Gerry Ritz

[Petitions, November 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition was put together by a young lady from Wilkie, a town in my riding. She is asking that the age of sexual consent be raised from 14 to 16, which all provincial ministers are calling for as well. It is our federal justice minister who seems to be holding it up at this time.

I am pleased to present these petitions today.

[Petitions, November 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition from my constituents calls upon the government to ban embryonic stem cell research and to promote research that does not involve the destruction of human life.

[Petitions, November 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand today to present three petitions on behalf of my constituents.

The first petition calls for the protection of children to be paramount. The government should take action to condemn the creation and use of child pornography because the majority of Canadians are already doing so.

The petitioners therefore call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all the necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are henceforth outlawed.

[Government Contracts, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, there is more than just Groupe Everest on that pre-qualified list. Why did some of the other names not come forward, other than just his buddy at Groupe Everest?

The conflict of interest code says: “Public office holders shall not step out of their official roles to assist private entities--”. A growing number of public servants have corroborated each other's claims that the secretary of state did just that, and now he will not even defend his actions here in the House.

Is the government prepared to announce a full investigation into this situation or will it once again just stonewall Canadians?

[Government Contracts, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, here is a new one, a politician playing politics. That is exactly what the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is accused of doing.

Canadians have grave concerns about how much pressure the minister used to promote his friend's firm for a half a million dollar contract while he was Secretary of State for Amateur Sport. The Minister of Public Works insists that his department signed the contract but he cannot or will not tell us who is responsible for promoting Groupe Everest in the first place.

With evidence mounting daily that the minister did indeed direct the contract to his buddies at Groupe Everest, will the Prime Minister show us some of his new ethics and mount a real investigation into this?

[Agriculture, November 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last spring, in an attempt to cloud a complete lack of vision for agriculture by his government the Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board said western farmers must plant more trees. He said two million acres of trees in Saskatchewan alone would alleviate the dependence of farmers on traditional crops.

One farmer in my riding took the minister's directive seriously. Joe Nicodemus developed a system to make cattle feed from white poplar trees. Expanding on an idea borne out of desperation during the 1930s, Mr. Nicodemus chips, then shreds these trees to make a silage that is high in vitamins and minerals.

Mr. Nicodemus, thinking his project timely, what with the directive from the minister and the feed shortage in western Canada, applied through the government's CARDS program for help in financing the expansion of his operation to a commercially viable size. Imagine his surprise to be denied, with no reasons given.

Mr. Nicodemus is now convinced, as are all other western farmers, that the Liberal government is all rhetoric and incapable of understanding the problems in agriculture, let alone having the solutions that are required.

[Kyoto Protocol, November 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the petroleum industry like any business requires a stable economic climate and long term planning. Thanks to the Liberals' continued bungling of the Kyoto accord, industry cannot count on anything but uncertainty. It has no idea what the government has planned other than imposing Kyoto on Canadians.

Husky Oil and Petro-Canada pulled back $5 billion of investment in western Canada. Will the government now consider a made in Canada approach or will it continue to force Kyoto and drive investment like this away?

[Supply, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe that if you were to seek it you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That at the conclusion of the present debate on the opposition motion, all questions necessary to dispose of this motion be deemed put, a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday, November 5, 2002, at 3 p.m.

[Supply, October 31st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it was interesting listening to the House leader's passionate rant or argument, whatever we want to call it. Toward the end, he said that the motion was not worded properly, that it was not in the right governmentese and that it was just a heinous piece of legislation. His argument was that it was not worded properly.

However, less than an hour ago he stood in that same place and made the argument to the Speaker and to our House leader that the motion too closely resembled a government concurrence motion and that the wording was too exact and so on.

How can he say one thing now and another thing an hour ago?

[Committees of the House, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the amendment which the Liberals dropped in our lap at the 11th hour.

There is a lot of talk in the House today about committees being the masters of their own destinies. We found out in spades today that is not so. They do make recommendations to the House, but we find today House officers from the government side taking those recommendations and twisting them into a pretzel so that they no longer resemble anything near what the committee actually decided.

This is a question of control. Backbenchers and opposition members who should have some say in committee and make this work the way they think it should work are controlled by the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister has a carrot and stick mentality to keep people onside, put his friends in place, reward them a bit and make things run better.

This is like some of the elections we have seen in other countries. We saw it in Iraq a short time ago when Saddam Hussein was elected again. There was a reason that. There was only one name on the ballot. That is basically what the Prime Minister and his henchmen over there are seeking to do with committee chairs. One name will be on the ballot and it will be an anointment, not an election. Whether it is a secret ballot or a show of hands, it is controlled by the Prime Minister's Office.

I sat here this morning and listened to the amendment put forward by the chair of the committee. It is counterproductive and completely counter to what he talked about in committee the other day. Today it has been reinforced by the deputy whip of the government. They want to hoist the recommendations of the committee for 15 sitting days. To that end, the committee did a tremendous job. It is not going to take 15 days to revisit this issue unless it is going to completely rejig the sitting members on the government side to hammer this through and come up with a different result.

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That the amendment be amended by replacing the words “fifteen sitting days” with “one sitting day”.