John Duncan

[Gasoline Prices, September 26th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the two ministers speak and I was also a part of the committee that went all day last Thursday on fuel prices. The Liberal line that we are getting today is so very different from the Liberal line we got on Thursday.

For example, the Minister of Industry spent considerable time defending the refineries and the refinery margin in a way that makes some common sense. We do need more refinery capacity. Billion dollar investments take a long time to build and we need investor confidence to achieve that, but what we witnessed on Thursday was Liberals attacking the refining sector, accusing it of gouging, and doing everything it could to remove any onus or responsibility from the government to address the issue of fuel pricing through the one thing it can control, which is the taxation regime.

The Liberals were taking every opportunity to slag the industry, particularly the refining sector, to accuse the industry of price gouging, and to start panic in the consumers by bringing a high profile to a few stations across the country that had decided to push the envelope on pricing. They brought a magnifying glass to that which helped create a consumer panic which I witnessed when I left committee at 10 p.m. There were lineups in Ottawa of people trying to buy 99¢ or $1.09 a litre gasoline.

What is it that leads the Liberal members to have so many different messages which are actually doing a great disfavour to the Canadian general cause?

[Softwood Lumber, September 26th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is refusing to engage in what has really happened here, which is a promise made and a promise broken. We have an industry completely deflated by the lack of government action after over $300 million in legal costs incurred by the Canadian side.

The Prime Minister is refusing to appoint a new minister of natural resources. By appointing a temporary minister, who is splitting his duties, the Prime Minister is showing his disregard for the critical natural resources sector of the economy.

Why is the Prime Minister putting politics before—

[Softwood Lumber, September 26th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister must be feeling increasingly lonely in Saskatchewan. It is 46 days and counting since the Prime Minister promised the Premier of B.C. that he would call President Bush to discuss the softwood lumber dispute.

The Prime Minister has dithered and delayed, despite the long anticipated win for Canada. The Prime Minister had no problems discussing softwood with the Chinese Premier, but is yet to raise the issue with the U.S. President.

Why did the Prime Minister blow the opportunity to call immediately after the ruling? Why has he wasted the last six weeks?

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I can only say that those days are long gone. What really transpired was that a Liberal government was elected in the previous administration to that administration and over a period of 14 years it increased federal spending by an average, which cumulated of course, of 14% per year each and every year.

That brought about big government and an attitude to Ottawa that we had never had in Canada. The federal government had its responsibilities and jurisdiction and carried out the activities that fell within its jurisdiction very appropriately and very well. Then it became a free-for-all.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I realize that the member who asked the question is a relatively new member. I have been here since 1993. I was elected largely on a fiscal platform, which was to balance the books and start paying back debt. What happened as a consequence of the Reform presence in the 1993 and 1997 Parliaments was that the finance minister of the time, our current Prime Minister, actually had the support to move where he moved. He would not have arrived there if he had cozied up to the NDP, the Bloc, his own backbench or even some of his cabinet members.

The Liberal government of today is very proud of balancing the books. Balancing the books is a responsibility. To not do so is irresponsible. It has only done the responsible thing. That is no excuse for being irresponsible today.

The member also talked about supporting the budget. Yes, the Conservatives supported the original budget. This is budget number two. We are not supporting budget number two because it is irresponsible. We voted on budget number one just the other day and we were consistent. We remain consistent. We are reliably prudent when it comes to fiscal matters.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the comments from the other side have already started but that is okay because I think it is all in good spirit.

This debate reminds me of a statement made by P.J. O'Rourke, the famous civil libertarian from the U.S, who said, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whisky and car keys to teenage boys”. If we ever had a better example of what that means, Bill C-48, the very bill we are discussing right now, exemplifies exactly that.

We have a desperate government prepared to cut any deal with anybody. In this case, the anybody turned out to be a complicit NDP combined with a desperate Prime Minister, combined with a complicit finance minister in a minority Parliament where common sense and financial prudence have been thrown out the window.

One does not have to be a lawyer to read Bill C-48. I know my colleague from Yukon on the government side was complaining about one of the earlier speakers, actually my seatmate from Provencher, saying that he was not speaking to the substance of the bill. There is no substance to the bill but I will speak to what is in the bill just so people will get an appreciation of how their hard earned $4.5 billion have been subject to the whims of the government.

The bill states very simply on two pages how the Liberals will do it. It states:

...the Minister of Finance may, in respect of the fiscal year 2005-2006, make payments out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund up to the amount...be the annual surplus as provided in the Public Accounts for that year....

The payments...shall not exceed in the aggregate $4.5 billion.

The payments...shall be allocated as follows:

(a) for the environment...an amount not exceeding $900 million....

What this has done on that subject is that the NDP, which has had this stated commitment to renewable energy promotion, has bought into the Liberal version of the environment. There is no reference at all to the promotion of renewable energy. It has bought into the Liberal non-plan, the non-plan for Kyoto compliance. It has bought into the buying of foreign carbon credits from Russia, China, India or any other developing country rather than a cap and trade system within Canada that would actually invest in new technology in Canada and create Canadian jobs. Instead, we are talking about sending our money overseas.

The second area in the bill reads:

(b) for supporting training programs...an amount not exceeding $1.5 billion....

Did we not, long ago, have an EI fund that was set up to do training as part of its program? Does that very fund not have a $46 billion surplus? Does that fund, still to this day, not suffer from the fact that it is continuing to accumulate surpluses? It is continuing to take money from employers and employees and it is leading us into a place where those very people are subsidizing general revenues for the government. This does nothing to address that.

We see an amount not exceeding $1.6 billion for affordable housing. We know that when money is thrown at a problem with no plan we get non-delivery. This government is famous for that.

The final item is for foreign aid, an amount not exceeding $500 million. We know that is another area where we can see very clearly that without a plan we have a problem.

The Auditor General has identified two areas of major concern where money goes in and programs are not delivered in the way that was predicted: CIDA and our foreign aid; and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Those are two areas that this $4.5 billion addition to our budget is focusing on.

This is not an answer. That is the essence of the bill and the sum total of the substance of the language.

Why would the government agree to such a document created by the Prime Minister, Buzz Hargrove and the leader of the NDP in a hotel room in a meeting at taxpayer expense? This is unprecedented in Canadian history and probably unprecedented in a western democracy. This is something that is absolutely incredible. Of course, the government can justify anything after the fact. The worst thing about the Liberals is that the easiest way to criticize their actions is to restate their earlier words against them.

However the problem is that most often this is not newsworthy and second, the Liberals have no shame whatsoever. Any finance minister who was the architect, steward and defender of the budget would have resigned when his budget document was shredded by a $4.5 billion addendum or alternative budget that was presented to him as a fait accompli to buy the support of the NDP in order to prop up the government for the next few months.

How did this unprecedented action occur? We know. A meeting was held between the Prime Minister, Buzz Hargrove and the leader of the NDP in a Toronto hotel room and they fashioned a deal. How sweet it is and what an irresponsible act and slap in the face to taxpayers. Can anyone imagine $4.5 billion of taxpayer money to keep a minority Liberal administration in power for the short term?

Does the NDP budget meet the smell test? It contains no money for worker rights, no money for softwood dispute support, no reallocation of firearm registration spending, no money for rural Canada or for the resource sector in any way, shape or form. It contains no money for salmon enhancement funding shortfalls, fisheries enforcement or the Coast Guard.

The government after the fact is defending the $4.5 billion deal on the basis that it will not create a deficit. If there were ever more clear evidence that the federal authority was delivering little and collecting lots, then here it is. This is prima facie evidence of the fiscal imbalance.

What about paying down the debt and reducing taxes? Canada should be the most prosperous country on earth for its citizens. Instead, we have the government frittering it away and measuring its progress by whether or not it is running a deficit.

The reality is that the federal government collects two-thirds of taxation and the provincial and municipal governments supply two-thirds of services. The federal government lacks fiscal discipline and it is costing each and every Canadian taxpayer. Taxpayers are being fleeced to save the government in its pursuit of power. I hope taxpayers see it for what it is. It is naked, self-serving and it is a grab for the continued existence of the government.

[Committees of the House, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is becoming more and more difficult as a British Columbian to stand here and listen to the smokescreen put up by Liberal members of the House.

The member for Charlottetown likes to describe this as a complicated issue. By so doing, he can set up a smokescreen to avoid accountability for what has essentially been a very simple, straightforward failing on the part of his government. That relates to two areas: lack of enforcement of the Fisheries Act and regulations and a lack of funding for the critical and priority areas of management on the west coast, and I am sure it applies to other areas of the country as well. There is nothing complicated about that.

The member likes to talk about a mythical element in terms of British Columbia's attachment to its resource. The mythical element is this. Where the government is when it comes to managing the fishery on the west coast? I have a high appreciation for the fisheries committee in what it is able to obtain and how much it can do it in a non-partisan way. I sat on that committee for a number of years. It is not the committee that is failing, it is the government.

It is one thing to log reports. It is another thing to be concerned about where it is all leading. This is now the fourth incident in 12 years where we have had a major collapse due to lack of enforcement and a lack of dedication of resources to managing the Fraser River fishery. We have other problems in the British Columbia fishery. This happens to be the one everybody is focusing on today.

There were reports written on the previous occasions as well and the recommendations were very similar. The evasions for government were very similar. The most recent one is that this is somehow probably all related to global warming. We know that is not true. We know the Mission counter was improved, despite the fact that the Mission counter was proven to do its job as early as 1992. We have had other investigations and reports look at it. There was major redundancy or duplication built into the way that counter admission worked in 2004. Yet the government is dragging up the same old criticisms of the system because it helps to diffuse and set up a smokescreen for what it did not do. What it did not do was manage the fishery.

This becomes not only difficult for people such as myself who sat on the fisheries committee. It is difficult for anyone involved in the fishery. It becomes extremely difficult for the population at large who are now on to the government. They know the government did not back its enforcement people this year. The entire Fraser Valley knows that because there are other people on the river. People go camping. They are there 24 hours a day. They saw what was happening on the river. They know fisheries officers who live in the community. They know what those officers were told. They know that there was no political will to support them. They know this is a long-standing circumstance. They know that probably 90% of the issue is those fish that were poached.

Instead we get an announcement and rhetoric that is 90% pointing everywhere else. That is not in anyone's interest. The minister made an announcement yesterday. The minister ignored the majority of the key recommendations made by the fisheries and oceans committee in its report, the very report we are talking about.

We know that the minister shut down part 2 of the Williams inquiry once it became clear that the evidence was pointing a finger at DFO mismanagement. We know that the minister's response came 25 days after the deadline he was given by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. We know the minister ignored the committee's recommendations to put an immediate halt to drift net fisheries between Mission and Hope on the Fraser River. We know the minister failed to send a clear signal that fisheries violations on the Fraser River this year would result in swift and severe repercussions.

The minister instead continues to depend on the goodwill of stakeholders. If people who poached salmon in 2004 are being asked to suddenly operate in a sense of cooperation and goodwill, what kind of credibility does that give to the minister?

Finally, on the call for a redeployment of fisheries officers during critical periods, give us a break. Those are also critical periods in other parts of the salmon fishery on the coast.

[Softwood Lumber, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this has nothing to do with the agriculture minister. This has to with the trade minister.

The minister wants to cut a deal prior to the NAFTA extraordinary challenge decision expected in August, but he does not have industry consensus. Is it not true that the minister is trying to starve the industry to accept a deal that is not in Canada's best interests?

It is widely expected by all parties that Canada will win the NAFTA final appeal decision, confirming that our lumber exports do not constitute a threat to U.S. industry. Is it not true that the minister's lack of support for the industry is an attempt to--

[Softwood Lumber, June 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. lumber lobby is continuing to cost the Canadian industry millions in legal fees by filing new legal challenges at every level with the support of their government. The Americans are trying to squeeze out the Canadian industry.

The Canadian industry asked the Canadian government to defray its legal costs. The minister then announced $20 million in April, but has failed to deliver. It is the same old story with these Liberals: promises made, promises broken. When can the Canadian industry expect delivery on this promise?

[Fisheries Act, June 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do agree with that. It goes a little bit further. When we end up with a set of conditions that somehow have to do with a permit, a licence or the granting of permission to do something from the government or from a crown corporation, because I have seen examples of the latter, very often the first recipient is so happy to receive that permission that he or she will actually accept almost any constraint because the first big hurdle is to acquire that piece of paper.

Very often, that first holder does not hold it very long. The holder passes it on and then the person who ends up with it actually has to put it into practice or live with it, but finds out that it is a huge problem and the original holder is long gone. Not only are there no checks and balances from the public at large when we do not have gazetting and scrutiny of regulations, but we very often do not even have scrutiny by the first person receiving it, because his or her objective is to get it and transfer it as quickly as possible to someone else.