Lee Richardson

[Government Appointments, March 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think the only shameful partisanship is on the Prime Minister's behalf. First of all there was the blatant patronage appointment to open a seat in Winnipeg for Mr. Murray. The wise people of Winnipeg rejected that notion.

Now he is trying to bail him out with an appointment to this committee. The Prime Minister is using another blatant patronage appointment to bail out another Liberal loser. When will the Prime Minister stop insulting Canadians and withdraw this appointment?

[The Budget, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Rosemont--La Petite-Patrie for his comments and support of the Conservative motion. I think it is clear from his remarks that the Liberals would rather grow the size of government than the incomes of Canadians. The cost of bureaucracy has grown 77% since 1997, yet the Liberal tax relief amounted to just $16 for low and middle income Canadians.

Would the hon. member reiterate on his point with regard to the big unfocused spending in this Liberal budget with no plans for how they intend to deliver on such things as a national child care system, funding to cities, and as the member mentioned, solutions to climate change? This again opens the way for billions of dollars of mismanagement and wasted money.

The hon. member for Rosemont--La Petite-Patrie mentioned the climate change initiatives, the lack of mention of Kyoto in the budget and another big fund without any detailed explanation. We still are waiting for a plan. It was suggested in committee this morning that the Liberals will enhance the plan that they came out with in 2000. Would the hon. member comment on that? Has he seen a plan for Kyoto, or any mention of it in the budget or any direction as to where all the money will be spent?

[Government Programs, February 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals signed on to Kyoto in 1998. For seven years they have dithered. Today the Kyoto protocol officially came into effect and the Liberals have not produced an implementation plan. The dithering continues. There is no plan for Kyoto.

There is no vision for the country. There is no action from the Liberals, only dithering. There is no plan for the promised new deal for cities. No plan for pharmacare. No plan for tax relief. No plan to help our underfunded military. No plan for a foreign policy review. No plan to end the democratic deficit. The Prime Minister dithers.

Four major crown corporations, VIA Rail, the Business Development Bank, the Export Development Bank and Canada Post, are without chief executive officers and are waiting for the Prime Minister to appoint replacements.

There are 16 Senate vacancies, including three from Alberta.

These are decisions to be made by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will not or cannot make a decision. He dithers. Canadians deserve better.

[Industry, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's answers are just simply not credible. The Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Association has forecast that meeting our Kyoto requirements will cost up to 450,000 permanent jobs. Who is going to pay the cost? Where are the jobs going to be lost?

[Industry, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Industry guaranteed Canadians there will not be jobs lost in the automotive sector due to Kyoto.

Resource workers in Alberta would welcome a similar assurance. Will the minister extend his guarantee to workers in every sector affected by Kyoto?

[Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, December 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his remarks and for his contribution to the committee in the passing of the bill.

I have some sympathy with regard to his comments on what appeared to be the rushing of the bill through committee and the lack of opportunity for some witnesses to appear before it. We had a number of requests from some of the larger shipping companies and organizations to appear as witnesses before the committee. Apparently, the response was that the bill had been around, albeit in a different form, Bill C-34, for the past two years and that they had adequate notice.

The hon. member makes a very good point that we need to discuss these matters. I do not think we would have had the amendments, which have been spoken to so highly of on all sides of the House today, if we had not had this in committee for the length of time we did. This is an example of how well committees can cooperate, particularly in a minority government, to bring forward solid legislation.

I want to ask the hon. member about his comments with regard to Canada Steamship Lines. Was he suggesting that it was one of the major polluters? Is it correct that it had a record fine of up to $30,000? Is it his sense that the money collected should go more toward the cleanup, as the legislation suggests? Earlier we talked about including a provision to have some of the fine proceeds go toward additional surveillance and enforcement of the legislation.

Could the member comment on those issues?

[Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, December 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl has hit the nail on the head. He is a man who understands his constituency and knows the problems that exist off the east coast of Canada. He is bang on. The problems do continue with regard to turf wars between government departments. There does not seem to be any coordination at all.

I would suggest that these fines should be directed into a damage fund to mitigate damages caused by these oil spills. It seems to me, and I think the hon. member would agree, that we could also increase enforcement and surveillance off our coast. There is no point in having this legislation if we are not going to be able to detect these ships that are causing the problem.

It is bad enforcement. It is about turf wars between government departments. This has to stop. I appreciate the member's question because this is exactly where the problem lies now. We have resolved the fines issue; it is now about enforcement. It is about the government getting its act together. We must get these departments working together to enforce and hopefully prosecute these polluters.

[Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, December 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the members opposite and particularly my colleague from Newfoundland who asked the last question. Incidentally, the answer to the member's question is that the fines are around $20,000 to $25,000 now. The new minimum in the bill proposed by the Conservatives would be $500,000. I will get into that, along with some history of the bill and the reason that it is before the House.

This was first brought to the public's attention in a major way by the minister of the environment from the province of Newfoundland and a number of citizens from Newfoundland several years ago.

The Conservative Party first asked questions in the House on the subject in about 1996. It was followed up by a private members' bill that came to be known as the Mills private bill, after the Conservative member for Red Deer. He introduced his bill after he heard the concerns of many Canadians when they saw the plight of up to 300,000 birds a year being lost to oil spills and the desecration of our coastlines.

The member for Red Deer pursued his bill but the government took no action until the day before the last general election was called when it in fact put forward Bill C-34. Bill C-34 received a lot of discussion but there was no chance of enactment of the legislation because an election was called and the bill died.

The bill was raised again as Bill C-15 in this Parliament and actively pursed by the aforementioned member for Red Deer and the environment committee. This is a Conservative motion and a conservative bill that was adopted by the government and we are very pleased.

There are a number of reasons that we need this bill. It is not only about the tourism, the ecotourism, the fishing industry on both our coasts and the residents who live on those coasts. It is about why the oil spills and the dumping of oily bilge water happens in the first place.

Frankly, I think many of the larger shipping companies, some of which were alluded to by my colleague from Newfoundland just a moment ago, would rather dump oily bilge water into Canadian waters so they can sail into U.S. ports clean. Why? It is simply because the United States has much higher fines and the cost of legally removing the bilge water once in port is very expensive. If the fines in Canada were $20,000 to $25,000 they would actually save money by dumping the oily water, that is if they were caught in the first place because the Canadian surveillance and enforcement was so weak.

I appreciate the acknowledgement of the Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Oceans a moment ago that in fact the Canadian surveillance and enforcement has been so weak.

I want us to be clear on the problem. If these ships were to enter into U.S. ports and they were found to be spilling oily bilge water, they would face enormous fines. The likelihood of them being caught is very high because the American surveillance is much higher than the surveillance in Canadian waters.

We had the recent example of the Terra Nova spill off Newfoundland where ships actually sailed into the oil slick and dumped their oily bilge water to be undetected as they sailed through Canadian waters. If they are not going to get caught this practice will continue.

We are very pleased to support the bill and particularly the Conservative amendment that would raise the minimum fines to $500,000 for ships over 5,000 tonnes. This might seem like a lot of money but it has to be a lot of money in order to be a deterrent so these major vessels do not dump in Canadian waters. We have become a dumping ground for oily bilge from vessels that want go into U.S. ports clean.

The Conservative amendment was passed by the committee with a seven to three vote, which emphasizes the commitment of the environmental committee to the cleaning up of our waters and the prevention of these oily bilge dumpings and spills in our waters.

I am pleased that we also received an amendment when the party opposite became involved in this bill and supported it. The fines that will be imposed for dumping in our waters will go directly to cleanup and to a damages fund to mitigate the damages caused by this oily bilge that is spilled into Canadian waters. Hopefully this will prevent the deaths of so many birds.

I wish Canadians could see the magnificent birds that are lost. It is quite tragic. This is another reason that we are so strongly supportive of the bill.

I would suggest that another major factor in the bill is the enforcement and the fact that we need to increase surveillance and enforce the new laws in the legislation. We have the technology. We have RADARSAT that can follow ships. We have the technology to detect from which vessel the oily bilge was dumped, as was the case in the Terra Nova spill when we found there was bilge and oil in that slick in addition to that which came from the initial ship as a result of people dumping their oil in the middle of an already existing oil slick.

I am pleased the bill would increase fines, increase enforcement and increase the surveillance of the ships so we can prevent Canada from becoming, or continuing to be, a dumping ground for bilge oil.

I am pleased that the Conservative Party raised the motion. It is a tribute to the member for Red Deer who persevered in this matter on behalf of our colleagues on the coast, particularly in Newfoundland, and we are pleased to support the bill.

[Main Estimates, 2004-05, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, before we conclude the debate, we have been listening to a lot of this Liberal drivel all night. I want to put the record straight in response.

It is not about the office of the Governor General. No one here is out to attack the office of the Governor General. It is simply about trimming her sails and taking her down a notch or two. Maybe she was living a little high on the hog and the folks just said that it was enough. Before she destroyed the office of the Governor General in the minds of Canadians, because of this profligate waste of spending, we wanted her to just tone it down a bit. It is about that.

It is not about her travelling across Canada. It is about her travelling around the world with an entourage of friends, flaunting our money and wasting it. That has annoyed Canadians. Canadians said that it is enough and that it should be toned down a bit.

It is not about some great dramatic loss of money for the Governor General or people not getting their Order of Canada or their bravery medal because we are cutting her back. We are talking about $400,000 out of an almost $20 million budget.

It is a slap on the wrist to say, “ Enough is enough. Just tone it down a little Your Excellency”.

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, when will it end? The minister has simply politicized the Department of Citizenship of Immigration with partisan favouritism. She has used her position to reward cronies and campaign workers while legitimate Canadians wait in line.

There is a six month backlog for resident cards and a nine month backlog for citizenship cards. Legitimate Canadians who requested citizenship cards nine months ago have not even had their envelopes opened or entered into the system. How long must they wait for integrity and--