Joe Volpe

[Agriculture And Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, October 31st, 1995]

I will vote with the government side with no equivocation.

[Agriculture And Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, October 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I was not here for the first part of the vote but obviously I will vote with the government on this. Please add my name to the list.

(The House divided on Motion No. 3, which was negatived on the following division:)

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

We are making this one.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I realize we are all here to debate the truth so the public will be informed on everything. But I think it is important that when a member stands up he knows that of which he proposes to speak.

There is no way an opposition party under the old system could possibly have intervened in the system; it is an arm's length system-

[Canadian Wheat Board, May 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. As he knows, last April 27 the Canadian Wheat Board issued an embargo on pasta from the European Union.

This action has spawned an artificial distribution system, weakened the financial stability of hundreds of family retail enterprises dependent on the sales of pasta for survival and put thousands of Canadian jobs at risk. Moreover, for consumers it has caused a price increase for a reduced variety of product. Will the minister either rescind the order or modify it so these effects can be corrected?

[Supply, May 2nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Despite my Herculean effort I was unable to be here on time. Had I been here I would have added my voice to the government side.

[Committees Of The House, February 9th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I compliment my colleague from Scarborough-Rouge River who gave us an opportunity to witness a very complex and complicated issue in three very simple and very easy to understand formulae.

First he addressed the process that involves the House of Commons and something to which every member of the Chamber ought to adhere and applaud. The committee has given Parliament, the House, an opportunity to appreciate what members can do and ought to do.

On the basis of process, not only the way the committee works but the way it arrived at a decision, I compliment him and the other committee members who put the proposal forward. I urge all members to support it. I also compliment him on the way he outlined the basics of the content.

The content addresses a very important principle in the House, that is how we work for our constituents and how Canada will be reflected in the Chamber. We cannot do that simply by cutting the number of seats or by increasing the number of seats willy-nilly, in a very whimsical fashion.

By pointing out the process for establishing the kinds of representations we would like to see evolve for the House he has done us a great credit. Most important, the member has done something that all other speakers and interveners have unfortunately neglected, that is he gave an indication of the reasons or the philosophy behind this proposal.

That basic philosophy recognizes that the House always has a very difficult time getting a singular view. There is a very important reason for this, that the country as diverse and as large as it is cannot possibly have a single homogeneous view on the basis of a partisan perspective.

I compliment the committee for recognizing that very integral difficulty in governing a country like ours and in making provision in the rationale and the motivations for redistribution so that members can bring forth many important views that differ not only in content but in motivation.

I compliment the member for Scarborough-Rouge River. He has given members of the House an opportunity to take a look at the issue in a very dispassionate, non-partisan and yet forward looking fashion.

I encourage all members on both sides of the House not only to agree with his position but to applaud the efforts of the committee and vote in unison on the issue.

[Crtc, December 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry. He will no doubt recall that a recent decision by the CRTC to allow for a rate increase in local telephone rates by provincial companies may result in a $72 a year increase for local subscribers.

That decision is being appealed by marketplace competitors. But it is important to understand that such a decision by a non-elected body constitutes a de facto tax imposition, especially on those who are little able to meet such costs and who

rely on these telephones for safety, for social security and social contact.

Is the minister going to do something about this, and how soon?

[Department Of Industry Act, October 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to enter into this debate. This is an important bill even though it appears, as my colleague opposite indicated, to be a purely regulatory type of bill that tends to condense a lot of the difficulties, bureaucracies and regulations that are appended to the Department of Industry.

This is an important function nonetheless. It is important because the country desperately needs a Department of Industry that is fine tuned, well honed and whose processes for decision making are adapted to the conditions of the day, conditions that require immediate action that addresses the problems as they have emerged over the course of the last 10 years.

I say the last 10 years because some of my colleagues here are more familiar with the tradition of the last administration that stretched from 1984 to only 1993. However, in the latter part of that administration we saw the devastation of the economic dynamics of this country. It is the economic dynamics of this country that a bill such as C-46 addresses today.

It addresses these because the directions of the previous administration allowed forces of an economic nature to pull this country apart and to weaken the dynamics that allowed even on a regional basis for some growth, for some wealth and, I dare say for my colleagues on the Reform side of the House, for some fiscal generation so that we could either maintain programs on a national basis or at least support and continue programs that we felt were of a need from a regional point of view.

Let me give some examples. I come from that part of Canada which people love to hate but which is also very important to the economic vibrancy of the entire country and whose citizens have very dedicatedly and very willingly contributed to the consolidated general revenues of this country and have also done their utmost to engender that spirit of thrift, sacrifice and risk that comes with the responsibilities of those who would live in a country dominated by an entrepreneurial spirit.

The greater metropolitan area of Toronto, an area which I know, Mr. Speaker, you are quite familiar with, used to provide close to 40 per cent of all the revenues gathered from the consolidated general revenue fund. Some of my colleagues from the Reform side, not having had the glasses to adapt them to a larger vision of the country, might not appreciate that, but it is true.

Even in such a place the devastation and inadequacies of a government imposed on the economy saw, for example, the labour force go from 2,022,000 in 1989 at the end of the boom to 1,984,000 last year. In the process we saw employment drop from 1,934,000 to a mere 1,755,000. These are statistics dated at the end of December 1993.

What is interesting about that is not only the drop in the labour force but the increase in the unemployment. Unemployment went from 81,000 in Canada's richest city in 1989 to 222,000 this last December-222,000 unemployed.

For some of my colleagues who have a rose coloured glass view of the world, that is a population that exceeds almost all cities except the top six in population in this country. It exceeds the number of unemployed in most of the regions in this country. To make matters worse, the kind of dynamics that were unleashed by the last administration, the welfare cases rose to 672,000 in that same area and welfare payments ballooned, as one can imagine.

What we need-the Canadian public told us this in 1993-is a government that is structured such as to be able to address the needs of Canadians wherever they might choose to live in this country, and make that an absolute certainty, that it is where they choose to live.

If we are Canadians one of the hallmarks of our identity is that we have mobility and our country must be governed by a government that is willing to address not only our aspirations and our objectives and our needs, but also the development as we move along. We are not a country that pits one region against another. We need government instruments that allow us to address the needs as expressed on an ongoing basis, capable of meeting the changes that we see the world economy and our domestic economy impose on families, groupings, communities, cities, provinces and regions.

As my colleague from Bruce-Grey said a moment ago in a most eloquent fashion and a most precise fashion when he gave some specific examples of the potential that has yet to be exploited, one of the objectives of new Department of Industry, after it is structured, will be to highlight tourism.

Our Department of Industry has recognized that the current account deficit that we hold with the world cannot continue at the rate that we currently see. It is especially onerous on the tourism side because this country has enormous potential for tourism development, and yet we have very few programs that target the tourists emerging in various places around the world. For example, we do not have adequate programs to address the emerging tourism potential of western Europe or even the vastly and quickly growing tourism potential of Asia.

We see that if we are going to allow Canadians to look for a more aggressive future, one that promises fiscal security, monetary security and aspirations for our young people and for families, what we would have to do is take a look at where the jobs are being created. In some of the statistics I gave we could see that while there has been a decline in manufacturing not only in my own region of Ontario and the city of Toronto but virtually everywhere in this country unfortunately, what we have experienced at the same time is a growth in the service sector. There is no better sector than the tourism sector.

In the area of tourism we find that about 50 per cent more jobs are created in non-tourism related industries and businesses. These are not Canadian statistics, these are studies that come out of the OECD. This is an area where other countries have found similar experiences.

If we are going to build on something that is tangible, something that is there, we ought to take advantage of the natural beauty of this country, the natural resources that it offers from a tourism point of view and we ought to be able to marshall an industry that allows us to provide jobs today and tomorrow for a country that yearns for those days when it was realizing its potential. Those days can come again. We must take the appropriate measures to put the right structures and procedures into place, and this bill is one. I urge all members to support it.

[Canadian Foreign Policy, March 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I do not see why you have a problem recognizing me; after all, we have known each other for five years now.

In response to my hon. colleague opposite when constituents vested their confidence in me and other members on this side of the House and I dare say even on that side of the House, they thought: "I look at the candidate and the party. I want that individual to stay abreast of all the issues on which he or she will have an impact. I expect that individual to stay informed. I expect that member of Parliament will exercise decisions in the best interests of the country first and foremost, and second in the best interests of all citizens". Sometimes they are exactly the same thing.

The question of whether Canada at this moment in its history has the resources to engage in foreign aid ought to be addressed in the specifics of the analysis. To suggest that is the foremost question today is to negate that we are talking about a comprehensive review of foreign affairs and international trade. Foreign aid is but a portion. Whether it is large or small is immaterial; it is but a portion of that review. It is but an aspect of the obligation we impose upon ourselves under the two headings of international trade and foreign affairs.

It also negates the importance of the commercial aspect when we consider that international trade. Foreign relations and foreign affairs are part and parcel of an economic strategy that will also bring wealth to the individual Canadian citizen, to the individual Canadian entrepreneur, or to groups thereof.

To say that perhaps we should not be focusing on this at this time or to suggest or even to allow others to infer it from what we say damages the comprehensive economic policy that could emerge from a proper analysis and review of international trade and foreign affairs.

I know my colleague opposite would not want us to do any of that. In fact, I am sure he would encourage us to promote any kind of activity that would encourage the development of economic benefits for Canadians.