Jack Layton

[Canada-U.S. Relations, November 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this is rather incredible. We had the Prime Minister's party taking out ads against Bush's foreign policy and now he refuses to confront it with any kind of clear position that Canada might bring forward on missile defence.

My question is simply, will the Prime Minister ensure that there is a vote in this House prior to any aspect of the decision to get involved in missile defence being made, or did George Bush not allow him to agree to that?

[Canada-U.S. Relations, November 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. George Bush's choice for secretary of state is not good news for foreign policy of a moderate kind. Four years ago she was Bush's ambassador for missile defence, going to Russia to ask them to tear up an arms control treaty. In fact, that treaty was torn up.

Does the Prime Minister believe that this represents the Canadian approach, the multilateral approach that is so important, with Condoleezza Rice and George Bush tearing up multilateral arms control treaties?

[National Defence, November 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, to think that only 12 months ago 96% of Liberals thought the Prime Minister and his views on star wars were just fine.

Nineteen months ago, the Prime Minister said he supported the missile defence shield. Yesterday, he said that the most important decision had already been made. The truth is that the Prime Minister's mind is made up.

As far as the defence shield is concerned, why does what Bush thinks matter more than what Canadians think?

[National Defence, November 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.

The Prime Minister has now admitted that the decision on star wars has already been made, the most important decisions involving that project. His own parliamentary secretary has now said that it is a done deal. When did Canada become a red state?

Will the minister admit that the decision has been made and that it was made according to the values of George Bush, not the values of Canadians?

[National Defence, November 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, quite clearly, star wars is not multilateralism in action. This Prime Minister is no Lloyd Axworthy, that is for sure.

Canadians have a growing fear of George Bush and his next step. His next step is militarization that is going to increase the arms race.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Does star wars represent Canadian values or George Bush's values?

[National Defence, November 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, during the election the Prime Minister claimed that his values came from the same wellspring as ours.

Pierre Trudeau shared our values when he said no to the Vietnam war. Jean Chrétien shared our values when he said no to the war in Iraq. The Prime Minister does not seem to know whether he shares our values or those of George Bush.

Can he tell us now why, when he asked Canadians to support him, he did not tell them he was going to lead them down the road to George Bush's next arms race?

[Supply, November 4th, 2004]

Briefly, Madam Speaker, the member's question requires me to attempt to penetrate the mind of the Prime Minister. I do not intend to do that and I will not go into the reasons why.

I will simply say this. Those of us who were running as leaders of political parties in the last federal election were requested respectfully by the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador to put our comments in writing. I consulted very extensively with Jack Harris, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Newfoundland and Labrador, in developing my response, because he knows so well the needs of that province and he shares our values and our philosophy in how things should be approached. We put our answers in writing.

I cannot speak for the Prime Minister. He will have to speak for himself in the next election when it comes to the support of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Supply, November 4th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, it appears to me that the question is actually asking the members of the opposition to do the work that the government is supposed to have done. Where has the government been since the Prime Minister made the promise to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?

It is now being suggested that we should develop the technical language so as to give effect to the proposals. What was going on during the months of July, August, September and October? What was the government up to during that period? Taking a holiday and contemplating which promises it was going to be able to break?

This is a completely unacceptable proposition. It is being suggested to the members of the opposition, who intend to support the motion, that we should be sitting down and revising the motion to come up with the technical wording, so as to do the job that the government was supposed to be doing.

It is very clear that the government had no intention of honouring its promise. The Prime Minister had no intention of honouring that promise. If he had, he would have put it in writing.

It is clear that the Leader of the Liberal Party at the time and now the Prime Minister was simply prepared to say whatever it took to secure votes and then did absolutely nothing in order to put together the kind of proposal in detailed, technical language that would have given effect to that promise. The consequence was that a premier felt that an entire population of a province had been slapped in the face. We share that view; we have the same analysis.

As it happens, the cap that has been proposed in the government's offer to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will cost in this upcoming year $100 million in forgone revenue to the people of that province. By the year 2007, it will be $600 million.

If the House were to ask what is my source for that information, I would refer members to any one of the political parties in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. They will provide exactly the same analysis. I happen to have received mine from Jack Harris, the Leader of the New Democratic Party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I have received a lot more time for a three party consensus analysis of the impact of this from the people of Newfoundland and Labrador than I have from the government. The government has not presented any details. It has not even operated with what could be described as a modest amount of good faith. We have simply seen inaction, dragging feet, broken promises, and the unfair treatment of the people of that province, and we should add Nova Scotia as well, as the hon. member did in his question to me.

It is frankly the kind of strategy and behaviour on the part of the government that causes many people to lose faith all together. They really begin to lose faith in the political process when they see fundamental promises broken time and time again: promises on child care, broken for 11 years; promises on stopping the privatization of our health care and then doing absolutely nothing about it; advertising campaigns launched so that people would vote for the Liberals in order to avoid a George Bush agenda, and then we find discussions about implementing missile defence; and breaking all of the promises once again. It is a non-stop list. We could add Kyoto and the protocol to reduce emissions which is another broken promise. The list is so long that I am not going to consume the time of the House of Commons.

It is important that we move toward a vote on this issue and show the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that there are at least some members of the House of Commons, and the New Democratic Party members stand proudly among them, who are ready to honour the commitments that were made during the election because that is a fundamental element of a well-functioning democracy.

[Supply, November 4th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate. The New Democratic Party of Canada is pleased to read into the record the commitment that we made to Premier Williams in the run-up to the last election.

The premier had requested the party leaders to respond in writing to the situation facing Newfoundland and Labrador, and we were very pleased to respond. We may very well have been the first to respond. I simply want to read into the official record what we said at the time. It is a position that we continue to hold today:

The NDP supports Newfoundland and Labrador receiving 100% of its offshore oil and gas revenues to make it the ‘principal beneficiary’ of these resources based on the principles set forth in the Atlantic Accord. As I will repeat later in this letter, this view is part and parcel of the NDP's strong view that Canada needs a national energy strategy that not only corrects such fiscal imbalances regarding resource extraction, but also best positions our country for a future under the Kyoto Protocol and beyond.

Certainly, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador should have an ownership stake in offshore oil and gas developments as equity partners. We would expect that an ownership stake would be a pre-condition of all future developments. The Government of Canada, as an equity partner in Hibernia, has already recouped its investment and should transfer its 8.5% equity share of the Hibernia project to the Province.

We were the only party to make that commitment. We were responding to the very persuasive arguments put forward by the leader of the New Democratic Party in Newfoundland and Labrador, Jack Harris.

When it comes to equalization, I will quote further from our letter dated April 25 to the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador:

Newfoundland and Labrador has the lowest personal per capita income, the highest unemployment rate, and the lowest labour participation rate in Canada. Federal government transfers to the province are shrinking. The NDP supports a renewed equalization formula that is based on a ten-province standard that would increase fairness and provide for greater equality across Canada.

The elimination of Established Program Financing and the Canada Assistance Plan was extremely destructive to health care, post-secondary education and social service programs across the country and has led to greater inequality between individuals and provinces. We agree that restoring transfers to the 1994-95 levels, adjusted for inflation, would be an extremely important step in restoring federal funding to these important national objectives.

There are a couple of aspects of this position which I would like to speak about today. First of all is the importance of making a commitment and then sticking to it after we have asked the voters to judge us on the basis of what we promised. That is why we put our commitment in writing in detail.

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador in particular have a reason to be skeptical about the positions taken by national leaders, particularly given the experience of the last number of years under the Liberal government. All kinds of promises were made at election time, then only to be broken. We have seen a list of broken promises from the Liberal Party which is so long that if we were to try to enumerate them, it would consume not only the remainder of my speaking time but probably the speaking time of most other members in this debate today.

What we are speaking about today is a broken promise, a promise made in the desperate rush to try to secure votes by the Prime Minister during the election, a promise to which he did not commit in writing, despite the request of the premier for him to put his commitment in writing. We now see why the commitment was never made in writing. There was never any intention to follow through. There was an intention to leave the impression that the Prime Minister was making the same commitment that, for example, our party was making, so that the voters would be confused or lulled into a false sense of security that if only the big red machine were elected, the various commitments made in the election would be honoured.

In fact what we have seen here is a case of false advertising of the worst and most disgusting kind. It elevated the hopes of people with the lowest incomes, people who are dealing with desperate situations, a province which is struggling with a huge financial challenge with the resources that are unavailable to some other provinces.

It elevated their hopes so that they would cast a ballot hoping that there would finally be some redress for their province and that they would finally be able to secure some of the benefits from the resources that lay offshore. A tragic slap in the face has been administered to them for the trust that they offered in the election with their votes. That in many ways is the most egregious element of the issue we are discussing today.

On the question of equalization, I spoke this morning with Jack Harris, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Newfoundland and Labrador. He made a number of very simple and straightforward points. He told me that if Newfoundland and Labrador were ever to be able to achieve or exceed the five province average or any other multi-province average for this federation, there would be dancing in the streets in Newfoundland and Labrador.

There is this notion that somehow we have to protect ourselves against the eventuality a number of years down the road that Newfoundland and Labrador would suddenly be wallowing in billions of dollars of resources and would simply sit on it and never even consider the issue of equalization adjustments in the future. That Newfoundland and Labrador would never participate in any discussions and would adopt some sort of arrogant attitude with regard to that is completely inconsistent with what we know about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, their community spirit and their desire to play a role in Canada. Frankly, it stands as an insult. It is a profound insult particularly taken against the fact that they were made a promise and now that promise is being broken.

No wonder there is anger among the communities right across Newfoundland and Labrador today as we debate this matter. They are simply looking for fairness and justice and to be a full part of this federation in every way, so that the quality of life of their children and seniors can be addressed in the same way as it is addressed elsewhere in the country. Right now that is denied and all the evidence points to that fact.

What we need to do in Parliament is address inequalities that exist in our country. We need to take a look at the nature and extent of those inequalities and propose solutions. That is what we in the New Democratic Party did. We sat down and looked at the situation being faced by Newfoundland and Labrador. We looked at its resources. Just by virtue of the fact that they are offshore, the federal government is able to take 70% of the royalty revenue from those resources. What is fair about that?

Elsewhere in Canada if the resources are underneath the land mass, of course there is a much more significant revenue flow. It is for that reason the Atlantic accord was put together: to recognize these geographical facts and to try to insert some level of justice that could also allow us to achieve greater levels of equality in our country. That is why there was a fundamental commitment to shift the way in which those resource allocations were going to be made.

The premier and all of the parties at the time, in fact the whole population of Newfoundland and Labrador, called on those of us who were running for election to make a commitment. The premier wanted us to make our position absolutely crystal clear as to whether we were going to honour the needs and obligations that we have in a federation that is going to have some level of fairness associated with it. The consequence was that we put our commitments in writing and made them absolutely clear.

Voting for the motion today is one way in which we can acknowledge that we were serious when we made these commitments. We have full confidence that once those resource revenues start to flow, and we hope they start to flow soon to restore some hope to those communities, there will be a transformation in Newfoundland and Labrador. Then the can do attitude of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will be unleashed because finally they will have available to them some of the resources from the natural wealth that lies offshore beneath the ocean.

They have been denied their way of life by virtue of the collapse of the cod stocks. We know that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have been struggling with enormous adversities. We have a chance to right the balance. The question is, are we going to do it? Are we going to make a statement? Are we going to put pressure on the promise breaking government to do the right thing?

Our party will be standing with the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, saying that it is time for justice. It is time for some equality and it is time for promises to be honoured. That is where the New Democratic Party of Canada stands.

Let me address in a little more detail the issue concerning the whole question of the relationship between resource revenues, royalties, taxes, et cetera. I do not think it has been communicated well enough that even after this so-called 100% situation is fully rectified, the federal government will still be receiving enormous revenues from the oil and gas fiscal situation by virtue of corporate taxation.

According to Mr. Harris, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Newfoundland and Labrador, fully 53% of all revenues generated by the offshore, even after the 100% is guaranteed, will actually arriving at Ottawa's door.

Let us not try to pretend that somehow the federal government or the people of Canada would not be adequately protected or would not share in the revenues coming from Newfoundland and Labrador. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are doing nothing more than asking for a fair share. Our position is that they are entitled to that fair share.

If we take a close look at the conditions of life in Newfoundland and Labrador right now, we would see that by most indicators the communities and individuals are struggling. The province is losing its young people. It is in deficit. It has a very large debt by comparison with its population. Surely the idea that some day there might be enough revenue that the province could actually address these issues should not be used as an excuse to not even provide it with the revenues in the first place. That is essentially the line of argument that we are hearing.

It is time that we took a look at problems that exist today and the solutions that are available today and that we are committed to, instead of looking off into the future and imagining scenarios that might or might not unfold and assume that no Parliament or group of provinces sitting down with goodwill in the future, if there were changed circumstances, could sort things out. That is a very pessimistic strategy that does not solve problems. We have problems right now that need to be addressed.

In closing, it is time for us, first, to honour the commitments that we made. The Prime Minister is in the process of breaking his promise. That is not acceptable. It is time for us to honour the right of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to have a fair share of their offshore revenues so that they can build the kind of community in society that they have been desperately yearning to do and they will have that capacity if we provide them with the resources that are rightfully theirs.

[National Defence, November 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians want our face to the world to be based on our values. The question of star wars missile defence will be the test of whether this government presents the face of Canadians to the world.

Again, will the Prime Minister say today that he will respect the values of Canadians and say no to missile defence?