House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 67% of the vote.
Airports November 4th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the RCMP has revealed that more than a dozen ground handlers at Pearson airport are in the pay of Colombian drug lords to unload smuggled cocaine.
When we asked the revenue minister last month if drug inspection officers were being pulled away from planes to fast track certain shipments, he did not answer and he did not act.
Can the minister assure us today that not a single plane containing smuggled drugs has gone uninspected at Pearson airport?
Government Spending November 3rd, 1997
Mr. Speaker, in the same poll a whole 7% of Albertans said they want new spending from this government which is planning to spend half of the future surplus on new spending. In fact more than half of those surveyed said they are worried that this government is going to get us back into a deficit situation again through new spending. This government promised in the throne speech 29 new spending programs and not a single tax cut.
Will the Minister of Finance admit that he has misread public opinion? Will he agree to give Canadians the tax relief they are demanding today?
Government Spending November 3rd, 1997
Mr. Speaker, in a poll released this weekend a majority of Canadians said no to new spending after the budget is balanced, but nearly half said their top priority is to pay down the debt, while a third said it was tax relief.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. Does he agree with Canadians that any future surplus should be directed to debt reduction and tax relief and not to new spending?
Environment October 31st, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the last time I checked, the government was supposed to be responsible and we are not getting any answers. The people who watch this are not stupid. They know a partisan evasion like that when they see one.
It was the finance minister who wrote the Liberals' 1993 red book which promised carbon cuts even bigger than those being proposed at Kyoto, but he has not said a word publicly about the Kyoto deal yet.
My question for the government is, what has the finance minister said privately about the Kyoto tax attack? On which side of the cabinet squabble does he stand?
Environment October 31st, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister has been here for a few decades so he should know by now that the opposition asks the questions and the government is supposed to answer them.
When the finance minister was in opposition, he boasted that the Liberals would cut carbon emissions to 1988 levels by the year 2000. But now the man who was then a radical environment critic is silent about the Kyoto deal. So my question for the government is this. With all the talk of taxes in the air, why has the finance minister been silent about the Kyoto tax attack?
The Environment October 24th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the question is why has the government not ruled out a tax grab. That is the question. The average family already pays more in taxes than it does on food, shelter and clothing combined.
This government has taken $8 billion more out of their pockets. Canadian families are working harder but coming home with less because of the tax burden.
Why has the Liberal government committed to support the Kyoto tax attack which could suck thousands of dollars out of the pockets of every Canadian family?
The Environment October 24th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are looking for assurances that they are not going to be stuck with a multi-billion dollar tax grab and all we get are evasions from this government.
The Kyoto deal could double home heating costs and raise gasoline costs to almost a litre. I want the minister to commit right now to no more taxes on energy, not a cent more on gas, not a cent more on the wellhead, not a cent more on heating fuel.
Will he or she give us their word today?
The Environment October 24th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Justice told the House the Liberals would not bring in a carbon tax, but she specifically failed to rule out other taxes on the energy industry, taxes that would devastate Canada's resource industries and the thousands of families that relied on it for their livelihood.
As the minister for Alberta, it is up to her to clear the air, which she can do right now by telling the House the following words: “Never again will the Liberal government cripple our economy with a massive energy tax grab”. Will the Minister of Justice tell us that today?
Division No. 11 October 20th, 1997
It is not democracy.
Division No. 11 October 20th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the third protocol was amended by the House two years ago. The government presented amendments which were supposedly innocuous and benign in their effect. Low income seniors got clobbered and hammered by that bill precisely because the opposition and the government members trusted the advice they received that the bill did not contain any deficiencies.
That is why we need to take these bills seriously. That is why we cannot rubber stamp them. That is why we cannot treat the House, as the hon. member from Winnipeg said, as some kind of a board room. Every piece of legislation that comes before the House is coming before the highest chamber of democratic deliberation in the country. These debates must be taken seriously.
I know it may not matter to the members opposite because they, like I, do not have the time to read 138 pieces of legislation. Most of them, when they do get up to speak, read the speaking notes given to them by their departmental officials. But that does not change the fact that this place has a history hundreds of years old based on parliamentary responsibility. It is ultimately here that the buck stops. We cannot shirk that responsibility.
We are not standing up using these tactics out of some whimsy. I do not particularly want to be here at 8.30 p.m. debating technical bills, but I saw a flaw in this one. As I am the critic responsible for it I advised my colleagues that, because it was a major tax increase for the Canadian recipients of social security benefits, we ought to oppose it. We ought to take it to committee eventually and have witnesses appear. We ought not to rush through committee of the whole without the people affected being able to have a voice in it. That is what taxation with representation is all about. That is what the democratic traditions of the House are all about.
I want to invite my colleagues, as I did earlier today, to look seriously at not just this bill but all similar technical tax amendments to see what they really say. Forget the advice you receive from finance department officials. It is our job as members to dig to the bottom of this, to debate these things and to look at the affect they are going to have on Canadians.
I want to correct one thing the members opposite have been saying. They have been suggesting that somehow the official opposition has been trying to stall the payment of retroactive tax payments to low income seniors who will benefit from the retroactive elimination of the huge mistake the Liberals made under the third tax protocol. That is not at all what we are proposing to do.
We would like to approve those retroactive payments as soon as possible, but within the context of a bill that treats all seniors fairly and does not increase taxes to any of them. That is a simple principle on which I was elected by 60% of the voters of my riding to come here and advocate. My colleagues and I have a prerogative. We have a privilege and indeed an obligation to do that.
On behalf of my constituents I want to put the government on notice. If it tries to pull fast ones like it did today we are going to play these games. Our role as opposition is to defend the privileges of this place, the traditions of democratic deliberation which this House represents. No amount of arrogance or abuse of parliamentary power by the government is going to stop us from taking that responsibility very seriously.