John Cannis

[Girl Guides Of Canada, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, last Friday evening the Girl Guides of Canada in the city of Scarborough awarded the Canada Cord to five young women from Scarborough Centre.

The Girl Guides' Canada Cord recognizes an individual's dedication and contribution to the Guiding movement, their community and our country.

The five young women are Jennifer Barnes, Analese Campbell, Jandy Morrow, Kristi Tumbling and Jennifer Wright. They have committed their time and efforts over the past three years to earning this award. As valued members of our community, they can be regarded as fine examples of what every young Canadian can aspire to be and I congratulate them.

[Academy Awards, February 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, I would like to bring to the attention of the House that last week the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for this year's Academy Awards ceremony to be held in Los Angeles on March 21.

Once again the excellence of Canadian film making was recognized with the nomination of two highly regarded projects. The first, "The Mighty River", directed by Frédéric Back and produced by Hubert Tison at the Société Radio-Canada, was nominated as Best Animated Short Film.

The second, "The Broadcast Tapes of Doctor Peter", produced by David Papernay and Arthur Ginsberg at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Vancouver, was nominated as Best Feature-Length Documentary Film.

I would like to congratulate our nominees and recognize the quality and dedication of our public broadcasters. They deserve our continued support.

[Auditor General's Report, January 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resource Development.

In the Auditor General's report released last week it was revealed that there were many problems with respect to the telephone service in the income security programs branch. The report criticized the service saying that more calls were abandoned than answered.

People are having difficulty getting through on the telephone lines and are consistently getting a busy signal. This creates a real problem for seniors who are often in urgent need of information regarding their old age and Canada pension benefits.

I would like to ask the minister how he plans to solve this problem in order that Canadians can receive the service they deserve.

[Foreign Affairs, January 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a comment more than a question to make to the hon. member.

She indicated we cannot stay there and that we must make peace and get out. In order for us to accomplish peace we have to invest more time in understanding the region and its peoples.

I attended the briefing yesterday and heard from our military people that they too are sometimes very confused as to who is doing what. There are conflicting stories continuously coming from the media. I am not sure what station it was but I followed a program on TV last night emphasizing how these people are being persecuted and that cleansing is taking place. I am very confused about who to believe, what to believe, what paper to read and so on.

There is no question that we all want peace, however, the member for Kamloops made a statement earlier that it is country against country and nation against nation and region against region and the Greeks against the Macedonians. I would like to make the point that when we get information it is a matter of presenting the facts as they are.

What if we keep on referring to certain resolutions the United Nations has made in the past? It recognizes FYROM or the former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia. We should keep on referring to it as such as the name was approved by the United Nations and agreed upon by both parties. All we are doing here is adding fuel to the fire.

I read a sports column the other day about breaking down the groups in the various European soccer competitions that are to take place next year. The newspaper stated that Greece will be in this section and Macedonia will be in another section. I think we have to help ourselves by presenting the facts as they are unless they are consistently presented as FYROM or the former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia.

[Speech From The Throne, January 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, while listening to the hon. member's support for small business I could not help feeling that he must have taken extractions from our red book. I think it is clearly emphasized how job creation and small business is an integral part of our program.

I was more concerned when he turned around and said that deficit reduction is the main and most important issue. If I am not mistaken I think in the greater metro caucus we have twice had people before us from the business community. There were two major banks as a matter of fact. We have pushed them to extremes to start co-operating with small businesses.

The member indicated that we must reduce the deficit and that it is the main priority. If people are not working then we cannot reduce the deficit. If they are not working then we are supporting them. We are draining our already depleted revenue. The emphasis is on getting the people working. Let us bring some dignity to the House as the Prime Minister has often said and let us reduce the deficit accordingly.