House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 28% of the vote.
Questions On The Order Paper November 24th, 1998
Could the government indicate, for each of the fiscal years 1993-94 to 1997-98, in relation to the Pacific Rim National Park: ( a ) the cost, on an annual basis, of operating and maintaining the said park: ( b ) the moneys allocated to the park for regional and national costs: and ( c ) the revenues generated from parking fees?
Forestry November 17th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals place no priority on this issue which affects our largest export. This is because the Liberals do not care about problems west of the Rocky Mountains.
The other question from those devastated families is: Why does the minister treat foreign lobbyists better than Canada's own forestry representatives?
Forestry November 17th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, Greenpeace is killing forestry in British Columbia and the government is helping.
The leaders of the local forestry union asked the Prime Minister to meet with them to discuss this crisis. He told them to go and see the labour minister who told them to go and see the human resources minister who yesterday said no.
Why does the minister not save everyone's time and just admit that he does not give a damn?
First Nations Land Management Act November 6th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague on such an excellent speech. I know it is a bit of an oxymoron but I hope there was a thoughtful Liberal listening to what my colleague had to say.
The member for Wentworth—Burlington posed some questions with regard to lack of transparency being a concern. That certainly is a concern with this legislation and it is a concern in terms of all kinds of current Indian Act legislation and policy from the department.
Essentially many of the things that are done now are tantamount to giving a blank cheque not only in terms of money but in terms of issues. Bill C-49 gives essentially a blank cheque to these 14 band councils in terms of marital assets and marital splits.
This agreement creates no protocol. It leaves an absolute void in terms of how these local governments are to deal with municipal governments on servicing agreements and all those things. There needs to be protocol. That has been pointed out for the last two years. There is no change to the legislation.
There is thought about rushing this legislation to committee because somehow at committee it can be fixed. There has been about $10 million invested in this piece of legislation through government initiatives since the Tory years and it is still not right because of a philosophical problem. It has nothing to do with what should be here. It is philosophical. Committees will not fix it as long as they are Liberal dominated.
There is also no protocol for what happens when third party interests are affected as a consequence of this legislation, and there needs to be. Those are three obvious ones. The sixth month hoist is appropriate.
First Nations Land Management Act November 6th, 1998
Economy of words is something that is in my repetoire.
Lumber Industry November 6th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, 45% of the forest workers on the B.C. coast are now out of work. Forest companies are caught between high costs and a softwood lumber agreement that creates an inability to ship lumber to the United States. While industry is on the canvas it is getting kicked in the slats by Greenpeace and other organizations that raise money in other countries in order to arrange boycotts of Canadian forest products.
The Department of Natural Resources has $10 million designated for—
First Nations Land Management Act November 5th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I understand what you just said. However, if it is the same individual, does it still apply in that case?
First Nations Land Management Act November 5th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
Just so I understand the protocol here, I understood the first question in question and comments was from the member who is now asking the second question. There were others who stood.
First Nations Land Management Act November 5th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I am aware of how the government pays lip service to consultation. I am also aware of correspondence from a member of the treaty negotiation advisory committee and from the union of B.C. municipalities about the real level of consultation that actually occurred, and the absence of what they termed consultation.
We have discovered over the past five years that the Liberal definition of consultation and the stakeholder definition of consultation are often diametrically opposed.
The proof is in the pudding because there has now been an additional year to carry on lots of further consultation, because of the great unhappiness and because it was admitted that there was a problem, and not one thing has changed in the legislation to address any of that.
First Nations Land Management Act November 5th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, every system needs checks and balances in order to operate in the long term in an enlightened fashion. We have seen the pendulum swing a long way toward there really being no effective checks and balances under the Indian Act.
The department of Indian affairs became compromised by the fact that it was sitting on many things that were wrong. It really did not want anyone to discover what all of those things were.
The department started a cover-up operation a long time ago. It is a bureaucratic response to a problem. It would happen in every organization where there are no checks and balances.
There is no other department with a mandate for activities on the reserve. This has become a very large problem.
We are now developing some ad hoc mechanisms. The First Nations Coalition for Accountability, for example, has now developed enough of a membership and enough credibility as a grassroots organization, through its networking and contacts with provincial government cabinets, the media and so on, that there are now times when they can identify a problem on a reserve. They can then phone and tell them to fix the problem or heat will be brought to bear, and the problem gets fixed.
This is all brand new and it took five years of tough fighting. An awful lot of people put themselves in a very susceptible position.