Mr. Speaker, the minister is working very closely with the Cree to come to an agreement on this claim.
Won his last election, in 2019, with 34% of the vote.
Indian Affairs April 19th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, the minister is working very closely with the Cree to come to an agreement on this claim.
Aboriginal Affairs April 19th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, it is so sad that the NDP thinks it has the answer. When the aboriginal people were celebrating this event today with the Prime Minister, aboriginal leader after aboriginal leader said that it was a great opportunity that Canada was asking them for solutions, not the NDP.
This new partnership, for the first time in history, with 70 aboriginal people, will take steps forward in housing, in education and in health care to remove that tragic gap between aboriginal people and the rest of Canadians.
Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act April 2nd, 2004
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is totally off topic of the bill.
Volunteers March 26th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, the very positive and generous qualities in the budget for charities and the voluntary sector reminded me of some great charities and volunteer organizations in Yukon.
First of all, the Skookum Jim Friendship Centre has been helping aboriginal people in the urban centres of Yukon for generations. The Yukon Volunteer Bureau has provided volunteers for all the organizations in Yukon that are looking for volunteers. The Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition has people who have dedicated many hours of their family and personal time to help those most in need. Finally, the United Way of Yukon has increased its collections in Yukon for many years to help all the organizations in Yukon that applied to it for assistance.
Thanks to Steve Robertson of the Yukon News who pays all their administration costs. Every cent raised goes to these charities. I would like to congratulate them again for their successful AGM which will be held this week.
The Budget March 25th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a quick question about funding for aboriginal people.
A shortage of funding creates all sorts of problems. For example, along the border of Yukon in northern B.C. there are a number of first nations that are trying to settle land claims. However, B.C. is not providing negotiators for those claims and this is causing great difficulty for the people who want to move ahead.
In this budget and in the estimates, over $400 million in increased funding is being provided to aboriginals. Some of that money will go to land claims, some of it will go to programs, some will go to drinking water and some of it will go to aging rust. To help aboriginals get into the workforce, $125 million will be available to them for training.
One of the members of Her Majesty's loyal opposition suggested there should not be any increase in funding for aboriginal people. Does the member agrees with that?
The Budget March 24th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, the history is that the GST rebate for municipalities started on February 1. The government has kept its promise already.
The Budget March 24th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the Prime Minister and the finance minister for the tremendous job they have done for the north in this budget. It puts the north on the map, which is very exciting. My counterparts from the other territories and the people in the north were excited when they talked to me about the budget. It is a landmark budget for the north. I will explain a number of provisions that provide to the north, which have made us so excited about this budget.
First, of course, is the $90 million for northern economic development. My colleagues have talked a lot about regional funding. We know regional development funds were sometimes not available for the north but were available for other parts of the country, but now we have the funds for the north. We are tremendously excited.
We are in the process of transiting the north for ideas on the best federal investments in economic development. I can tell members that the people I talked to across the north so far have been very excited about the potential of this investment.
Furthermore, the northern territories are funded through transfer payments and very complicated formulas. They are in the process of renewing them now. In that process will be a $150 million increase in transfer payments over five years, bringing the projected territorial transfer payments over the next five years to more than $10 billion.
As we know, for a couple of years there was an increase of $20 million in health because of the unique circumstances the north finds itself in health care and its unique needs. Now that has been permanently put into the next five years of this formula financing cycle. We are very excited about this increase in health care money for the north.
I now want to talk about northern gas and oil development. The Mackenzie Valley pipeline is on the verge of occurring. The Alaska Highway pipeline will be the biggest industrial project in history, with wonderful wealth creation, not only for the people in the territories but for all of Canada. This budget puts $75 million in to help the process for the federal government to do its role in making these projects possible. This money is needed for the agencies, the environmental boards and the federal departments.
Last week, the minister and I were in the Mackenzie Valley as they are getting ready for this potentially great economic development project in the north. The environmental boards that have to go through this complex procedure need capacity. The local small communities will be impacted. Their infrastructure, their social programs, their health care system and their employees will all be impacted by such large projects. They need the capacity to deal with this. The federal departments in the region, which do not have the capacity to analyze and be involved in coordinating such large projects, need to be upgraded.
The $75 million is needed so that the federal government will do its part to help industry and to help the local people in the north to take advantage of and develop the capacity to have the jobs in the north that this project, which everyone has been working so hard on, can create.
I was also delighted to see once again for the north the $3.5 billion toward the cleaning up of federal contaminated sites. Sixty per cent of that will go to the north. This is a wonderful initiative by the federal government. This is the largest amount of money that has ever been provided by any government in Canada for an environmental program. The money will not only ameliorate the environment, clean up the environmental problems that have been left over the years in hundreds and hundreds of sites, but it will also be a great economic development generated in itself.
As northerners develop the skills to do this through mediation, to clean up these sites on our own territory, we can then sell those skills around the northern world which will have a lasting effect on economic development, as well as, of course, the usage of the sites that are cleaned up.
Another exciting item for the north is the $51 million investment over 10 years for seabed mapping of the Arctic continental shelf. People have heard me speak a number of times in the House about the importance of northern sovereignty and of ensuring our sovereignty in this developing part of Canada, especially with global warming as the seas are opened up.
The mapping of the continental shelf, which is possible for us after we recently signed a convention on the law of the sea, will allow us to expand our boundaries beyond the normal 200 mile limit. Other Arctic nations have already done this mapping. Everyone can see that it is very expensive. This will allow us to extend our boundaries, our sovereignty and make sure that it is Canadian laws and Canadian environmental control over precious parts of the waterways around our Arctic islands. I think this is very exciting for all Canadians.
Another item that will have a great effect on the north is the rural infrastructure program where municipalities apply for projects. Past versions of this have been a tremendous success in the north. Virtually every municipality in the Yukon has had projects through this. As we know, this was announced before. In our jurisdiction the $15 million will be a great influx into our economy as cabinet and the government took heed of the fact that it is a lot more than we would normally get per capita because of the very difficult conditions in the north. We appreciate the government's understanding of the difficulties of developing infrastructure in the north.
What this budget did was accelerate the distribution of that money from 10 years down to 5 years, which means our municipalities and communities can spend twice as much each year of that money in developing projects. Once again this provides for more economic development and environmental protection as green infrastructure projects are done in communities.
I also wanted to talk about some of the other things that will be helpful for the north, although I will not be able to get through all of them. I guess I will have to do it during the next budget debate.
Northerners are happy with a number of things in the budget which will help them in a lot of ways, but will also help all Canadians. One in particular is the assistance to the voluntary sector and moral support for the voluntary sector. This is a very important part of our society and I think some people underestimate the importance of it to the smooth running operation and cooperation in health and safety that millions of Canadians put in.
We will receive $12 million over the next two years to continue with the government's initiative in that area. There are some very innovative ideas, such as looking at a bank for the voluntary sector, looking at non-profit organization legislation that would remove some of the red tape, and of course the change in the capital percentage so that a trust fund or endowment fund can be built. They will not have to spend as much each year on operations and it will make it easier for voluntary giving.
Also in my portfolio I am delighted about the amounts of money to help the great needs of the aboriginal people. I will not go into all of them as there would not be time. There is $125 million for the aboriginal human resource development and this is just one of a number of things in the throne speech and the budget is reinforcing and providing the funding to do what is in the throne speech.
There is also $495 million, as we saw in the main estimates, to help aboriginal people, which is about a 9% increase, and that will go toward land claims, water, program funding, education and to capital rust and northern air mail food, once again another program for the north where food is mailed to the very remote northern communities at lower cost.
I will finish by saying that the $7 billion for communities and the new deal for municipalities has been very well received. In my riding it is a substantial amount of funds for the municipalities that they can use on environmentally sensitive infrastructure and other things that municipalities need to help their local communities. It is an exciting budget for the north and I thank the Prime Minister and the finance minister for so much commitment to the north.
Supply March 22nd, 2004
Madam Speaker, the member is right. There is a new leader in the House. The new leader is on this side of the House and has a very exciting agenda that we have been able to talk about all day. The motion sort of backfired. On the other side of the House there is the same old leader and the same questions that have been answered long ago.
I would like the member to show us that there is actually something new over there. We have outlined all day what is over here and it is a very exciting agenda with childhood development, health care, first nations government, quality daycare spaces, new deals for municipalities in GST rebates, the Great Lakes sustainability fund and the Windsor border crossing. We have outlined it all day.
My question for the member is, I would like him to name one policy that the new party has adopted that is not an Alliance policy. Everything is identical to what it was before. There is absolutely nothing new. It is the same leader and the same policies. I have a great deal of respect for the member. He is a very thoughtful member. I would like to know one policy that the new party has adopted from the old Conservative Party that would suggest to me that it is not just the same old Alliance party. I would just like one shred of evidence.
Message from the Senate March 11th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the member mentioned the number of areas that government should be, and actually is, concerned about and has mentioned in the Speech from the Throne. It has a great record for Canadians and great proposals, and we will be happy when the opposition starts questioning those in the House of Commons.
The Auditor General tabled her latest report on February 10, 2004 and we accept her recommendations. In response to her report, the government announced a comprehensive set of measures to ensure that we get to the bottom of this matter.
The measures include the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry, the appointment of a special council for financial recovery, the introduction of whistleblower legislation by March 31, measures to strengthen the audit committees for crown corporations, the possible extension of the Access to Information Act to crown corporations, and the initiation of reviews on changes to the governance of crown corporations, on changes to the Financial Administration Act, and on the accountability of ministers and public servants.
I believe the government is acting responsibly.
Message from the Senate March 11th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the member for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke on this important matter.
I would like to reiterate what has been said numerous times in the House over the last few years. The sponsorship program was fraught with deficiencies and fundamentally flawed. The government acknowledged these mistakes and eventually cancelled the program.
However, a number of measures were taken before cancelling the program. After the internal audit of 2000, the following measures were taken. An action plan was developed to deal with the managerial problems. In early 2002 specific measures were put in place to end the problems that existed in the sponsorship program. In March 2002 the Auditor General audited three contracts that were awarded to Groupaction. In May 2002 a moratorium on the sponsorship initiative was imposed. In December 2002 a redesigned sponsorship program was put in place for a trial period of one year. On December 13, 2003 the Government of Canada announced the abolition of the sponsorship program.
Members opposite continue to talk about the sponsorship program only being a Liberal fund, but to the contrary, opposition members were applying to the program at the same time. It was a program that sponsored good events in local communities and that is why all members of Parliament are upset for the very reasons that the member opposite has outlined.
The problem was not money going to festivals or other activities within communities. There was a problem with the management of certain companies that, it appears, were acting inappropriately. That had to be stopped and that is why the charges have been laid and why we have had a public inquiry. That is why we are trying to recover the money.
The opposition speaks about there being no transparency in government and asks why nothing is being done to clean up the program. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have a wide open public inquiry headed by a judge which will go wherever he chooses to get the information required. We have an unprecedented release of confidential cabinet documents, Treasury Board documents and departmental documents. We have separate reviews and we have the public accounts committee, to which we are sending everybody. This is fully transparent and probably unprecedented attention when a problem is determined in government.