Jason Kenney

[Immigration, June 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the supreme court has ruled that this person has a right to a hearing when he is a convicted drug dealer who is a threat to this country and its citizens.

When will this government stand up for Canadians instead of the rights of drug dealers by amending the legislation?

[Immigration, June 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we asked the minister of immigration for a straight answer on a simple question about whether or not she believes a convicted drug dealer should be allowed to stay in Canada and seek refugee status and she gives us a haughty little lecture about the rule of law.

Let me tell her about the rule of law. This parliament is sovereign and it can exercise its sovereign power to amend the legislation to ensure that convicted drug dealers like this get kicked out of the country like they should be.

Will this minister act or not?

[Judges Act, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to continue debating Bill C-37, at this time on Motion No. 2 put by my colleague, the hon. member for Crowfoot. It would amend the bill to require that a report of a commission established to review judicial compensation would require a hearing at presentation with discussion, debate and the appearance of witnesses at committee, presumably the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights chaired by the hon. member who just preceded me.

That hon. member said during her remarks that already there is provision which can allow for reports of this nature to be tabled at committee and to be discussed at committee and commented on by witnesses. That is at the discretion of the government. The report need not be tabled at committee. It only is tabled at committee if the government decides that it should be tabled at committee.

What we are seeking to do through Motion No. 2 is to require full public scrutiny and transparency of reports of this nature so that the people who are paying the bills have a chance to comment on them at committee stage. It is entirely different from the status quo arrangement to which the hon. member opposite referred.

This really begs the question, whenever we have an opportunity to broaden parliamentary scrutiny of matters of this nature, why is it that the government is always opposed? Why does it always oppose greater parliamentary scrutiny? These people when they were in opposition were the great champions and heroes of parliamentary scrutiny, democracy and transparency in such matters.

Whenever a motion such as this one is brought forward on a bill of this nature the government members always predictably oppose it. I ask why. What are they trying to hide? Who would be harmed? What damage would be done to parliament, to the government's agenda, to the independence of the judiciary were reports of this nature on judges' compensation to be tabled and heard with the comment of witnesses at committee?

I submit that no damage would be done. The only damage that could be done would be to the government's ability to control the agenda and to sweep these things under the carpet. That is why the government is opposing it.

Let me be consistent because we are going through a similar exercise right now. By way of analogy, the Parliament of Canada Act requires that after a general election a commission be appointed by the Governor General in council to review indemnities and allowances for members of parliament. This was followed of course by the government.

Following the election the government appointed the Blais commission, three independent Canadians to sit on a commission to review MP compensation. This commission reported back to parliament but the hearings were held in camera without the appearance of witnesses.

Now we have a report tabled by the committee on procedure and House affairs which has not had public scrutiny or input. An independent commission is set up that reports but with no public comment, no opportunity for public scrutiny, no opportunity for witnesses to appear. Then a report is tabled in this place and presumably will be passed.

I have a serious problem with this procedure, not just as it affects judges but also as it affects MPs or anybody else in the public sector. When we are discussing raising compensation for people from the public purse, in a sense taking money from taxpayers, using the coercive power that we wield in this place to levy taxes on people, to pay additional compensation to ourselves or to others such as judges, that ought to be done with the greatest of possible public scrutiny.

That is precisely what Motion No. 2 seeks to do with respect to Bill C-37. I really wonder why the government is opposing this. Once again, it raises the whole question not just of the compensation of judges but of the lack of transparency in the manner through which judges are appointed.

Canada is probably the only one of the modern democracies that does not allow for candidates for the judiciary to first be screened by, questioned by or to testify in front of members of the national legislature.

We know that our friends to the south require a senatorial review of judicial nominees before they can be confirmed. It is a sensible policy because it ensures that there is a check and balance on the power of the executive in loading people who support its political agenda on the judiciary.

Let us not be mistaken. While we have many marvellous hardworking justices who simply interpret the law narrowly and strictly, we also have on the benches of this country many judges who regard themselves as glorified legislators. They sit on the bench and legislate from the bench. They do not interpret the law. They make the law.

We have no means as the representatives of the people, as the guardians ultimately of the Constitution to ensure that the people appointed to that bench are going to interpret rather than to legislate from the bench.

I ask that we have greater transparency when it comes to compensation for judges in Bill C-37. So too, we call for greater transparency in the appointment of judges so that the public and its representatives in this place, in the upper chamber, know what they are getting when the Prime Minister and the Governor General in council, when the cabinet decides to foist on the bench some radical politician who calls himself or herself a judge.

I also suggest that this principle should be applied throughout the public sector. We ought not to isolate judges. Whenever we are discussing compensation increases for senior people in the public sector, including ourselves, why should we not allow for complete, full and absolute public scrutiny?

Do you know something, Mr. Speaker? There is nothing to be afraid of. It is quite possible that experts and ordinary Canadians would look at a proposed pay increase or adjustment to compensation such as the one proposed in Bill C-37, an 8.3% increase over two years and would say “Hey, this is well deserved. These people work hard. They have earned this increase”. Let us not prejudge the wisdom of the public. That is what we are doing by shutting out public commentary and expert commentary through witnesses on this matter.

I commented earlier that I find it hard to believe the kind of bizarre judicial decisions we see coming with greater and greater frequency from federally appointed judges.

I commented earlier on the Feeney decision where a judge appointed by cabinet decided that a man who was clearly, unquestionably guilty of first degree murder was acquitted. Why? Because an RCMP officer failed to secure a search warrant in a rural area in British Columbia when he followed the trace of evidence to this man's residence. What did he do? He announced himself as a peace officer. He asked for permission to enter. No one responded. He went in and found the accused passed out on the bed covered in the blood of the murdered victim. The judge in that case, a judge appointed by the government without parliamentary oversight, allowed that man to be acquitted.

This happens all too often with respect to sentencing and conditional sentencing. It happens all too often when judges decide they are going to make the law in their own image claiming some specious authority in the charter of rights and freedoms.

Now we are proposing to give those very same judges who are accountable to utterly no one but themselves a pay increase almost uncontemplated anywhere else in the public sector, and I would submit the private sector, in a country where people are earning less now than they did 20 years ago. At the same time the government is telling us that we cannot even put such a report before a committee before it comes to the House to allow for proper disclosure and proper transparency.

I know from private conservations that there are members opposite who are very concerned about Bill C-37. I ask them to test their whip for once and vote for greater transparency in this place by supporting Motion No. 2 on Bill C-37.

[Judges Act, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise at report stage of Bill C-37 to amend to the Judges Act after having been so rudely interrupted by that NDP procedural motion.

The bill seeks to raise the compensation paid to judges appointed by the federal government over the course of two years by 8.3%. Already federally appointed judges on average are paid approximately $140,000 which is not exactly small change. It is a significant chunk of public revenue.

Let me make it clear at the outset that I and my colleagues in official opposition do not object to paying judges or anybody else who works for the public. We do not expect these people to be disadvantaged in terms of their compensation. We think fair compensation ought to apply to judges as it does to all other members of our public service, people who work for the crown.

What concerns me in the bill is the double standard we are creating for one small group within those who work in the public sector, that group being federal judges. It seems particularly strange to me at a time when frontline workers in the federal government, particularly frontline workers in the federal justice system, people such as frontline members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, frontline members of the Correctional Service of Canada, frontline people who enforce our laws, receive little or no pay increases year after year. However, those at the very top of the stratum, those who are already paid far more than most Canadians, would get the biggest increase. Quite frankly the approach taken by the commission which reported and in the legislation seems inequitable, unfair and inappropriate.

The people on the frontline of the justice system like RCMP constables and correctional service officers are people who day after day put their lives on the line for the enforcement of law and order. They are accountable to performance. If they do not perform they can be dismissed. If they make huge errors in judgment they can be dismissed or disciplined. In other words they are accountable.

What about the judges? Are they accountable? No, they are not. They are accountable to no one but themselves. I submit the principle of accountability for compensation ought to apply throughout the public sector just as it does within the private sector.

When my constituents look at some of the judgments made by federal judges at various levels including the Supreme Court of Canada, what they see sometimes astounds them. Other members of my party have made reference to some of the recent shocking court judgments by the people we are now proposing to raise their pay by 8.3%.

For instance, members will have heard recently about the Feeney case. The court ruled that a man who was clearly guilty of first degree murder would be acquitted because a police officer entered his residence without a search warrant, after having knocked on the door and announced himself, to find the perpetrator of this atrocious crime in bed with blood on his person and throughout his trailer from the murder he had just committed. It is unbelievable.

We are now proposing to raise the pay of the judge who made this decision by 8.3%. Not only is he not accountable but we cannot balance his pay with his performance. We have a cast of people who are appointed without public oversight, without parliamentary scrutiny, by the sole discretion of the Governor General in Council, the Prime Minister, and are not accountable even if they make widely outrageous decisions.

What do we say to these people? We say they are not accountable. They make bizarre decisions some of the time. We cannot measure their performance but we will give them an 8.3% pay raise anyway. It is just plain wrong. It shows a completely contorted sense of priorities on the part of the government.

Canadians families are now in the second decade of no after tax increase in their disposable incomes. Frontline workers in the federal government have had no raises for seven years. That we should talk about the best paid people in the country getting an 8.3% pay raise is completely unacceptable.

Yesterday one of my colleagues pointed out that there is a clause in Bill C-37 dealing with survivor benefits, speaking of the spouses of judges. There is a definition of spouse in the act, as there should be. Every federal statute dealing with family benefits requires the term spouse and therefore defines the term.

Recently Madam Justice Rosalie Abella of the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in the Rosenberg case that the traditional definition of spouse, the definition which exists in Bill C-37 and hundreds of other federal statutes, the definition which is rooted in 1,000 years of common law history and 3,000 years of the Mosaic law tradition, is no longer applicable to all federal statutes including the one we are debating today.

We are proposing to give Madam Justice Abella an 8.3% pay raise after having made a decision contrary to the interest of the government, contrary to the interest of justice, contrary to any kind of public accountability. This justice was appointed without any kind of oversight or scrutiny by the public, by parliament or by elected representatives of the people. She was appointed behind closed doors by bureaucrats in the justice department offering their short list of candidates to the politicians in cabinet to choose one name over another.

We should have a moratorium on pay raises for judges of the federal government until or unless there is some kind of accountability. Once again, compensation must be linked to accountability.

We in the opposition have called for the establishment of a parliamentary committee to review and comment on judicial nominees by the federal government. At least then we could have some kind of screening process to make sure that irresponsible, ideologically driven, radical judges like Rosalie Abella do not find their way on to the bench. If people like Rosalie Abella want to legislate their political agenda I suggest they run for public office as has everyone in this place and not sit on the bench where they think they can unilaterally impose their political agenda, peculiar as it may be, on the rest of Canadians.

The time has come for us to review the entire process of appointments of judges and the enormous undemocratic power which our courts exercise. Until we have done that we cannot and should not offer them a reward in terms of a 8.3% pay increase until they are finally accountable for the decisions they make.

[Tiananmen Square, June 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow marks the ninth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

On the night of June 3, 1989 the Communist People's Liberation Army surrounded students and workers rallying peacefully for democracy in Tiananmen Square. In the early hours of June 4, troops and police opened fire. Tanks rolled in. Armour-piercing bullets tore through human flesh.

Three thousand died that morning. Hundreds of young people who were arrested are still being held in Beijing's brutal prisons today.

On this anniversary the Chinese people demand a new China, a democratic China with a free press, a China that respects human dignity. But their voice is stifled as more dissidents are arrested every week.

Pathetically the Chinese communist government said today that the massacre of pro-democracy students at Tiananmen was a correct conclusion and that there is no need to reassess the issue.

Let us never forget the brave young people and workers who died and those who are still in prison for no crime except for expressing their belief in democracy.

[Israel, June 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, while Jews and Gentiles around the world are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the modern state of Israel, Liberal and New Democrat MPs are choosing to attack this brave outpost for democracy in the Middle East.

The NDP MPs for Vancouver East and Burnaby—Douglas and the Liberal MP for Gatineau all gave their blessing to a recent anti-Israel rally where the independence of Israel was maligned as a “catastrophe”.

The New Democrat MP for Burnaby—Douglas said that Israel's modern rebirth was not a happy occasion but was the start of 50 years of “injustice”.

Shame on these MPs. This is an outrageous affront to Israel's thriving democracy and its willingness to dialogue with Palestinians, some of whom still vow to destroy Israel.

These Liberal and NDP MPs claim to speak for democracy but instead of celebrating Israel's valiant defence of democracy in the Middle East, they have chose to malign it. What a disgrace to this House and to this country.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1998, May 27th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted now that we have made a motion that at least one Liberal has decided to appear and to listen to the rest of the debate on the budget.

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by the absence of members opposite, those debt interest costs will be $45 billion in tax dollars for this year, next year, the year after, and the year after that. That amounts to two full years of CPP benefits for every pension beneficiary in the country. Just the interest this year amounts to two and half years of GST revenues.

Seventy-one per cent of all personal income tax revenues paid this year will go just to finance the interest on the debt. All that we spend in benefits for old age security, the Canada health and social transfer for education and health care and employment insurance, the three big social programs administered by the federal government, are the amount equivalent to what we will spend on debt interest because of this budget and this bill.

The debt interest costs are equivalent to the entire annual budgets of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The debt interest this year alone is equivalent to the entire net debts of all provinces, except for the three largest provinces.

The $45 billion interest bill is enough to pay for all Canadian hospitals, all physician charges and all drug and pharmaceutical costs for an entire year.

That is how much this government has chosen to spend on debt interest because it has not made the right and difficult choice to reduce the debt and to prioritize spending.

What we spend on debt interest through this budget would be enough to cut taxes on an average of $3,200 a year per taxpayer, not per household. It is closer to $6,000 a year per household. It is enough to provide for a $30,000 a year endowment for every poor child in Canada.

The Liberals talk about their millennium prime ministerial endowment fund, heritage fund, or I do not know what spin name they have given it. If they had started earlier in the 1980s when they were in power to make the difficult choices and if they had continued on today, we would not be spending $45 billion a year in interest. Then families could keep $6,000 a year in their pockets, or we could set up an endowment of $30,000 for every poor child in the country.

If we were to convert the annual interest bill into $100 bills and we stacked them up one on one, the pile would be 118 kilometres high. The pile would be 214 times higher than the CN Tower.

That is the status quo which we are going to let sit there, that huge debt which is festering. This government and its spin machine talk at great length about prosperity in the Canadian economy and growth of jobs and so on but they have fallen prey to the very same fatal hubris of the Mulroney government. The Liberals believe arrogantly that they have managed to defeat something called the business cycle, the notion that in a market economy or any economy there are ups and downs.

Unfortunately there will be a downturn sometime in this economy. The finance minister speaks as though he is a Pollyanna. He speaks about a new golden age where this country will have 20 or 30 years of uninterrupted growth. I am an optimist and I wish the minister were right but any rational, objective reading of economic history in this or any modern country will indicate that it simply will not happen.

There will be a downturn in our economy at some point, a recession at some point. Government revenues will drop at some point and social expenditures will increase at some point. Should that happen while we are still sitting on a $583.2 billion debt with $45 billion in interest payments and the highest income tax burden in the G-7, it will be too late.

We have not solved the problem, the problem that Reformers came here to solve in 1993, the problem of overspending, the problem of overtaxation and the problem of too much debt.

We say here today as this government rams this bill through this parliament that it is time to stop and get our heads out of the sand. We have to realize the Mulroney government made precisely the same mistake in 1988 when it thought it was facing a decade of future growth. That government decided to let it go easy on the spending side. It decided to let up on the fiscal reins as this government is doing in this bill and this budget today. We are paying the price today with a $600 billion debt and $45 billion in interest payments.

It is time for us to remember the fundamental principle of the terrible lesson we have learned with the fiscal history of this country in the past two decades. We have not yet solved the problem. That problem is still very much the $583 billion debt which the government leaves completely untouched, an act of fiscal irresponsibility which is almost unparalleled in the history of this country.

What have the Liberals done on the tax side? They talk about tax relief. Whenever we ask the finance minister he stands up and blathers about how he has given the child tax credit and all this stuff but most of what they call tax cuts are in fact tax expenditures. They are government cheques that are being cut. That is the Liberal accounting.

If we account for the $10 billion annual increase in CPP premiums and the enormous effect of bracket creep which sucks up $2 billion to $3 billion a year out of the pockets of taxpayers just through inflation, what we find is that this is actually a tax increase budget. When we calculate the total net effect of the CPP payroll tax, the EI tax, the bracket creep higher income tax revenues and everything else and what they call their tax cuts, when we add it all up what we end up with is this budget being a tax increase budget. It is the fifth consecutive tax increase budget from a government that promised in the 1993 and 1997 elections not to raise taxes. Another promise broken. Another trust betrayed.

Since 1993 the government has taken a cumulative $49.1 billion from the pockets of taxpayers amounting to an average of $3,500 per taxpayer. That is more than was being taken. That is an increase over the enormously high tax burden of this government's predecessor.

When we take into account this budget and the future years projected in the budget documents, the government, when it closes its books in the fiscal year after the next one, will have raised taxes by a cumulative total of nearly $80 billion. That is $80 billion, or $5,700 per year for the average taxpayer. Compare that to what we have proposed in the official opposition which is to cut personal income taxes by $12 billion a year, or $2,000 for the average family by the year 2000.

Another little feature, or technical flaw as we might say, in the budget bill is the change being made to what is called the child care tax deduction. The government has decided to raise by $2,000 the amount parents can deduct in the cost of paying a third party to care for their children. That is fine. We respect the choices of people who decide to do that.

There are millions of Canadian families and parents who make the sacrifice to stay at home and raise their children to do what they believe in their conscience is best for their children. Do they get the benefit of the $2,000 additional deduction or even the $5,000 deduction that is there now? They do not get one red cent of it. They are told if they give up the second income they get no consideration under the tax code. It is a two tier tax code, one for the daycare choices the government supports and the other for families who want to make choices for themselves.

This bill is a disgrace. Closure is a disgrace. The lack of disclosure is a disgrace. The public accounting principles that are manipulated here are a disgrace. The unfairness for families is a disgrace. The $583 billion the government is passing on to future generations is a disgrace. That is why I and my colleagues will be voting against it.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1998, May 27th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleagues for allowing me to split the time with my colleague for Medicine Hat.

I begin by condemning this government for allowing itself to trample on democracy and democratic deliberation by invoking closure and time allocation on Bill C-36. This evening we will be gathered in this place to vote on a bill that is not just any normal bill. It is not some kind of housekeeping amendment. It is not some kind of technical legislation. This is legislation that authorizes the expenditure of billions and billions of dollars earned not by the government, not by the members opposite, but by Canadians.

We are authorizing the government in this bill this evening to use the coercive power of the state to take away the fruits of those people's labours. If there is one founding principle of liberal democracy, it is the principle of no taxation without representation. That is what they said when the entire concept of liberal democracy came about in the late 18th century.

But this government has a different idea of what liberal democracy is. Now that it is Liberal democracy, they think democracy means the government will authorize, without adequate debate, without proper procedure of deliberation in parliament, the taking and spending of billions and billions of dollars from taxpayers who now come home with less than they did 15 years ago because of the tax burden imposed by this and previous governments.

Do not take my word for it or our word for it when we inveigh against the undemocratic invocation of closure 41 times since this government took power. I ask my colleagues opposite to reference what their caucus colleague said when they were in opposition. They were principled when they were in opposition. They spoke out against the invocation of closure and time allocation.

My hon. colleague quoted from certain statements made by the current government House leader when he was in opposition and by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. The member for Kingston and the Islands said in debate in this place on February 19, 1993: “I suggest that the government's approach to legislating through closure is frankly a disgrace. It cuts back the time that the House is available to sit and then it applies closure to cut off the debate”. He called it a disgrace. He was right then and we are right now by using the same word. He also said on April 23, 1993: “This is not the way to run a parliament. This is an abuse of the process of the House”. That was a Liberal then, a Liberal today.

The current minister of external affairs said in 1993 that the government's invocation of closure displays the utter disdain with which the government treats the Canadian people. I stand here and echo the words of the minister of external affairs six years ago. It does demonstrate a disdain for the Canadian people.

On Monday night of this week we voted on dozens of amendments that had been rushed through the report stage of debate in this place, serious, substantive amendments that elected representatives of taxpayers had spent time constructing to try to hold the government more accountable and to make the operation of government more efficient. Only one member of each party had an opportunity to speak on dozens of amendments. They were not allowed to address each amendment but just groupings of those amendments. That is not the democratic process properly conceived or executed.

Not only is the government invoking closure undemocratically, it is invoking closure on a bill which gets a failing grade from the auditor general of this parliament. I am not talking about a member of the opposition or about some columnist or critic. I am talking about the man charged by all members and all parties of this place to monitor the books of the government to ensure they comply with generally accepted public sector accounting principles. The auditor general, a man of integrity, has said the section of Bill C-36 authorizing the creation of the millennium scholarship fund does not comply with but rather contravenes the most basic principles of public accounting.

Some will say who cares about how you account for the numbers, which year you put it in, where it appears in the public accounts. Some people will say it is a technical argument, that the opposition does not have anything else to talk about.

There is a very important principle here. Parliament is an institution which goes back hundreds of years in history and essentially is an institution which was created as part of an effort by the commoners to have a real check and balance on the executive power, the power of the crown, to expend public funds without public scrutiny. Our job is to ensure that the bills we authorize are conducted with proper accounting principles, with full transparency so the public can see and know how its money is being spent with confidence. The auditor general has said we cannot have confidence in how Bill C-36 and the budget of this year construe the millennium scholarship fund.

“I believe believe that the accounting change for the millennium scholarship fund will open the door for governments to influence reported results by simply announcing intentions in their budgets and then deciding what to include in the deficit or surplus after the end of the year once preliminary numbers are known”. What he was saying was that by authorizing the expenditure now and booking it in the current fiscal year 1998-99 but not expending it until the fiscal year 2000, we are playing a shell game with the public finances. That too is a disgrace.

Without even getting to the substance of the bill, which is bad enough, the government is closing down debate to rush through a bill the auditor general will not permit. I dare say that if the previous government, the Mulroney government, had made a similar effort the Liberal Party and all Canadians would have risen up in contempt.

My hon. colleague from Medicine Hat discussed at some length the provisions of the bill as they relate to payroll taxes, so I will not reiterate his eloquent remarks. However, let me focus on another part of this bill and the budget which it implements.

The debt projected for the current fiscal year by this enormously fiscally responsible government is $583.2 billion. The finance minister talks a great deal about how we are going into debt reduction. However, when I look at the budget I see that in the next fiscal year, 1999-2000, the debt is $583.2 billion. Then I look in his budget at fiscal year 2000 and guess what? He has brought the debt all the way down to $583.2 billion.

It is amazing that this man of fiscal rectitude, this champion of debt reduction has scheduled in the fourth fiscal year through his projections that the debt will come plummeting down to $583.2 billion. What does that mean? It means we will continue to spend $45 billion a year in debt interest costs, money that comes from taxpayers that does not finance one single worthy social program or contribute to education, training or infrastructure investment. The $45 billion which this budget and this bill authorize for the current fiscal year does the following.

Madam Speaker, I believe you will find consent for the following motion:

That for the remainder of this session motions pursuant to Standing Orders 57 and 78(3) shall not be receivable by the Chair.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1998, May 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to debate Bill C-36.

I begin by expressing my regret that debate on this bill has been limited by the government's time allocation motion. I understand this is the fourth time in this parliament alone that closure or time allocation has been implemented. It was done on Bill C-2 regarding the Canada pension plan, on Bill C-4 with respect to the Canadian Wheat Board, on Bill C-19, the Canadian Labour Code amendments which we dealt with before parliament broke, and now twice on Bill C-36.

This is not a new trend. The Liberal government, the very same party when it was on this side of the House criticized the Mulroney government for its habit of invoking closure and time allocation, has done so 41 times since 1994.

Mr. Speaker, I know you have a particular concern for parliamentary reform and helped chair a committee dealing with reforms to ensure that the closure and time allocation powers of government were not abused as they were in parliaments previous to 1993. It is regretful, and I say this as a new member, that the government has failed to restrain its excessive use of what really should be a very rare lever to limit debate in this place.

This is parliament. The purpose of this place is to deliberate on legislation brought forward by the government. It is not to rubber stamp legislation brought forward by the bureaucracy or the executive branch. It is to deliberate, to debate, to amend, to consider, to ensure that those who pay the bills for the legislation we pass have their concerns fully and exhaustively expressed with respect to every single piece of legislation, particularly pieces of legislation like Bill C-36 which have such an enormous impact on the fiscal and economic condition of Canadians.

I came to this place expecting frustration as a member, knowing this parliamentary system is dysfunctional, knowing the way it has been abused by successive governments, that serious substantive debate and deliberation on legislation of this nature happens all too rarely. Even my low expectations as a close observer of this place and a keen observer of parliamentary history have not been met. My low expectations for democratic deliberation have been exceeded by the government's autocratic abuse of the sledge hammer of debate known as time allocation and closure.

I turn my comments to the substance of the bill. The part we are dealing with today deals with the establishment of the Canada millennium scholarship foundation. It is a quaint convention in democratic countries such as Canada that governments seek consent from the voters in an election before they embark on major new program initiatives. That is what the concept of a democratic mandate is all about.

When I review the election literature distributed by candidates of the Liberal Party in the federal election conducted a year ago I fail to find any mention of the Canada millennium scholarship foundation. There are all the usual bromides in that election literature about how the government is committed the future of young people, to education and so forth, but nowhere did I find this commitment to spend billions of tax dollars which would otherwise be used for tax relief and debt reduction on what amounts to a huge political advertisement project for this outgoing Prime Minister.

By invoking closure with this bill not only has the government run roughshod over democratic conventions of parliament by failing to seek a mandate from voters, not only has it disrespected a longstanding convention in our system that one needs a democratic mandate to proceed with major spending programs, it has also run roughshod over the principles of sound, transparent public accounting as articulated by the auditor general.

Let us be clear. Bill C-36, by establishing the Canada millennium scholarship fund in this year for a public expenditure which will not be made for at least two fiscal years into the future, breaks every single rule and convention of clear, transparent and principled public accounting. That is not my view as a member of the opposition. It is not the view of partisans. It is the view of the non-partisan authority appointed by this place to review and comment on the accuracy of the public accounts.

The auditor general in talking about the change in reporting the millennium fund in the current fiscal year as opposed to the year in which it will actually be expended said: “I believe the change will open the door for governments to influence reported results by simply announcing intentions in their budgets and then deciding what to include in the deficit or surplus after the end of the year once preliminary numbers are known”.

He went on to say in a letter: “Indeed it is not possible to use the contingency reserve for new policy initiatives unless parliament has approved them and the amount is included in the main or supplementary estimates. In effect, unless parliament has voiced its approval neither a program nor an expenditure can exist”.

It is absolutely clear what the auditor general told parliament and told this government. It does not have the legislative authority to expend the money in two years but to book it on this year's budget. As somebody who has watched public finances very closely for a very long time, this is probably the most notorious instance of a government's cooking the books and misleading the public about how public money is actually being spent that I have ever witnessed.

Provincial governments over the past several years have made great strides in improving the transparency of their public accounts. I refer to the Government of Alberta which conducted an exhaustive review of what had become very problematic public accounts in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1993 Premier Ralph Klein commissioned an independent review of the entire public accounts and budgetary practices by a panel of experts. That government adopted almost every single recommendation of the independent panel, almost every recommendation of its auditor general, and every recommendation of the chartered accountants of Alberta to reform the way the public accounts are presented and to bring them into compliance with generally accepted public sector accounting practices.

Even the Government of B.C., famous for its shell games with public finances, had an independent commission on public accounts. But the federal government really seems to believe that it can just design the books any way it wants and essentially mislead the Canadian public about how its money is being spent. That is shameful.

What are the Liberals doing with this $2.5 billion? They are creating the Prime Minister's millennium memorial fund. They have decided, in a country with 17% youth unemployment, to say we will help as a federal government to further subsidize your higher education but we are not going to give you an environment where you can work.

For instance, my brother went to a Canadian law school with a subsidized post-secondary program. It would be further subsidized by the Canadian millennium scholarship fund. Because of the taxes imposed by this and previous governments, he and tens of thousands of other talented Canadian trained young people have gone abroad where they can find better economic opportunities afforded by lower tax regimes.

We will vote against this bill to stand up for democracy. We will vote against time allocation, as we did this morning, and we will vote for tax relief to give younger Canadians the real economic opportunities they need and deserve.

[Ireland, May 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, on Friday the people of Ireland took a brave step toward a future of peace and away from their violent past. By voting to endorse the Good Friday agreement in overwhelming numbers, both Unionists and Nationalists of the north together with the citizens of the Irish Republic have said no more to the men of violence. They have chosen instead to develop democratic institutions where people from both sides of the sectarian divide can work together in civility and where their still profound differences can be resolved by ballots and not bombs.

Let us not be misled that this is the beginning and not the end of the peace process. Millions of Canadians like me are either descendants or immigrants from Ireland. On behalf of all Canadians we join them in praying that last Friday's agreement may be the beginning of a lasting peace in Ireland.