Leon Benoit

[Canada's Commitment in Afghanistan, April 10th, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate having an opportunity to make a comment and ask a question. I listened to the member make his presentation. It seemed to me, and I look for his clarification, that he started out by saying that while the mission in Afghanistan may have some value, Canada should change its focus to Darfur. Maybe that is not what he is saying. If it is not, I would like him to clarify that.

It seems to me that this mission in Afghanistan is important. It has been made clear tonight by members from both sides that it is important. I believe this mission will allow the establishment of democracy and freedoms in Afghanistan. It has already allowed women to be treated not as chattels but as free members of the Afghan society. It has allowed children to attend school, which is, I would suggest, the only route to long term hope in Afghanistan.

Canada cannot be involved in all missions. Canada may choose to be involved in Darfur at some time down the road; I have no way of knowing that. It will be examined in the future. But it really did sound to me at the start of the member's presentation that Afghanistan is important, but--and then the focus went to Darfur.

I would like the member to comment on that. Does he feel confident that Canada could play a meaningful and important role in both theatres? Or is he saying, as it sounded, that maybe Canada should consider backing out of Afghanistan and putting our focus into Darfur? Does he believe that we can do both and that we have enough troops to do what he would like to see done in Darfur? I really would like clarification on that.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, April 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would argue that the $755 million resulted from a drive from our party and other parties in the House. The previous government went kicking and squealing toward passing that through the House. I do not know if it had an intention of ever delivering.

The problem that the member has outlined is accurate. In the past so much of the money that was promised was never delivered. We are stuck with that program for now, but we wanted to get the money out as quickly as possible. It is flowing. We have speeded it up immensely, and we will continue to work on that.

That is a problem. We intend to deliver the full amount, and we are doing that.

I know our federal minister has met with the provincial ministers. They intend to keep up the talks. We really want to get rid of CAIS and to form a new program that will do the job much better. We intend to do that.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, April 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of the Richardson's ground squirrel, more commonly known as a gopher, for about seven or eight years I have been pursuing this issue in the House of Commons, through private members' bills and motions, and across the country. Quite frankly, I have received literally dozens of phone calls from farmers and municipalities across western Canada encouraging me to keep that up, and I will.

I will now be working with the appropriate ministers to have returned to farmers the effective gopher control. Many people may consider this an unimportant issue, but to western Canadian farmers it means possibly $200 million a year that is currently lost and can be returned to them. It is an important issue and I will continue to work on it. I look forward to making progress on that as quickly as possible.

In terms of the offshore registering of companies that allow Canadians to avoid paying taxes in this country, I do not know exactly what is going to be in the federal accountability act in its entirety. We put out a document before the election, which certainly lays out some of the key ingredients, but as far as I know that will not be dealt with in this legislation. I really cannot say for sure, but now that it has been mentioned, I will look into whether there is an intention on the part of our government to close that loophole.

The other question was on polling. The Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates dealt with this issue at various times. It was completely unacceptable and inappropriate the way the former government used taxpayer money to fund polling, which was done strictly for partisan reasons. We exposed several cases of that.

In the federal accountability act we have committed to end that practice. It is inappropriate, and we simply will not be a part of that. Through this legislation, we will end it for future governments as well.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, April 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue in the debate today by talking about two issues: first, the federal accountability act; and second, agriculture which was also talked about in the throne speech.

We said during the election campaign that our very first piece of business when we came back to the House would be the federal accountability act, and it will be. The need for the federal accountability act is clear and obvious.

One member in his statement yesterday went through a list of the top 10 Liberal scandals. We have seen things such as: the billion dollar HRDC boondoggle; the Shawinigate scandal in the former prime minister's riding; another former prime minister registering his ships offshore in Barbados to avoid paying taxes in the very country for which he was a prime minister; the $2 million gun registry that was totally out of control and has now cost $2 billion and is ongoing, and we will get rid of that; and the ad scam and the sponsorship scandal. Those things are talked about most often. Another was the issue of Mr. Dingwall, the former Liberal minister and former head of the Mint, and his statement that he was entitled to his entitlements. That attitude was widespread through the former government.

The need for the accountability act is clear, and we will put it before the House. After discussing it and possibly amending it, I believe there is no reason why we should not get agreement from all parties to pass it.

Our goal and our commitment is to make government more effective and accountable to Parliament and to Canadians, and we will do that.

The federal accountability act is the toughest anti-corruption law in Canadian history. For that reason, it will be the most significant legislation I have seen tabled in the House in the 12.5 years of being a member of Parliament. Without a doubt, it will make more difference in the lives of Canadians and in the level of trust that the public has for politicians than anything else that has happened in the House in the last 12.5 years, and probably much longer than that.

For example, if passed, it will bring in a corruption watchdog to protect whistleblowers against bullying. It will end the revolving between lobby firms and ministers' offices. It will give the Auditor General the power to shine the light in every dark corner to hunt for waste, theft and corruption. It will ban big money and corporate cash in political campaigns. By moving from a culture of entitlement to a culture of accountability, it will fix the system for Canadians. It is extremely significant.

I would like to get into more detail on this, but I do want to talk about agriculture. I am sure we all have a chance in debating the federal accountability act when it comes to the House. It will be our first order of business, and I am looking forward to that debate.

What are we going to do for farmers and what have we already done? We did not wait for Parliament to sit to take action to deal with the neglect we have seen for the past decade or so.

We are going to put in place a program which is simpler and more responsive to the needs of Canadian farmers. We know Canadian farmers are hurting, possibly like never before. Therefore, the very first thing we did, after being sworn in as the government, was to extend the emergency payment program of three-quarters of a billion dollars to the Canadian grain and oilseed producers.

We are going to continue with not only larger and important measures and trade issues, but we are also going to pursue many so-called smaller, maybe less important issues which will help Canadian farmers in a very real way. I am looking forward to that in the years ahead.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I can see by the time that I will not be finishing my speech before question period.

I would like to begin like many others have here today by sincerely thanking my constituents for their overwhelming show of support during the election campaign. It is an honour that I do not take lightly, and it is a great responsibility that they have bestowed upon me. I recognize that I represent all of my constituents, not only those who voted for me, and I will work as hard as I can on behalf of all my constituents when they come to me. I will work with them to build a better Canada, which is what this Conservative government is here to do.

I would like to talk a bit about the Speech from the Throne. The Liberals have been criticizing us by saying that our whole agenda is boiled down to five points. It is much better to have five specific points to work on and to actually do them, then to have 30, 40 or 50 pages of rhetoric out of which nothing comes. That is what we have seen for the last 13 years since I came here as a member of the opposition. We have focused government and we will continue to do that.

The Speech from the Throne is this government's agenda for what is going to happen in the House in terms of legislation for this first period of time. It is not our agenda for the whole Parliament. Our election platform is our agenda. It is what we intend to accomplish in this mandate, and we will work on that. Given a chance, by all members in the House, we will deliver our entire election platform. That is what we intend to do. For this first session in the House we are going to focus on this throne speech.

There are five parts to our throne speech and many people already know this. The federal accountability act, the first part of our throne speech, will be the first piece of legislation we will deal with. We will cut the GST by 1%, bringing it down from 7% to 6% and then we will continue to bring it down to 5%.

We will get tough on crime, especially on those who commit violent crimes and those who use weapons in committing crimes. The $1,200 a year child care allowance is part of our plan. We will be working with business and communities by creating 125,000 child care spaces. We will work with the provinces to put in place firm wait time guarantees for health care delivery. That is our throne speech.

Members opposite criticize that as being a light agenda. Accomplishing any one of these things will be a wonderful accomplishment, more than the Liberal government certainly did in the last Parliament. We fully intend, with their help and with the cooperation of the House, to accomplish all of these.

I want to focus today on the federal accountability act and on our sixth priority which is not in the throne speech but is certainly a priority of this caucus. We saw this priority last night when so many members of this caucus were here for the take note debate on agriculture. Our sixth priority is working on behalf of farmers to make things better for them and for the agriculture industry. That is a focus of our caucus and it has been a focus for the last 13 years. It is a good thing we have been here in opposition in the past to focus the government on that or there would have been little to no focus on that at all. Now that we are in government we are going to be working hard on agriculture as well.

Why is the federal accountability act so important? This bill would be the toughest anti-corruption law in Canadian history. I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are about to cut me off so I will finish my presentation after question period.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member as she gave her presentation on the child care program. She referred in a kind of a glowing way to the Quebec child care program, yet that program, for a price tag of $1.3 billion a year, which is what I believe the member said, works for only about 17% of the children in Quebec. How can that be viewed as a successful program? At $1.3 billion for 17% of the children, it would cost around $6 billion a year if it were available and used by all children in Quebec, not that this is a goal; I am just saying that the price tag would be so huge it obviously would not be affordable.

The Conservative government's program, which instead will work with business and community groups to provide new child care spaces, along with providing $1,200 a year for each child under six years of age, seems like a much more realistic package, and besides, it gives choice, choice to parents.

I would like to ask the member why she feels it is appropriate to deny parents the choice, parents who may choose to stay at home or parents who may choose to have a grandmother or someone else to look after their kids. Why should they be denied the funding from government?

Could the member respond to those two points, first, the choice issue, and second, the cost of a system which is, like the Quebec system, expanded so that it is made available to all children?

[Interparliamentary Delegations, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the delegation of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association which represented Canada at the spring session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly held in Lubiana, Slovenia.

Pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the delegation of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association which represented Canada at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's economic and security committee in Beijing and Shanghai, China.

Pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the delegation of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association which represented Canada at the joint meeting of the defence and security, economics and security and political committees, and at the annual economics and security committee consultation with the OECD held in Brussels, Belgium and Paris, France.

[Income Trusts, November 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that this minister and his government continue their attack on seniors. It is sad and disturbing. First his government steals millions of tax dollars from these hard-working Canadians to fund Liberal election campaigns and now he slashes their savings by irresponsible action against their savings in income trusts. That is the truth.

Canadian seniors know they can never trust this government again. Is this minister going to continue to beat up on seniors or will he announce his decision on income trusts? When is he going to make that announcement?

[Income Trusts, November 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in September, the Minister of Finance recklessly and irresponsibly cancelled advance tax rulings on income trusts. This has destroyed the savings of seniors, pension funds and some teachers' funds, the funds of ordinary Canadians saving for retirement. The minister does not seem to care at all about seniors and hard-working Canadians.

Will the Minister of Finance continue his attack on seniors, teachers and other Canadians saving for retirement? Or will he tell us specifically on what day he will announce his decision on income trusts?

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, something has been very disappointing about the way the government has handled this whole process of taking our troops out of the Kabul area and moving them into Kandahar where it is even more dangerous, as we have seen recently with the car bombings that have killed soldiers in the area, without any explanation to the Canadian public or Parliament as to why that change was made.

Here we are having this debate in the House today and yet the minister has not given the most basic explanation to Parliament and to the Canadian public as to why the government has made this change. I would really appreciate if the minister would take this opportunity to explain finally why the government has taken this decision.