they break.
Back in 2004, my hon. colleague, the member of Parliament for South Shore—St. Margaret's, said:
This is about fairness and the future of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. This is about honesty and about keeping promises.
What is he saying now? He says now that if Nova Scotia has to give up the accord, it would not be so bad. What a change. What happened? How did he become suddenly a changed person? How did he go from a Conservative MP and a Nova Scotia member of Parliament to a harpercrit? It is a decision that he has made.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007 April 23rd, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the budget implementation bill.
It seems to me that in January of 2006, in the election of last year, when the public gave its decision in the election, it gave the Conservative Party a minority. It did not say, “Here is a majority”. It said, “Here is a minority. Now all of you go make it work”.
What concerns me, among other things, is that it appears that many times the Conservative Party thinks it can behave as if it has a majority, which it does not have. We have seen many instances of that. At the same time, since it does not have a majority, we have a Prime Minister who clearly wants a majority and wants to have an election. He has already unveiled his fear factory in the southern part of Ottawa somewhere. It is clear that the government will say or do just about anything to get that majority.
Therefore, we saw a budget that I would describe as a divide and conquer budget, a budget that is aimed at certain key target groups that might help get that 40% or 41%, to get majority that the government is after. It is divide and conquer.
It is not surprising though, in many ways. What kind of government is it? What kind of government has it been? What kind of Prime Minister have we seen over the past 15 months or so?
We have seen a Prime Minister who cancels child care spaces. A child care program, which would provide thousands of spaces, was cancelled. In its place, what do Canadians get? They get a monthly amount of $100 which is taxable, which is taxed back, so they will lose most of it anyway. In addition, it provides no spaces whatsoever. To me, that is deliberate, it is deceitful and it is despicable.
We had the promise in the last election that the Conservatives, if elected to government, would never tax income trusts. They could not have been any clearer about their intention. They must have known the risk that other companies in the future might turn into income trusts, but they decided to take the chance, to be reckless and made the promise anyway. What did they do? They broke their word and wiped out the savings of thousands of savers, of seniors who relied upon their word.
What kind of a Prime Minister is that? What kind of a government is that? It was deliberate, deceitful and despicable.
We have a Prime Minister who pledges, in writing, to uphold the Atlantic accord, the accords with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Then he rips them both up and throws them in the faces of the people of those two provinces.
There is an old Gaelic proverb that some of my colleagues may have heard by now, because it was in a brochure that was sent out by Conservative MPs in those two provinces during the negotiation of the accord. The old Gaelic proverb is, “There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept”. Those are not my words. That proverb is from a brochure sent out by Conservatives during the negotiation of the offshore accords, so they should be familiar with that because it was part of their propaganda strategy.
It is ironic that we see a time now when their own words come back to haunt them in the wake of what can only be described, and what has been described by the Premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia and by the minister of finance of Nova Scotia, as a betrayal. Even the Conservative candidate in the riding of Halifax is recognizing this is a betrayal, and she cannot accept this part of the budget. It is deliberate, deceitful and despicable. That is the description of the government.
What did Danny Williams say about this government, its nature and the way it has been behaving on a variety of matters? He said:
This is the same prime minister who basically reneged on money for women , for literacy groups, for volunteers, students, minority rights, has not lived up to the Kyoto accord, for aboriginal people.
It is deliberate, deceitful and despicable. That is what the Conservative government is all about, as we have seen in so many examples. The Prime Minister broke his clear promises in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador.
I know the accord pretty well. I was part of the negotiations. The words in it in fact say that the accord applies to the equalization program as it exists at the time. Therefore, no matter how the program changes, the provisions of the accord and the benefits that flow from it still apply. They still flow.
It cannot be said, as the Minister of Finance tries to do, that the province can still have the accord, but it can only be applied to the old equalization, that the province cannot have the new equalization and the accord. This is not the deal that was signed. This is not the deal that we made. This is not the deal that Conservative MPs from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia argued for so vehemently for in the House two years or so ago. This is deliberate, deceitful and despicable.
Nova Scotia's finance minister, Michael Baker, a Progressive Conservative, in his budget speech not long ago, Friday, March 23, said:
The new federal equalization formula essentially forces Nova Scotia to give up a portion of potential future revenues that were guaranteed under the Offshore Accord.
One of the ways the media described it was “last week's hatchet job on the offshore accord”.
This again proves that unfortunately Canadians cannot trust the Prime Minister to keep his word or even to honour a signed contract. It is phenomenal. Who would have thunk it? It is disappointing, deceitful and deliberate.