Leon Benoit

[Civil Marriage Act, June 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am here to speak the report stage of Bill C-38, the same sex marriage bill. In the 10 minutes I have allocated, and that is another issue which I will speak about, I will talk about why we are here today, the same sex marriage bill. I also will talk about how this could have been avoided and where we can go from here.

With the government invoking time allocation at report stage and third reading, we will be voting on the legislation tomorrow night and there is nothing we can do about it now except to be here to vote and we will. Bill C-38 will probably pass tomorrow night, but that will not be the end of it.

Why are we debating Bill C-38 today? That is an important question. Just a few years ago the current Deputy Prime Minister was in the House defending marriage as the union of one man and one woman. She said that nothing would ever happen to change that and anybody who would suggest that would be speaking absurdity and all kinds of things like that.

The Deputy Prime Minister rose on the opposition motion brought forward by our party back in 1999 and speaking on behalf of the government in a carefully crafted speech she said:

The definition of marriage is already clear in law in Canada as the union of two persons of the opposite sex. Counsel from my department have successfully defended, and will continue to defend this concept of marriage....I continue to believe that it is not necessary to change well-understood concepts of spouse and marriage to deal with any fairness considerations the courts and tribunals...

She went on later to say:

The institution of marriage is of great importance to large numbers of Canadians, and the definition of marriage as found in the hon. member's motion is clear in law.

This was one of her closing statements, “I fundamentally do not believe that it is necessary to change the definition of marriage” as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

Why are we debating Bill C-38 today? That is an important question and a question I have a great deal of difficulty understanding.

We know that about two-thirds of Canadians do not support this legislation. I did a survey of my constituents and received thousands of returns. About 98% of those who responded to my questionnaire, which was dropped at every household in the constituency, supported marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. Many of my colleagues have done similar types of surveys and they have found the same results. Polling nationally showed that two-thirds of Canadians do not support the legislation. In my constituency it is much higher.

Why are we debating Bill C-38 today? It seems to me that the government is so obsessed with the issue of same sex marriage that it will not let it go. In the 12 years I have been here I do not remember closure being used in the House the way the Liberals used it on Bill C-48, the NDP budget bill. If Bill C-48 had been defeated, the government would have been defeated and Bill C-38, the civil marriage bill, would not be here today and we would not be dealing with it.

It is not only the government that is obsessed with same sex marriage, but the NDP is also obsessed with this issue. This is the first time the NDP has voted with the government in favour of closure and now today on time allocation.

The Bloc is obsessed with the issue of same sex marriage as well. The Bloc members, who are generally democrats and would not support time allocation or closure, are so obsessed that in the last two days they have formed this unholy alliance with the government; the separatists, the government and the socialists. They have signed an agreement and together they are doing everything they can, including bypassing the normal rules of the House of Commons, to push the bill through.

This is an unholy alliance and this is why we are here today debating Bill C-38. Those three parties are obsessed with the same sex marriage issue. Because of that, they made this deal in bed together, the government with the Bloc and the socialists.

How could this have been avoided? First, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and many members of the Liberal caucus could show that they believe what they say. Many of them, including the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, said a few short years ago that they did not support same sex marriage and that they believed that marriage should be retained as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. Therefore, there should be no reason for this bill to be debated today.

More recent, a free vote, which means all cabinet and all parliamentary secretaries in the governing party, would have killed the legislation at second reading. That is how this could have been avoided.

I want to talk a little about that. The government put our a document last week on parliamentary reform. I looked through that little booklet and I was shocked at what I saw. The document is from the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. It is entitled, “First Annual Report on Democratic Reform”. What a joke. The things the government has pointed to as being changes it has made to make this place more democratic are exactly the opposite to what in reality has happened. However, there are some things of interest in there.

For example, it talks about how often the government has used the one line whip, the two line whip and the three line whip. I want to explain that. A one line whip is when the government says that it is a completely free vote. A two line whip is when the backbenchers can vote freely on the issue but cabinet and parliamentary secretaries must toe the government line. A three line vote is when all members of the Liberal Party are expected to toe the government line.

The government's own numbers in the document say that there were zero one line votes. That means no free votes whatsoever in the time that was documented in this report. Eighty-two of the votes were two line votes, including the marriage bill vote. That means that half of the Liberal caucus members are not free to represent their constituents on the important issue of marriage, cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries. A three line whip was used 18% of the time. There was not one single free vote on government legislation.

I want to go to my third point. Where do we go from here? I want to say without a doubt, even if this bill passes tomorrow, which it probably will, that is not the end of the issue. The Conservative Party and the Leader of the Conservative Party are committed to bringing this back to the House when we form the government and we will have a truly free vote on this issue.

We know, as I have said before, that about two-thirds of Canadians support the option where marriage is retained as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. Legal civil unions in Canada give all the rights that married couples have to those who want to be involved in a civil union. That is what we will put before the House. We will put options before the House and there will be a free vote.

Under a Conservative government I fully believe same sex marriage will be struck down and we will move on to become a country where we have marriage enshrined as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments, June 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member had connected it to Bill C-48 already. Liberals do not want to hear about this, but they are going to hear about this.

These 30 Liberal MPs will not, because they do not have the courage, vote against Bill C-48 and defeat the government, so we can go to an election and through an election decide the outcome of the marriage bill. Because they do not have the courage, Bill C-38 will certainly pass. Many members of the government will not even have a free vote on the issue. There are 30 MPs who will not take a stand for their constituents. They will be responsible for same sex marriage coming into place in this country in spite of them saying exactly the opposite.

Then we have the whole two front rows in the government who do not have a free vote. They are not allowed to represent their constituents. For these reasons, Bill C-38 will pass. It is on their heads.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments, June 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of Parliament for 12 years and I have worked very hard to represent my constituents in those 12 years. Today is the saddest day that I have ever experienced in the House of Commons. One hour of debate will be allowed for a bill worth $4.5 billion of my children's money and other people's children's hard earned money.

That is important, but what is most important about Bill C-48 and the third reading vote that we are about to take is that if the bill is not defeated then Bill C-38, the same sex bill, will certainly pass in this House.

We have had 30 members of the Liberal Party who have said they would do everything they could to defeat Bill C-38, the marriage bill. They are the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, the member for Mississauga South, the member for Huron—Bruce, and the member for Pickering—Scarborough East. They are 30 in total--

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, that is a bit of a difficult question to answer because I cannot say there were any brown envelopes changing hands in the no-tell motel or that there were any suitcases full of money or anything like that. I am not saying that at all.

I suggest that there were shenanigans going on in the no-tell motel that were every bit as serious as those brown envelopes and suitcases full of money. Some $4.5 billion was being shuffled about among the three people in bed at the no-tell motel. There they were in bed together moving about $4.5 billion. The Prime Minister, being one of them, agreed to that. Do not forget that the former finance minister, the gentleman from Wascana, was pushed into a side room. He was not allowed to be in the room where all the action was taking place.

I wonder if the NDP member who just asked a question was not there, maybe hiding in a corner watching what was going on.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's question. I realize I did make a statement during my presentation which was inaccurate. It is very confusing when there are two or three budgets. One kind of forgets which is which.

The member asked how it was that voting for Bill C-43 would be voting for Bill C-38. I meant to say, and it was an error on my part, that voting for Bill C-48, which the Liberal members across the floor did at second reading, is like voting for Bill C-38. That is what I meant to say. It is not that complicated for the member to figure out.

If any one of them had voted against Bill C-48 at second reading, Bill C-38 would have been killed. We would have been in an election and we would have a Conservative government, which would mean the end of the same sex marriage bill. That is what I meant to say. If I was not clear on that or if I made an error, I appreciate the opportunity to correct it.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the member made an interesting comment before his question. He said that everything seems to be good. He referred to all of these factors that seemed to be good but the fact is that the financial outlook is not nearly that good.

Sadly, Canada has become a non-player in the world. It is not the fault of the Canadian people because they are great people. It is the fault of the Canadian government.

When I attended a meeting of the NATO parliamentarians in February, I went to Paris to a meeting of the OECD, one of the most respected think tanks and research groups in the world. We received an economic forecast from them for the next couple of years. The forecast itself was not that positive. In fact, we have been on a declining schedule for some time when it comes to the economic forecast, but something was even more disturbing than that. In all of the information that was given to the NATO parliamentarians who attended the meeting, the numbers presented were for the G-6, not the G-7 and not the G-8.

The G-7 still includes Canada but we have become such a non-player that all of the numbers were for the G-6 with Canada not included. That is a sad commentary of what the government has done to our country over the past many years. I do not think the members across the floor should be laughing at what they have done to our country because it is not the people of the country, it is the government that has done that.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of applause from across the floor. I understand that. Those members that I have mentioned and others over there, the so-called 30 that are standing up for their constituents on Bill C-38, want me to get off that topic, so I will get back to Bill C-48.

I want to talk about what this $4.5 billion means particularly to the young people and the older people in our society. They are the people who are hurt the most by high taxes.

The people who are hurt the most by high taxes are the young people who are just starting families. They are paying off their student loans. They have a mortgage. They have a lot of payments. They are trying to buy a car. They are trying to get in a position where they can start a family.

My wife Linda and I have five children in that position right now. I am not saying this just on behalf of my children. It is their friends. It is anyone who has children. It is people who are just starting out and getting to a point where they can start a family.

It used to be that one family member earning wages could probably support the family, and the other could stay at home with the children. Families could afford to do that. Why is it now that two people in the family, both the husband and wife must work to make enough money? The reason is taxes are so out of control in this country. They cannot afford to have one person stay at home because of all the money that is taken off their paycheques.

I think we all agree that a certain amount of money taken in taxation is reasonable. We all agree that we want to support the important social programs across the country.

I would say that many of us here, even on the other side of the House, recognize that we are simply taking too much from people and leaving them with too little to spend on what they want to spend it on. That is why those young families are having such a difficult time buying a house, making their mortgage payments, buying a car, paying off their student loans and trying to get ahead. That is why it is so difficult. More than anything else it is simply because too much money is taken off their paycheques.

I want to talk about the other group, the older folks. These folks often are retired and on a fixed income which usually is not very high. Chances are that a retired person who earns $15,000 a year pays taxes. The government takes money from an older person's paycheque even if that person only earns $15,000 a year. There is something very wrong with that picture.

As a result, many old folks come to my office. I do not think any hon. members can say they do not have people who come to their offices to say that they just cannot make ends meet. Their heating and electricity bills have gone up. Their property taxes have gone up a little bit, although nothing compared to the federal tax deduction. The gasoline prices have risen. Many of these people want to remain independent, to be mobile and to be able to drive, but gasoline prices and insurance costs have gone up. All these things have gone up.

I see I only have a minute left. I wanted to say a lot more, but I will save it for the next time I speak to Bill C-48. It has a way to go yet.

Surely the people across the floor care enough about these old retired folks to back off a little bit on taxes. To do that, the Liberals have to stop spending like drunken sailors. There was an increase in spending of more than 10% this year. They have to stop doing that if they are to leave enough money in the hands of young people who are trying to start families and in the pockets of our old folks who are just trying to get by. All they want is to have reasonable retirement years. They cannot do that any more because the government over the last 12 years has increased taxes at such a rate that it is simply out of control.

I implore members opposite to listen, to cut back on spending, to cut back on taxes and to let us spend more of our own money. We will be better off for it.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, you know they are well tied together.

It is not only the member for Mississauga South who should be ashamed of himself. It is also the member for Huron—Bruce and there are many others over there who claim they want to defeat Bill C-38. There is no free vote on Bill C-38. The cabinet has been ordered to vote in favour of it. Those members know the only way to kill Bill C-38 was to vote against Bill C-43, which was a tied vote. Mr. Speaker, you yourself had to stand to break the tie to pass that bill.

If any one of them had had the strength and the gumption to stand up and really support their constituents against Bill C-38 and to throw away the same sex marriage bill, if any one of them had had the guts to do that, they could have done it. They chose not to. But they have one more chance. When we vote on another confidence bill, Bill C-48, they will have one last chance to kill Bill C-38, the same sex marriage bill. If they do not do it, their constituents will know without a doubt that they are not sincere in any way about standing up for their constituents on Bill C-38, the same sex marriage bill.

I wanted to mention that. It is important that their constituents know that. Those members are not willing to take a stand.

I will get back to Bill C-48.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I feel it is my duty to speak to Bill C-48, the NDP budget bill tonight. It is not something that I am happy to do or delighted to be speaking on, but I have an obligation to my constituents and to the country to do that.

Picture this scenario at the no-tell motel in Toronto. In the no-tell motel there is the Prime Minister of Canada, Buzz Hargrove, the big union leader, and the leader of the New Democratic Party together in bed. The Liberal finance minister from Regina was not allowed to be there. The Prime Minister pushed him off into a side suite, and closed the door, like a little boy who is not allowed to see what is going on in the room where the action is. These three individuals decided that they were going to cook up a secret, backroom deal and that is what they did.

Think about these three individuals. What is the Prime Minister's big agenda? The Prime Minister's main agenda is to put in place same sex marriage, legalize prostitution and legalize marijuana. This is the same Prime Minister who believes that government can spend billions of dollars to look after our kids better than we can.

Then there is Buzz Hargrove, the big union leader. We know about him and I will not say anything more about him. Then there is the leader of the New Democratic Party, apparently the new finance minister from what I can tell, who is certainly one of the main authors of Bill C-48. What is his agenda? His agenda is to put in place same sex marriage, legalize prostitution and legalize marijuana. He fully supports spending billions of dollars, so that government can look after our kids better than we can.

Picture the three of them in bed in the no-tell motel cooking up this deal. This is not a sleazy joint. I will give ten to one odds that this hotel room was paid for by the taxpayers. But this deal is not a private business deal. This is a deal that involves $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money. This is money that belongs to our children, our parents, our grandparents and young people striving to move ahead a little bit. That is $4.5 billion of hard earned tax money they are playing this game with, whatever the game is, and I do not even want to think about it. It is scary.

They brought this deal back to Ottawa, but not under the normal budget process. We all know that with Bill C-43, the real budget, there was a process. It was not perfect but there was some consultation. There was input from the opposition parties with Bill C-43, which was actually put in place by the former finance minister from Regina. They tabled the budget in the House of Commons and the members are asking how we voted on it.

In fact, we were not satisfied with Bill C-43, but the Conservative Party took a responsible position. We said that we do not like the deal, but we are not willing to bring down the government on the deal. The people elected us as the official opposition in a minority Liberal government and we were going to work together as much as we could. We abstained from voting on Bill C-43 the first time because we did not want to support that budget.

I have been in the House for almost 12 years now and whenever we support any initiative of the government, even if that support is not wholehearted but we think there is more good in there than that which is not good, the Liberals throw it back in our faces. We do not want to support a deal until we think it is something we will not be embarrassed about in the future. That is why we abstained on second reading of Bill C-43.

Then our great finance critic from Medicine Hat, Alberta, worked with his colleagues at committee and brought forward major amendments to Bill C-43, the budget bill. That is the budget bill that was put together by the former finance minister, the member for Wascana. He has been replaced now by the leader of the New Democratic Party, who apparently now is the new finance minister because he was the one who was in bed with the Prime Minister and Buzz Hargrove and cooked up this secret deal involving not their own money but $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money. That is the way it happened.

Once Bill C-43 had been amended so it was appropriate, what did we do as a responsible political party in a minority government? We supported it. We supported it at third reading and that budget bill has passed. There were things in that bill that we wholeheartedly supported like the Atlantic accord. In fact, that was our initiative from the start, so of course we supported that. It was our deal.

There are other things too. There was some talk of tax cuts, not a great deal, something like $16 per Canadian taxpayer per year. It was pretty pathetic but at least it was a move in the right direction, unlike the deal in the 2000 budget, the $100 billion tax reduction. I encourage everyone at home to take their paycheques from 1999 and look at the deductions from payroll, then take their paycheques from 2004 and look at the deductions from payroll.

I encourage all Canadians to tell me what my constituents already have, and that is that there has been no tax reduction. The deductions from their paycheques are at least as big now as they were before the Prime Minister supposedly cut $100 billion in taxes. Those kinds of tax cuts nobody needs.

On the one hand they may cut, but they take it with the other hand. In fact, through all of this, and the wonderful government that the members from the Liberal Party are talking about which is not a wonderful government but that is what they claim, we find that Canadians are no better off than they were 12 years ago. They are no better off than they were in 1993 when the government took office. The standard of living for Canadians has not improved one bit through all of these economic times.

That leads me to an issue that the Liberals talk about often. They say they are running a surplus. Are they not great? They say they are handling Canadian taxpayers' money wonderfully because they are running surpluses every year. Let us talk about those surpluses. What does that really mean?

It certainly means they are running a balanced budget, so from that point of view it is better than running deficits, but is that really a good thing? Does running surpluses every year mean things are good for Canadians? No, in fact, the standard of living has not increased in 12 years.

It is great for the federal government because it is taking so much in taxes and increasing spending at such a rapid rate that in spite of the increased tax take every year, Canadians are no better off, yet more money is coming from the pockets of Canadians taxpayers and going into the federal government than ever before, by a long shot. That is good for the federal government, and it can say it is running surpluses, but it is bad for taxpayers.

A surplus really is overtaxation. The government increased spending by more than 10% in Bill C-43, a budget bill which we did not happily support but there was enough good in it that we thought we should. That was before the leader of the NDP, along with the Prime Minister and Buzz Hargrove, cooked up this secret deal behind closed doors in a no-tell motel. They added $4.5 billion to their spending and those are hard-earned tax dollars.

I want to talk about what that really means, but before I do I want to talk about one more thing. The leader of the New Democratic Party and the leader of the Liberals support things like legalizing marijuana and prostitution, and putting in place same sex marriage. They cooked up this deal and I want to talk a bit more about that.

The government has said that it wants to pass two pieces of legislation before the summer break. One is Bill C-48, this NDP budget bill. The other is Bill C-38, the same sex marriage bill.

About 70% of Canadians do not support the same sex marriage bill. There are also many Liberal members who do not support the bill. The member for Mississauga South claims he is going to fight for his constituents and Canadians against same sex marriage. The member for Pickering--Scarborough East claims he is going to fight on behalf of his constituents and Canadians against same sex marriage. The member for Scarborough--Guildwood claims he is going to fight hard for his constituents against Bill C-38. Those members had a real opportunity, maybe two, the second being the vote on Bill C-48, the NDP budget bill. That is definitely a confidence vote.

Those members had two chances to kill Bill C-38. The first was on Bill C-43, the budget bill. Did they take a stand and vote for their constituents against same sex marriage by defeating that bill? No, they did not. Those members should be ashamed of that. They put on a big front. They claimed they were going to fight it on behalf of their constituents.

[Extended Sitting Period, June 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, everyday I see the government stooping to new lows. Today we see threats against members of the House of time allocation and using closure to prevent appropriate debate. It goes on and on and it is getting worse, quite frankly.

The member is talking about Bill C-48, which was so unimportant to the government that none of it was put in the original Liberal budget bill. We are talking about the NDP-Liberal budget bill. Now the Liberals have to ram it through somehow. Besides that, the budget implementation bill for last year was only passed in the House a couple of weeks ago.

As my hon. colleague has already pointed out, none of the spending in the bill would take place immediately. It would be at least a year from now before the Liberals could calculate the level of surplus, overtaxation and increase in tax and spending that the government has gone through in the past few years which makes it difficult for my children and the children of people across the country to make their mortgage payments and pay off their students loans.

The Liberals keep taxing and spending more and more and now they want to spend this extra $4.5 billion that would be added on to their insane increases in spending in Bill C-43. The member should reconsider what he is trying to do. He should in fact back off on this. I am sure that is exactly what the House leader will do.