Ken Dryden

[The Budget, March 21st, 2007]

Spin, skate, spin, skate.

[Justice, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, what we saw yesterday was a Prime Minister behaving as if there are no checks and balances. If the politics is right, do it. It does not matter what or who gets run over along the way. No internal compass, nothing, no one to tell him otherwise. The purpose of politics is politics.

We have to be able to trust the person who has the power. The Prime Minister divides, one is a friend or is not, one is in or is out, and is governing to the 37% of the people who elected him.

We have to trust the person who has the power. I do not. Tell me, tell Canadians why we should?

[Justice, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, what was yesterday really about? It was about a Prime Minister whose only compass is a political compass, who has no other reference points to tell him: no, too far, too much and not right. It was about a Prime Minister who does not want anyone around him to be that check, that balance, not in his caucus or cabinet, not in the media, not in ordinary citizens, not anybody, and not in the judiciary.

Yesterday was really about power, who can be trusted with it and who cannot. The International Institute of Management Development's World Competitiveness Yearbook ranks our justice system as the fairest in the world. Why is the Prime Minister putting that at risk?

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, most of the hon. member's examples are ones that would not apply under this motion. Most of them are under provincial jurisdiction. One example was in terms of small businesses and farmers and those would apply under provincial jurisdiction as opposed to federal.

As I said earlier, this is a motion where the specific example of the minimum wage is only a small piece in that total approach that is required if we are going to make a real difference in terms of poverty.

We can nibble away at the edges with lots of different programs but nibbling away is not what Canadians expect of us or expect of each other. We need a real strategy, a real approach and that requires real targets and, again, seeing what we are not doing and not just focusing on what it is we are.

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talks about a common cause. The problem with a common cause is that it needs to be common. The actions of the present government over the last 13 months are not of common cause to this. They are quite contrary to the kind of fight that is required to significantly reduce poverty.

The hon. member heard the expressions from the government this morning. There was no suggestion of common cause whatsoever. It needs to be stated that all kinds of descriptions of what we have done in the last while do not add up to anything that will make any kind of significant difference in terms of poverty. That needs to be heard and it needs to be understood.

We need to set targets because when we do we are not only focused on what it is we are doing, we also focus on what we have not yet achieved. We need to see what we have not yet achieved in order to know what more we need to do.

All of the discussion over there has to do with what has already been done, almost all of which was done during the time of the last government, and nothing approaches anything in this regard.

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Brampton—Springdale.

As Canadians, we expect certain things of and for ourselves. We expect certain things of and for others. We know that historically, living in a climate that was harsh and unpredictable in a land that could be inhospitable and demanding, we could not make it on our own. We needed our neighbours and our neighbours needed us. We still do.

We also know that economic policy and social policy are really part of the same thing. A strong economy is our best instrument of social policy. It not only generates more money that can go into social programs, it means more people are able to support themselves without the assistance of social programs, leaving more for people who cannot. Economic policy and social policy need each other.

We usually think of social programs as safety nets, as something passive, but in a trapeze act in a circus, a safety net encourages people to try what they cannot be certain of doing, to fall into the net when they fail, then to get back up and try again, to learn, to improve, to become good at something. A safety net is not passive. It is an improver, an enabler, an instrument that encourages bigger and bigger ambitions. It allows us to take risks. It makes us better.

As Canadians, we think of ourselves as a country of inclusion, where differences are both celebrated and considered not to be significant and where the less fortunate are given a chance. We have done well, but we must do better.

When kids see something that is unjust, not having lived long lives of explanation and excuse, they say that it is not fair. No amount of explanation or excuse will diminish their sense of outrage. It is in this spirit that we look to implement a national anti-poverty strategy.

To do so, we need to set targets and the target is not eradication. Eradication means zero. We will not get to zero. Nobody has ever got to zero, no country has ever got to zero. When we set a target that we cannot achieve, we set ourselves up for a feeling of failure, for the criticism of failure, to an absence of energy that comes with failure, and we need all the energy we can get.

To set targets, we need to agree on a common definition, one that the public accepts and believes is a fair representation of poverty. Currently we have three or four definitions, ones that all of us use selectively to benefit ourselves and to disadvantage others when the time seems right to us, and they are definitions that the public does not necessarily accept or believe as true representation of poverty.

I think we are at a point now where we are ready to find that common definition and with that common definition, a target. Then we need to go after hitting this target in a whole lot of different ways, supporting, giving a boost to those in greatest need, single mothers, people with disabilities, new immigrants, seniors, children and aboriginals.

In terms of studying that kind of specific target, in our last leadership campaign I proposed, as a target to reduce child poverty, 25% over the next five years, 50% over the next ten years. They are difficult targets, but they are achievable by supporting and giving a boost to those in greatest need, by enhancing the Canada child tax benefit, recreating a real system of early learning and child care across the country, re-implementing the Kelowna accord and making life for Canadians with disabilities truly accessible and inclusive.

Increasing the minimum wage, as the motion proposes, can only help but it is a very limited instrument. The motion applies only to workers in federally regulated sectors, such as banking, telecommunications and railways, which make up only about 5% of Canada's workforce and, of this 5%, only 2% make less than $10 an hour. The motion would affect only one-tenth of 1% of Canada's workforce.

Indeed, something is disingenuous about this motion brought forward by the NDP. In the time of the last government we were absolutely on our way to a national system of early learning and child care. The stakeholders knew it, the public knew it and the parents knew it. We were on our way with the Kelowna accord. The public knew it and the aboriginal peoples knew it. Then the NDP helped to bring the government down and with it child care and Kelowna, critical elements in the fight against poverty gone, gone until the government is gone. The NDP can bring forward 100 or 1,000 motions like this and none can hide this fact and none will get the NDP off the hook.

We, the Canadian people, have a problem. To have a real national anti-poverty strategy, we need to believe in it. It is the same with climate change, with aboriginal issues and with child care. It is hard. It will take a long time. It requires the deep in the bones belief that politics is about people. It is for people. When things go wrong in a person's life, as anyone else would do, governments need to pitch in and do what it takes, not look for any and every way to get out, not play the jurisdictional blame game and not play the ideological card. This is hard. There will be moments of disappointment and frustration.

Real results on poverty will only happen if the government of the day truly believes in the fight of it, if the Prime Minister believes that the real purpose of politics is not politics, if the Prime Minister is a real believer and if the prime minister is a real leader.

How do we get it done? The problem is there is no “it” in it, just stuff. No pretending, no wishful thinking and no desperate hope that decisiveness is real leadership and not just style because it is not.

I support the motion but, make no mistake, nothing will happen in the fight against poverty until the current government is gone.

[Judicial Appointments, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, why is the government doing this? The public wants independent voices, voices beyond politics. The Prime Minister clearly does not trust independent voices and does not have the confidence that he can win the day if there are voices beyond his influence.

The justice system deserves more. The Canadian people deserve more.

[Judicial Appointments, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it has cut off funding to advocacy groups for women, child care and aboriginals so important public voices do not get heard the way other voices do, the shutdown of debate within the Conservative caucus, closing down access to the media and the absence of debate on Afghanistan. With the government there is one way, no discussion, no debate, it is right, everyone else is wrong and no one else can be trusted.

Now we have the judicial appointment process and committees hand-picked; its way or no way.

Will the Prime Minister ever understand that not everything is politics? When will he start acting like a Prime Minister, like a real leader to all Canadians, not just the 37% who voted for him?

[Child Care, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, code blue for child care has spoken. The Conservatives' child care allowance does not work because it could never work. The average cost of child care in this country is $8,000, even at the Billy Bee Daycare down the street.

Does $1,200 before taxes allow one to put a child into child care? No. Into better child care? No. Does it allow mothers earning an average woman's salary of $25,000 to stay at home? No.

What about new spaces? With the subsidies, the middle class and poor cannot afford these spaces anyway so they do not get built. This is child care for people who do not believe in child care. They cannot do what they do not believe in.

It is the same for climate change and for aboriginal people. In the Prime Minister's own clear, decisive words, he does not believe. His approach is to take on the smaller stuff instead, set the bar low, really, really low, then by George hit it, get the job done. But get what job done? That is the question.

Real leadership is not decisiveness, it is direction. Canadians want and need as a Prime Minister, a real believer, a real leader.

[Government Policies, January 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this government has offered no choice whatsoever.

Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister three times if he believed in climate change and three times the Prime Minister did not say, would not say. If we are going to meet the challenges of the environment, we have to really believe. It is too big, too hard and too long for simply political believers.

It is the same for child care, literacy, first nations, women and persons with disabilities: we have to believe hard to really get the job done. Does this government--