House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 43% of the vote.
Taxation February 4th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, hurricane Juan has forced Nova Scotian woodlot owners to prematurely harvest tens of thousands of acres of blown down timber. This salvage operation will cause landowners to incur an extraordinary profit on their annual income.
Will the Minister of Finance help these landowners, by allowing income tax on this emergency profit to be deferred and paid at 10% per year for 10 years?
Softwood Lumber November 7th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I am sure remanufacturers will appreciate the comments, but that was not the question. The question was on Atlantic Canada's exemption.
Last May 21 the government promised that Atlantic Canada's softwood lumber exemption would be protected. The very next day it bargained it away to the Americans. Finally, on October 29, the United States responded to our May proposal and offered 30.5% of market share with the removal of Atlantic Canada's exemption.
What is the minister doing to reinstate Atlantic Canada's longstanding exemption since the early 1980s against countervail?
Softwood Lumber November 7th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, Premiers Hamm and Lord were in Washington last week fighting to protect the interests of Atlantic Canada's softwood lumber industry. The main issue of discussion was the reinstatement of Atlantic Canada's longstanding exemption from countervail.
What has the government done to support Atlantic Canada's interests at the bargaining table in Washington?
Foreign Affairs November 6th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, William Sampson's testimony at committee this morning was poignant and damning. It clearly demonstrated the abject and sorry failure of the Department of Foreign Affairs to protect Canadian citizens abroad and further underlined the ineffectiveness of Canadian soft power diplomacy.
Ministerial platitudes did not save William Sampson. British strong-arm diplomacy did.
Will the minister commit today to a public inquiry before another Canadian is tortured in another Saudi jail?
Income Tax Act November 3rd, 2003
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-463, an act to amend the Income Tax Act.
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure today to introduce my fishers' capital gains deferral act to the House of Commons, seconded by the member for St. John's West.
The bill would amend the Income Tax Act by extending the rollover relief allowable in the transfer of farm property to cases where a taxpayer transfers fishing property or assets in order to facilitate keeping those assets within a family. In other words, it is my intent that the bill would help preserve the financial integrity of small to moderate family fishing operations and make it easier to keep a successful business in the family.
I urge the House to support Bill C-463 once it receives first reading.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
Veterans Affairs November 3rd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, for nearly a year, I have been asking the government to recognize the Republic of Korea war service medal.
This medal was awarded to our veterans in 1951 for their heroic efforts under the UN banner in the Korean War. As this is a foreign commemorative medal, our Canadian Korean War veterans are permitted to wear this medal, but our government still does not recognize it.
The United States and New Zealand, by contrast, already recognize this award. Our veterans have asked for and deserve this recognition. I am very disappointed in the government's lack of support for this initiative, particularly given the recent 50th anniversary of the armistice.
In April 2003 I formally wrote to the minister asking for his assistance in this matter, but I have yet to receive a response. One must hope that this lack of response is not reflective of his support for our veterans.
I would urge the Minister of Veterans Affairs to take the initiative to identify the Republic of Korea war service honour as an official award rather than deny our veterans the recognition they deserve.
Ethics October 28th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, my question is simple. Canadians deserve to know how many undeclared gifts in excess of $200 are still out there. A couple of weeks ago there were none and today there are a lot of them.
Has the Minister for International Trade ever received any undeclared gifts in excess of $200? Canadians deserve to know.
Ethics October 27th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, that is a well practised routine, but I think the minister himself knows that ministers of the Crown are expected to uphold certain levels of integrity. They must be responsible for their actions.
Canadians know that the ethics counsellor is little more than just a green light for ministerial excuses.
Will the Minister of Industry accept responsibility for his actions, or is it time for the Prime Minister to make that decision for him?
Ethics October 27th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely scandalous that the Minister of Industry is now saying he has asked the ethics counsellor if there is a basis for repaying his Irving bill.
How can the minister not know that he is responsible for paying his bills? It is not the ethics counsellor who we are judging here, it is the minister who is being judged. What is his answer?
Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act October 22nd, 2003
moved that Bill S-7, an act to protect heritage lighthouses, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker,it gives me great pleasure to sponsor the heritage lighthouse act on behalf of our members in the Senate.
I would like to recognize the member for Dauphin—Swan River for seconding the bill. It shows that this is not just a bill for coastal Canada. This is a bill that is important to all Canadians, whether we live inland or whether we live near one of the three great oceans that surround the country.
I would like to pay tribute to both Senator Forrestall and Senator Carney who worked on the bill in the Senate, and the good work that they did on this particular piece of legislation.
The bill will go a long way toward preserving and protecting an important emblem of Canada. Certainly, for the Atlantic and Pacific coasts there is not a Canadian who does not have a vision in his or her head of a lighthouse somewhere along one of our coastlines.
Without question, in Atlantic Canada alone, millions of tourists visit the area and take home strong memories of our lighthouses. It will always remind them of the time they have spent on the Canadian coastline.
It does not matter whether that coastline is in Atlantic Canada, the Pacific Ocean, the Arctic Ocean or even on the Great Lakes or Lake Winnipeg.
Lighthouses are part of Canadian culture. Not only are they part of our culture, they are part of our storytelling, our folklore, and our songs. There is as much of a lighthouse inside every Canadian as there is a maple leaf.
I would argue strenuously that there is not a Canadian living today who does not have a picture in his or her mind of a lighthouse somewhere, whether it is the lighthouse in Peggy's Cove or whether it is a lighthouse on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Lighthouses stand as historic focal points for communities where they have watched over generations of our forefathers as they have traversed our seas. Further, some of these lighthouses serve as an important part of local economies across the country, as many have restaurants, inns or museums nearby.
The bill is of personal importance to me. There are 135 heritage lighthouses in Nova Scotia that could be protected under this proposed act. This figure does not include a great many of the smaller range towers, but it does include 28 major lighthouses in my riding of South Shore. These lighthouses are not just a part of our culture and our seafaring tradition but are a part of our communities.
There are dozens and dozens of communities in Nova Scotia that see the light coming from the lighthouse when darkness falls. It is a tremendous part of the very fibre that makes us Maritimers.
Can anyone in the House, can anyone in Nova Scotia, truly imagine our province without its lighthouse at Peggy's Cove, West Head or Hawk Point? I cannot imagine the South Shore without lighthouses at Sandy Point, Coffin Island or Seal Island, to name only a few.
Yet many, if not all, of these historic lighthouses are in danger of falling into serious disrepair or being destroyed from neglect. At last count, only 19 of 500 have full heritage protection, while another 100 have some protection or degree of recognition as a historic site.
Those that currently have protection fall under Parks Canada, while the others fall under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Coast Guard. The majority, however, are in danger of joining the very oceans that they watch and have watched for decades.
Current legislation is not doing enough to protect heritage lighthouses. Two federal government bodies have the power to select and designate heritage lighthouses: the Federal Heritage Building Review Office and the Historic Sites and Monuments Board.
As it stands, the process has its problems since more lighthouses are being rejected than protected. The Federal Heritage Building Review Office has rejected a total of 157 lighthouses for heritage status. In fact, only 3% of lighthouses across Canada have heritage protection and only 12% have some partial protection.
In the United States, by contrast, a full 70% of the lighthouses over 50 years of age are protected. We have a little catch-up ball to play here. We pride ourselves on being a step ahead of the Americans on social legislation and on our health care system but they have done a better job at protecting their historic monuments than we have and it is time for us to join the race.
An additional problem with the current system is that the very public that wants to protect these buildings is unable to participate in the process of selecting or designating heritage lighthouses. This is despite the fact that there are many community groups, such as the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society, that are passionately involved in preserving and protecting the history of these essential parks of our maritime heritage. Groups such as this would love to be involved with the renewal of lighthouse sites, but the regulations in place continue to hinder their efforts while local light stations deteriorate.
Another difficulty with the current system is that there is no specific provision to protect sites that have been given heritage status. The Canadian Coast Guard does not have a mandate to protect the cultural significance of lighthouses and it is not in a position to provide the care needed to maintain these heritage buildings.
The Coast Guard, however, does recognize the significance of these heritage lighthouses and has welcomed some proposals for their protection within the limits of the current legislation. Unfortunately, this has not been enough.
Bill S-7 would address all those concerns. It would put into place a regulatory structure that would remedy this situation and allow for the preservation of heritage lighthouses.
The bill was first introduced in the Senate in April 2000 and was originally modeled after Bill C-62, the Heritage Railway Protection Act, which was introduced in the late 1980s. Before the act was made law, heritage railway stations that had existed since before Confederation could be sold, transferred, altered or destroyed with very little recourse to the public or to the concerns of the public.
Canada's heritage lighthouses are currently in the same precarious situation as the railway stations were before the Heritage Railway Protection Act, a situation we intend to change with this bill.
Let me explain to the House how the heritage lighthouse protection act would preserve our heritage lighthouses.
First, the act reads:
The purpose of this Act is to preserve and protect heritage lighthouses by
(a) providing for the selection and designation of heritage lighthouses;
(b) preventing the unauthorized alteration or disposition of heritage lighthouses; and
(c) requiring that heritage lighthouses be reasonably maintained.
For clarity's sake, an unauthorized alteration is defined in the act as an effort “to restore or renovate, but does not include to perform routine maintenance and repairs”.
The responsibility of this proposed legislation would fall under the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
Clauses 6 through 10 of Bill S-7 would enable the governor in council, upon recommendation of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, to designate lighthouses and their related properties as heritage lighthouses, and to set out a process for their designation as heritage structures.
Clauses 11 through 16 would protect heritage lighthouses where clause 11, in particular, holds that:
No person shall remove, alter, destroy, sell, assign, transfer or otherwise dispose of a heritage lighthouse or any part of it, unless authorization to do so has been given by the Minister under this Act.
These same six clauses also outline a process for public consultation. It is extremely important that we have public consultation during this process with regard to the disposition of heritage lighthouses.
Clause 17 simply maintains that:
The owner of a heritage lighthouse maintain it in a reasonable state of repair...in keeping with its heritage character.
We are not trying to completely tie the hands of individuals who may own now or may want to own in the future these heritage buildings, but we would like to think that anyone passing by would be able to look at this building and recognize it as a lighthouse. This is no different than what most municipalities require of homeowners.
Clause 18 empowers the governor in council to make regulations. The clause simply amends the Department of Canadian Heritage Act, giving the minister jurisdiction over heritage lighthouses.
In summary, the bill would enhance the powers and responsibilities of the Minister of Canadian Heritage with respect to these important buildings. It would allow for public consultation, which is in dire need of being implemented; designation; preservation; and the general upkeep of Canada's heritage lighthouses.
Most important, it would ensure the survival of important icons of Canadian maritime history and culture. It would protect local tourism and small businesses across the country. It also would preserve the potent images of lighthouses protecting Canada's coastlines for generations to come.
I would ask that all members in the House set aside any partisan notions and support the bill before any potential prorogation of Parliament. This has happened to the bill once already and it does not deserve to go through the process a third time.
I have had ongoing discussions with all parties in the House. I hope other parties will curtail debate on the bill so it can proceed immediately to committee. I am not asking members to not speak to the bill but I certainly would appreciate it if members would curtail their time.
The heritage lighthouse protection act is a bill that serves the interests of all Canadians and all those who have visited our nation's shores.
The longer the bill takes to pass through the House the more we risk losing an essential part of Canadian history and heritage, and a very personal part of maritime culture.