Gerald Keddy

[Supply, September 23rd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, my question is primarily on the last part of the hon. member's speech, specifically on animal protein going into animal feeds.

His comment was that there seems to be some resistance from industry, but the members of the industry with whom I have met have conceded that it is absolutely essential and imperative that we take animal protein out of animal feeds, even to the point of any cross-contamination. We would not feed ruminant protein to chickens, for instance, which happens today. It would be taken totally out of the food stream.

The other issue is there is a good market for animal protein to be fed to fish. There is no reason that we could not feed a lot of our fish in fish farms and aquaculture animal protein made from ruminants.

I think there is more consensus on behalf of farmers and a real understanding that the animal protein needs to be taken out of the food chain, especially for ruminant? There is also consensus that there are other species that are safe to feed. Certainly we need to take it out of the barnyard so there is no opportunity for cross-contamination. Could the member comment on that?

[Veterans Affairs, September 22nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should know that this situation dishonours our veterans and everything they fought for. Widows of our nation's heroes have trouble meeting their daily needs. In the last fiscal year, the Veterans Review and Appeal Board spent over $797,000 on personal expenses.

Veterans and their widows have borne the weight of our freedom on their backs for half a century. Could the minister explain to the House how fancy dinners in Ottawa at the expense of these widows honour our veterans?

[Veterans Affairs, September 22nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, last week when asked why 28,000 widows were being denied access to the veterans independence program, the government stated that it did not have enough money in the budget for everything it wanted to do.

It did, however, have the budget for Veterans Review and Appeal Board member Ian Murray to spend more than $52,000 on personal expenses.

Will the minister justify to the House why widows are being denied financial support when members of the board are spending tens of thousands of dollars on personal expenses?

[Canada Post, September 19th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is selling out rural Canada and the government has plans to close the Tancook Island post office in South Shore. This island is home to 152 people who are permanent residents, and if closed, those individuals would require a two hour round trip ferry ride to pick up a registered letter.

The government talks about supporting rural and coastal Canada. I would like to see it put its money where its mouth is, and a good place to start would be by keeping the post office open on Tancook Island.

[Canada Post, September 19th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, despite the 1994 moratorium on the closure of rural post offices, many offices, such as McKerrow, Ontario, are being closed under the guise of exceptional circumstances. This is a threat to the very infrastructure of rural Canada and it severs the only link between the federal government and most rural communities.

Will the minister affirm that the government will stand by the 1994 moratorium and prevent further closures of rural post offices?

[Supply, September 18th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech with some consternation. He seemed to be all over the map and all over the place on his discussions.

He and other members on the government side kept referring to the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard and his stint as finance minister. I guess my question on tax conventions, which would roll easily into tax havens, would be what the hon. member actually thinks of the process that the member for LaSalle—Émard went through as a minister of finance for Canada to negotiate a tax haven that he eventually ended up using himself. Furthermore, we have to understand how important a person the minister of finance is in government, not only in business. It is a very tricky balance and I think it is one that we do need to discuss.

The facts are this. There was a tax haven. A convention was formed between Canada and Liberia that allowed Canadian companies, in this case Canada Steamship Lines but other Canadian companies as well, to have some tax free status by sailing out of Liberia. There was a lot of thunder in the House. I read the speech. There was a lot of chest pounding about shutting down Liberia but there was no talk about the fact that Barbados was left open and companies were transferred directly from Liberia to Barbados.

I think it is a real flaw that we allow Canadian companies to be taxed offshore. It is a bigger flaw to allow a minister of finance to participate in that.

I do not know the answer, although I think I do, but I would like the hon. member's reply. Does he think that is the way a minister of finance should act?

We must understand that when a minister of finance owns an offshore company, sits on the board of the World Bank and has intimate dealings with the rest of the countries in the world regarding upcoming taxation schemes, he is the first person to know, long before anyone else, what proposed tax changes may be occurring in the European Union or in the United States. This is an individual who has access to a so-called blind trust at the average of four times a year while he is negotiating on the part of Canada and running a business. What is the member's opinion on that?

[Parliament of Canada Act, September 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, members of the Progressive Conservative Party will vote yes.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, September 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, you are absolutely right. I was simply reading the letter verbatim and got a bit carried away. It was to the chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The letter reads:

I am writing to you in light of recent media articles concerning the possibility of accelerating the implementation of the new electoral boundaries, effective April 1, 2004.

When considering this matter it is important to keep in mind that the time frame for the new boundaries to come into effect as provided for under the Electoral Boundaries Redistribution Act is one year from the date of the proclamation of the Representation Order. Therefore, any shorter period would require legislative change. Based on the current status of the review by the Sub-committee for Electoral Boundaries Readjustment, it is expected that the proclamation of the Representation Order would be ready by the end of August 2003.

It is a long letter but I urge my colleagues to read it where we have political interference in the Parliament of Canada from the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, which is totally unacceptable, as it would be unacceptable to have political interference with the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada from the Parliament of Canada. They are two separate entities. We have to assure and ensure that they remain two separate entities.

I want to repeat that this entire debate is not about adding seats to the House of Commons. It is not about redressing population imbalances. It is not about increased representation for British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario which all need the seats. It is about political advantage for the sitting Liberal government, and that is wrong. It is going to come into effect anyway on August 25 so why move it ahead to April? It is wrong and if it passes through the House the government should hang its head in shame.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, September 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-49. I listened to my colleague's speech and there was much in it with which I totally agree.

Frankly, listening to at least parts of the rest of the speeches that members made in the House, on the government's side especially, and from the official opposition, I am surprised at the rush. I question the need to pass this bill in such a hurry. I do not understand what the hurry is.

This is a very short bill. It has one clause. If the government had chosen to do so it could have had only one line in that clause. The government simply could have said that it was convenient and advantageous to the government and no one else in Canada, that people need to vote for it and pass it through Parliament That is what this is about.

This is not about adding seats to the House of Commons. Whoever thinks it is, is living in a dream. It is ridiculous. It certainly is not about redressing population imbalances in the boundaries of electoral districts. It is not about that at all. It is not about giving increased representation to the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario which deserve them and need them. That is not what it is about.

The government would have Canadians believe that it is engaged in some noble effort to guarantee better representation and electoral fairness in this bill. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is a bill that all Canadians should view with alarm. It is an attack on the democratic process. It is government involvement where governments have no business being involved. It is a blatant attempt to steal the next election, to get the member for LaSalle--Émard to the polls before Canadians can get a look at him. It is absolutely incredible.

The Prime Minister, who introduced the bill, should immediately withdraw this bill and should stand on the record in the House as the last government that the Liberals put forward.

I said at the beginning that the bill was not about adding seats or giving increased representation to those people who live in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. That has already been done. That is how the system works. Those seats have already been added. We do not need to pass a bill in the House to add them. It is done.

In accordance with the Constitution Act and the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, the various commissions have finished their work and have presented their final reports. The additional seats are there and the new boundaries are there, and under the law these will be in effect for any election taking place after August 25, 2004. What part of this do my colleagues have difficulty understanding?

Let me quote the media release from the Chief Electoral Officer in Canada dated Monday, August 25, 2003.

Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, announced today that on Tuesday, August 19 he transmitted to the Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons a draft representation order describing and naming the electoral districts established by the federal electoral boundaries commissions.

The representation order specifies the number of members of the House of Commons for each province and divides each province into electoral districts. It also describes the boundaries of each district and indicates its name and population, said Mr. Kingsley.

The Governor in Council proclaimed the representation order today. This information will be published in the Canada Gazette on Friday, August 29.

What is the rush? I do not get it. I do not understand this juvenile thinking that is going on in this place. The law requires and provides for a one year period to put in place the electoral machinery for the new boundaries. Much of that work is done by Elections Canada, not the Parliament of Canada, which is supposed to be separate from the Parliament of Canada, but equally important, communities of interest, including political parties, must also close down some operations and begin new organizations based upon the new boundaries. We know that.

Anyone who does not know that has been asleep at the wheel. No member can stand in this place and say that he or she will not have enough time. We have known about this since August 25. They should get at it because it is coming at us.

When Parliament enacted the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act it provided for that one year period of time. Let me quote section 25 in case anybody here has not read it because obviously there are a number of members in this place who need to read it. It states:

Within five days after the receipt by the Minister of the draft representation order, the Governor in Council shall by proclamation declare the draft representation order to be in force, effective on the first dissolution of Parliament that occurs at least one year after the day on which the proclamation was issued, and on the issue of the proclamation the order has the force of law accordingly.

Let me explain it one more time. The government has brought forward a bill to shorten this period from August 25, 2004, when it automatically comes into place. We are going to shorten it by a period of five months. The government says that it is not proposing that section 25 be changed. Instead, it wants to change the rules so the new leader, and let us make no mistake about this, is exempt from the general law.

How did this come about? By a great feat of mental telepathy, it seems. On July 15 the Chief Electoral Officer took it upon himself to write a letter to some Liberals in a completely unsolicited way about some talk in the press about how the member for LaSalle—Émard could face a problem with an early election call run on the existing electoral boundaries.

I beg my colleagues in the opposition parties and in the Alliance Party to take that letter aside and read it. It says that he could face a problem. I think it is the job of the opposition to make sure he faces a problem, not to encourage him somehow to get this thing started five months ahead of when it is going to come in anyway. That is exactly what we are doing here.

Mr. Kingsley offered an unsolicited solution to the sitting Prime Minister. Being ever willing to please, he sent an unsolicited letter to the Liberal member for Peterborough, with copies to the Liberal government House leader, the Liberal senators and the Liberal member for Burlington. The letter reads:

Dear Mr. Adams:

I am writing to you in light of recent--

[Veterans Affairs, September 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, for the government to say it does not have enough money for widows is an insult. The government has a record of being unwilling to extend benefits to the widows of the veterans.

Meanwhile, Denise Tremblay, a member of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and the Prime Minister's former constituency secretary in Saint-Maurice, Quebec, spent more than $158,000 on personal expenses.

How does the Prime Minister justify these extravagant expenses when widows are refused less than $100 a month?