John Nater

[Interprovincial Trade, March 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary says that the CFTA has delivered. The fact of the matter is that is simply not true. There are still 146 pages of exceptions out of 353, and it is still illegal in most provinces to transport beer and wine for personal use.

The parliamentary secretary talks about the working groups that have been established, yet when I asked an Order Paper question about how those working groups were progressing, what I got back was zero information. In fact, the government said it could not even provide the list of attendees of the working group meetings, the agenda items, or the decisions and agreements made, because it would be injurious to federal-provincial relations.

How poorly are these working group meetings going that the government cannot even disclose the attendees of the meetings without it being injurious to federal-provincial relations?

Why will the government simply not stand up for the right of individuals to transport beer and wine across provincial boundaries without impediments? It is good for the economy.

[Interprovincial Trade, March 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to rise tonight and participate in this adjournment debate. I want to follow up on a question that I first asked on February 12 in question period. At the time, I asked the question of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, who as members know is also the member for Papineau. Unfortunately, at the time he did not respond. Rather, the response came from the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. The question was on interprovincial trade. Challenges at that time were being experienced between our friends in Alberta and British Columbia. Members will recall that due to the British Columbia government's efforts to block the TMX, the Trans Mountain expansion, Alberta was threatening to ban the import of B.C. wine into Alberta.

As we know, the industry within Canada is greatly affected by trade barriers between our provinces. It falls on the Liberal government to finally take a stand to end trade barriers between our provinces. The challenges that are faced by provinces because of trade barriers account for up to $130 billion in lost economic activity. This all stems from the interpretation of the Constitution, section 121, which states:

All Articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into each of the other Provinces.

Unfortunately, over the years, the interpretation of that section has been deemed to mean only tariffs. However, the reality is that non-tariff barriers between our provinces are having a significant impact on our economy.

In fact, the Liberal government's efforts to sign the Canadian free trade agreement were a failure. If we look at the CFTA, we find that the agreement itself is 353 pages long, yet 146 of those pages are exceptions that permit trade barriers to remain in place. They range on issues from mining to livestock medicine to timber processing to wine and beer. As I travel through my constituency and constituencies across this country, I get the opportunity to meet with small business owners. They may be distilleries or craft breweries, but they are small business owners who are trying their best to develop a product, develop a business, and to market it across the province and the country. In talking to some of these business owners, they tell me it is easier for them to import into the United States than into a neighbouring province. This is wrong.

In fact, Andrew Coyne of the National Post wrote about the failed efforts of the Liberals on interprovincial trade. He stated, “for all the attempts to paint the new Canadian Free Trade Agreement as a heroic achievement there was no disguising the fact that what the ministers were here to announce was a failure.”

Therefore, on February 12, as shadow secretary for interprovincial trade, I asked the government about its failed and poor record on interprovincial trade. In response, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development said, “we strongly advocate and support free trade among the provinces and territories.” Then he pointed to the Canadian free trade agreement as an example of this. However, as I have outlined, most of that was exceptions to the rule, and so poor was the Canadian free trade agreement on many of the issues that only two provinces have introduced legislation to ratify the CFTA.

I want to ask the government and the parliamentary secretary why they will not stand up for small businesses and tear down the trade barriers that are blocking our economic productivity.

[2018 Winter Paralympics, February 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, in 10 short days, Canada's Paralympic athletes will go for gold in Pyeongchang.

Among the 55 Canadian Athletes is Corbyn Smith from the small village of Monkton, Ontario. Monkton may be a small town in terms of population but it is big in community spirit.

That community spirit was on display this past weekend as local residents and service clubs decorated the main street with Canadian flags and maple leaf banners to celebrate their own and to wish him well as he competes in Pyeongchang with his teammates. As a member of Canada's Paralympic hockey team, Corbyn will be fighting to bring home Canada's first sledge hockey gold medal since 2006.

Our athletes have trained for years to become the best in the world. In the weeks to come, they will bring home the medals to prove it.

I wish Corbyn and all our Canadian athletes in Pyeongchang good luck. They make all of us proud to be Canadian.

[Impact Assessment Act, February 27th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I have a simple question for the minister. She mentioned that she is happy to appear before a committee and answer any questions. How many hours is she committed to appearing before a committee?

[Department of Veterans Affairs Act, February 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Village of Arthur in Wellington county is known as Canada's most patriotic village. It has that title because of the actions that its citizens took between 1939 and 1945.

On November 2, 1942, the Toronto Daily Star ran an article, and the headline of that article read, “Arthur Village Gives Sons and Money to Aid the War”. The article talked about how over 100 of the village's barely 800 citizens had enlisted to serve in the Second World War. By the end of the Second Word War, that number had more than doubled. The article talks about families, like the Day family, whose four sons were serving overseas, or the Colwill family, whose six of their 11 children were serving at the time, with the youngest five being too young to serve at the time. The article talks about how the Village of Arthur raised over $250,000 in mere days in the war bond program. At the time, this represented 64% of the tiny village's taxable income base, or taxable property tax value.

I raise this story about the Village of Arthur, because it reminds me of a mural that is proudly displayed in Arthur beside its fieldstone cenotaph. The mural proclaims the simple reminder that freedom is not free. It is not the actions of politicians in this place that make us free. It is not the words that we say in this place that make us free. Our freedoms as Canadians comes from those who have served our country in uniform, from the brave women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces who have served in the past and who continue to serve to this very day. To them we owe a duty of dignity, respect, and fairness. Bill C-378 would do just that.

Bill C-378 would elevate more expectation to that of a legal requirement. We owe our veterans more than we can ever truly repay, but it serves us in our requirement as legislators to ensure our veterans are provided with what they are owed. It is a very important matter that we provide them with dignity, fairness, and respect.

It is appropriate that we are debating the bill in 2018. Indeed, it was 100 years ago this year that the armistice was signed and we saw the end of the First Word War. We saw the end of the Great War. We saw the end of the war that would end all wars. We saw the first of those veterans return home to Canada.

I am reminded of one of Perth County's famous sons, the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, one of the great orators of this place. During the First World War, he had this to say:

No one has seriously argued in this House—and in solemn truth no one seriously believes—that we can dispatch, as we have done, 350,000 men overseas, commissioned by us to stand between our country and destruction, pledge them the undying fidelity of a grateful people, watch them through harrowing years of suffering, bathe ourselves in the reflected glory of their gallantry and devotion, and then leave them to be decimated and destroyed. Surely, surely, an obligation of honour is upon us, and fortifying that obligation of honour is the primal, instinctive, eternal urge of every nation to protect its own security.

These words were uttered during the conscription debate of 1917. However, the duty we owe as legislators today to our veterans and those who have served our country remain just as strong today as the words uttered 101 years ago in this very chamber.

We have often heard phrases “military covenant”, or “social covenant”, or “sacred covenant”, the duty we owe to our veterans.

Those words and that thought came from our wartime Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden. Overseas, he said the following:

The government and the country will consider it their first duty to see that a proper appreciation of your effort and of your courage is brought to the notice of people at home, and it will always be our endeavour to so guide the attitude of public opinion that the country will support the government to prove to the returned man its just and due appreciation of the inestimable value of the services rendered to the country and empire; and that no man, whether he goes back or whether he remains in Flanders, will have just cause to reproach the government for having broken with the men who won and the men who died.

Those words remain true on this date as well. We owe so much to our veterans. My mind is drawn to the more recent veterans, those who have served our country in uniform over the past decades, particularly those who served our country in Afghanistan. There are more than 40,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces who have served in Afghanistan, and 158 who lost their lives serving our country in the pursuit of freedom.

My mind is also drawn to Master Corporal Anthony Klumpenhouwer from Kurtzville, in North Perth, Ontario, who lost his life as a member of JTF2 and was the 54th casualty in 2007 in our battle in Afghanistan. My mind is drawn to those veterans who served us in Afghanistan and who continue to serve us. We owe them our undying gratitude. More tangibly, we owe them a duty of fairness, and that is exactly what this bill would do. It would enshrine in law for all Canadians to see and parliamentarians to respect, the principles of dignity, respect, and fairness.

It is my great honour to support this bill, and I hope all parliamentarians will do the same.

[Business of Supply, February 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent of the House to see the clock at 6:30 p.m.

[Interprovincial Trade, February 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has shown no leadership on interprovincial trade. His government's failure to reach an interprovincial trade deal that actually eliminates trade barriers and its unwillingness to stand up for the constitutional right to free internal trade between provinces puts Canadian businesses are risk. Now provinces have begun blocking the trade of wine, and the problem is escalating.

While the war of the rosés rages on, the Prime Minister and the government does nothing. When will the minister of intergovernmental affairs do his job and end the trade war between the provinces?

[Canada Elections Act, February 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, for his excellent question. Indeed, I have serious concerns regarding the Liberal Party's ideas about marijuana.

I am very concerned about the direction in which the Liberal Party is going with the marijuana proposals. The member for Louis-Saint-Laurent is absolutely right. Is this going to be another proposal, another way in which Liberal Party members and past ministers are getting rich off the legalization of marijuana? It is a worthy question and the Liberals owe Canadians a response to that.

[Canada Elections Act, February 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the member wants to talk about appointments, so I will talk about appointments. I will talk about Madeleine Meilleur.

I had the great pleasure of sitting on the official languages committee when Madeleine Meilleur was appointed as official languages commissioner for Canada. This is a woman who paid $5,000 in donations to the Liberal Party. She directly contributed to the Prime Minister's own leadership campaign. Only weeks before she was officially nominated, she was a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party of Canada. She was told she was being appointed before the official opposition and the third party were even consulted.

This is the nomination process that the current Liberal government undertook for nominating an officer of this place. She was a partisan Liberal donor and an individual who, just a year prior, was a sitting Liberal cabinet minister. This is the type of appointment we are seeing from the Liberal Party, an unfair appointment and reward for being a long-time Liberal donor and a long-time Liberal.

[Canada Elections Act, February 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. What does the average Canadian think about the practices of the current Liberal government?

Most Canadians cannot afford a $1,500 donation to the Liberal Party, let alone a $200 donation. There should not be any preferential access to decision-makers because of how much one donates to the Liberal Party. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the Open and Accountable Government document that the Liberal Party proclaimed with great fanfare clearly prohibits any preferential access, yet the Liberals have ignored it.

The average Canadian wants to see better from their decision-makers. The average Canadian wants to know that their members of Parliament, that their ministers of the crown, are not being unduly influenced by large donations to the Liberal Party of Canada simply for access to their ministers to bend their ears. Most Canadians cannot afford that opportunity, and neither should the wealthy few.