Jean Charest

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it has to be clear that physical threats in this place are not going to silence any of its members and certainly not me.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to try to talk over the members of the Reform Party and listen to the sounds from the other side. I do not know whether they intend to just stand there and heckle.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

This is exactly the position we took.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in the debate on a bill which will have an impact not only in the coming months or years, but for a long time.

First, I want to stress how important it is for each party sitting in the House to propose clear and understandable alternatives to Canadians. This is a good example of an issue concerning which it is not enough to oppose for the sake of opposing, to merely say “I am opposed to this or that provision”. The impact of this legislation on the lives of Canadians is such that we must clearly say where we stand regarding this bill.

NDP members have expressed views which, I think, are rather clear. I do not agree with a number of their ideas, but I give them credit for being clear. The same goes for the Liberal government. Today, I will talk about our own choices and those of all the parties.

First, I want to thank two members of this House for making an exceptional contribution to this debate. They did so with great rigour and honesty. The first one is the hon. member for Markham, our finance and Treasury Board critic, whom I sincerely thank for his contribution. The second one is the hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche, our human resources development critic, who also did an exceptional job regarding this issue.

When this piece of legislation came before the House, we consented in good faith that it go to second reading and to committee so that in committee we could have a real debate about the impact of this legislation. We did it assuming that the government would be listening. Assuming. We were wrong. Very wrong. The government did not listen. It did not listen, it did not pay attention.

It is important to point out to Canadians that this Liberal government is ramming this through Parliament now. It is the steamroller approach. There is a reason for this. It has to do with the fact that it is trying to get this done before Canadians actually find out what hit them and what has happened to them.

I see the parliamentary secretary smiling and smirking on the other side of the House. What the government is going to say is, “We concocted a deal with the provinces. We have to make this happen now”. I can hear it now. That is wrong.

We have talked to provincial governments and provincial governments have told us very clearly that there is a lot of time to get this through and there are a number of disagreements that they have with the federal government on this. But no, this has to be done now.

In this House of Commons, and the election only happened six months ago, this government has imposed closure on this bill twice. So much for democracy. So much for openness. So much for accountability. Let me speak briefly on why that is the case.

For Canadians this is an $11 billion bite out of our economy. In six years this government is literally going to go out and suck $11 billion out of the Canadian economy through nothing less than added payroll taxes by increasing premiums 73%. It is already sucking $12 billion to $13 billion out of our economy through payroll taxes and employment insurance premiums that it need not do for the purpose of bringing down the deficit. Why is the government doing it? It must be because we have 9.1% unemployment and it is not high enough. The government wants it to actually go higher. This is the choice it has made.

This is why the government is trying to ram it through. This is why this debate is happening at this point in time as opposed to having the debate we should have had so that Canadians would be allowed to know what is happening.

I mentioned a little earlier about the importance of every political party putting forward their position. I cannot allow this debate to happen without talking frankly and honestly to Canadians about the failure of the Reform Party to deal with this issue.

We would think that the Reform Party as the official opposition would have the obligation not only to oppose but to present a view. What we have instead is the $600 billion hole. The Reform Party said that it would like to have some sort of recognition bond. However, there are $600 billion worth of liabilities now taken in the CPP. The Reform Party's position is that we should just scrap it, forget it and forget those Canadians who are old and sick and although they gave money into the system let us just cut them off.

That is a pretty good example of ideology gone haywire. It is similar to the position the Reform Party took on Kyoto, the climate change debate, where there is apparently no science. We soon expect the Reform Party to announce to us that cigarette smoke is good for our health.

In that spirit, the Reform's position on the CPP is one that has weakened the debate because we would have expected the official opposition to play its role and offer a position. I think the Liberals would agree with us on that failure. I see them nodding on the other side. I think the NDP and the Bloc would agree as well.

We have a few problems with this legislation. We agree that the CPP should be made sustainable. We need to help Canadians and ensure that this fund is put on a very solid footing. In order to allow this to happen, yes, we agree that regrettably there has to be an increase in premiums.

We then take a very different position from that of the government in that this increase in premiums cannot be allowed to happen without offsetting this increase with tax reductions, in particular with reductions in other payroll taxes such as employment insurance premiums. By the way, so that we are clear on where the government stands on this, this was exactly the position taken by the Government of Ontario in regard to changes to the CPP. This is exactly the position it took.

[Charities, December 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the government of our support for this initiative, and that of all members of this House except the Reform Party, which clearly would not.

While we are on the issue of expenditures, could the government explain to us the logic that allows it to dispute and have some discussion about spending new taxpayer money? If there is new taxpayer money to be spent, why is it not offering Canadians a tax reduction instead?

[Charities, December 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, because of the postal strike, the seasonal fund-raising activities of many Canadian charities have been seriously jeopardized because of this dispute, charities that rely extensively on the year end campaigns to fund everything from meals on wheels to medical research.

I ask the Deputy Prime Minister today whether or not the government would consent to extending the period for credible charitable donations to the end of January—

[Charities, December 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, earlier in the day I gave notice to the prime minister of a question I wanted to raise today in question period.

In the aftermath of this postal strike I know this will not interest the Reform Party but I will ask the question. The seasonal fund-raising—

[The Late Jack Pickersgill, December 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in joining with other parties in the House today, I want to also extend to Mr. Pickersgill's family, his wife, his children, his grandchildren, my personal condolences and the condolences of our party.

Anyone familiar with the history of Canada and the history of the House of Commons knows that Mr. Pickersgill was a giant. He, like all of us in this place, was a partisan and it should be stressed that he enjoyed partisanship and every dimension of it. I say this as a Progressive Conservative who represents a political party that was on the receiving end of that partisanship throughout his career.

Many members in this place know the distinguished writer Doug Fisher. He is a very distinguished member of the press gallery, someone who himself was a member at one point and sat in the House of Commons. Mr. Fisher called him “the liveliest, most cunning and partisan politician I have observed”. What a compliment.

In that light perhaps I might observe the admission that Mr. Pickersgill made in his own autobiography that his middle name was Whitney. His middle name was given to him in commemoration of the Tory premier of Ontario, James Pliny Whitney who swept to power in Ontario in the year of Mr. Pickersgill's birth.

Mr. Pickersgill not only practised politics, he wrote about them. I have particularly noted his account of the revival of the Liberal Party, a book he wrote entitled The Road Back . Apart from the story of the rebuilding and renewal of his party, one is struck by the wonderful material that Mr. Pickersgill and his contemporaries on both sides of the House also provided for many of the great political cartoonists in Canada in that period.

In his last book Seeing Canada Whole , he summed up his public and private life. The title therefore has great meaning, seeing Canada whole. He played an important part in the entry of Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation.

At the end of his life, Mr. Pickersgill was still working passionately to help Canada keep whole with his active support in particular of the Meech Lake accord. In fact he joined with the Hon. Robert Stanfield to urge adoption of this accord in testimony that he offered in front of the Senate of Canada. This testimony will forever remain a very significant part of the public record in this country. His defence of his position in his book is instructive and an inspiration to those who do not know, or easily forget or sweep away what has been the history of this great country.

How did he see his own parliamentary career? His assessment is that he achieved a few things, or at least contributed to a few things that he felt may not have happened otherwise. One was the provision of unemployment insurance for fishermen. The other one was the provision of a place in Canada for 35,000 Hungarian refugees who became exemplary citizens. He also said, “I was never bored by Parliament. I would try again”. If only we could have persuaded him to run again, I am sure he would have been elected.

His assessment though is far too modest. I think we all recognize today that Canada has truly lost a giant.

[The Environment, December 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear from the minister that she is in favour of dialogue because I would like to encourage some dialogue between her and her colleague from natural resources today, and I will ask the Prime Minister to help them dialogue.

She stated in a radio interview this morning that Canada's commitment in Kyoto would be legally binding and in a direct contradiction her colleague from natural resources said “When our Canadian implementation plan is sufficiently mature, we will turn the page to formal ratification in Kyoto”.

Can the Prime Minister tell us which of the ministers actually has the Government of Canada's position?

[The Environment, December 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it has now been 24 hours since the government has announced its position relative to the conference in Kyoto. I want to repeat the question I asked yesterday. Can the government inform the House of Commons today which provincial or territorial governments officially support the position announced 24 hours ago by the Government of Canada?