Merv Tweed

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's comments.

There has been a lot of debate around the child care funding that has been announced by the government. The member alluded to the dollar amount that was going to Atlantic Canada. I am just curious. I have read newspaper reports from other provinces which said that if they invested the entire amount of money that has been promised to the communities, in some provinces it would work out to providing a national day care program to about 10% or 12% of the population. In other provinces it gets as high as 17%.

Would the member be able to tell the people of Canada how many more day care spaces than they have today this funding would allow?

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the hon. member that when the Prime Minister was finance minister he gutted health care by $25 billion in Manitoba alone. He was the creator of the health care crisis the country is now facing and that he now claims he wants to save.

Over 10 years he decimated health care to a point where it could no longer call on its lifelines to survive. The government had to cut a deal for $41 billion just to restore the money that it took out of health care 10 years ago. I was a part of a provincial government that suffered. This is all very ironic. Having been a provincial government, we were accused of ruining health care. Now, suddenly, as opposition to the federal government, we are being accused of ruining it here. The government cannot have it both ways.

This government in the blink of an eye increased spending in the country by $4.6 billion. Canadians will not accept it. I ask the members opposite to do the honourable thing and put the question to Canadians.

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer that question. It was the then finance minister, now the Prime Minister, who removed the comptrollers from the financial controls of the government and who allowed this spending to go crazy the way it has in the past 12 years.

It is interesting that the member identifies all the problems in Canada that are all suddenly in front of his government. Where have the Liberals been for the last 12 years? Who created most of these problems?

All the member has done is confirm to Canadians why we need to have this government called before Canadians to let them actually see what the government has done in the last 12 years and let the public decide.

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2005]

The member behind me states it correctly. It was bought and paid for.

I want to give the House a little history on what happened in the past when NDP members were bought off by Liberal governments to sustain them in the power and the position that they held.

In 1972-73 and 1974-75, spending on federal government programs with this coalition jumped by 50%. Does anybody see any correlation with that to what is happening today?

In the two day deal, which the Prime Minister and the leader of the NDP cobbled together, I suspect written on a napkin in a dark room with a dimly lit candle so that no one else could see or hear what was going on, they committed to spend $4.6 billion; that is billion with a b , to emphasize how much this means to Canadians.

During that same time of 1972-73 and 1974-75, Canadians saw their overall taxes increase by 52%.

When we ask Canadians today what one of the number one issues they are dealing with, they will tell us that it is the high tax rates because of a government that is willing to go to any lengths to stay in power. It will spend whatever amount of money is necessary. It will cut whatever deals are necessary with an opposition party to cling to power. We have seen it in the past and we are seeing it today.

I also want to remind Canadians and this House that during that time the inflation rate more than doubled. It was also during that time that Canada had enjoyed for a decade a surplus that vanished overnight.

The agreement the government made with, I should be calling it the NDP-Liberal coalition, was made for selfish, self-serving reasons which the Canadian people are no longer willing to tolerate or are able to tolerate.

We have gone out across the country, as I suspect have the Liberals, and we have been told by our constituents that this is a disgraceful act, that it should be dealt with and that Canadians want to deal with this issue through this House in a confidence motion.

Again, we saw the antics of the House leader across the floor today. Her timing was absolutely impeccable. If I did not know better, it would almost surprise me as to how the exact opportunity was presented to the House leader. However I will not cast aspersions on anyone other than the government and the NDP Party that has put us in this position. The government is asking Canadians to support budget part deux even though no one has seen what it is even offering in the second part with the $4.6 billion. Yes, we have heard words and comments that it will include this, it will include that and all good things and everyone will be happy, but there has been no detail.

I would suggest that the members opposite and the government of the day are very hesitant to bring this type of bill forward and present it to the public and actually have it bear some scrutiny so people can see what the government has done in a desperate attempt to maintain the control it has in this House.

It was brought up in earlier conversations: this government is asking this of the Canadian public, after all the allegations and charges that have been brought forward through the Gomery inquiry and other inquiries and other charges. It is saying yes, we know that it was Liberals who created the problem and we know that the Liberals are going to be punished, but in the interim, for the next 10 months, just let the same Liberal group continue to manage the affairs of the country and we will get to the bottom of it and sort it out. It was very disturbing.

It is similar to the question that I put forward earlier today when I asked the question about Enron going through all of its trouble. Do we suppose the people who owned shares in Enron said, “They know there is a problem, so let us leave them there and let them fix it”?

It is absolutely abhorrent that this group of governing people would allow that and would even actually think that the Canadian public would buy into it.

I am sharing my time, but I do want to relate one little anecdote that I heard when I was out in my communities over the last week. A gentleman sat down with me. I asked him if he thought we could afford to have an election right away. His comment was, “Can we afford not to?”, based on what we are seeing spent by this government in a reckless manner.

He made another comment that I think is relevant to this entire situation where the government calls these allegations, but we call it evidence. These people are swearing under oath to what they know. People sometimes forget that. To throw out the word “allegation”; I am not sure that is the proper way to describe it. The gentleman said to me, “When you drive by a House and see smoke coming out of every window and door in the house and out the basement windows, do you go in and look for a flame or do you call the fire department?”

We are at exactly that point now in history. We have a Liberal government that is mired so deep in this scandal that it is willing to change the rules. The Liberals are willing to tell everybody in the world that “it is everybody but us”.

The fact of the matter is, it is this government. It is this government that has to face that reality. It has to ask Canadians if they now have the faith and the confidence in the government for it to continue to manage the affairs of this country. I would suggest that Canadians do not.

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to split my time with the member for Niagara Falls.

In the short time I have been here and have listened to the people of the communities that I represent, there is a stench in the air. People are telling me that they have never seen a government so desperate and so hungry to cling to power that it will stoop to absolutely anything to maintain this power.

It bought the NDP with $4.6 billion.

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to move a motion to amend. I would like to move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting--

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I find it quite interesting listening to the member comment on what is happening at Gomery and the allegations and the charges that have been brought forward and sworn testimony.

Recent events in the world in the business community have seen many charges and allegations against the leadership of Enron. I am wondering if the member would be prepared to comment on whether the people who ran Enron, the presidents and all the managers, should have been allowed to continue to manage the company under all those charges, under all those allegations, under all those suspicions that were created in the public.

Would the member agree that this government is asking to do exactly the same thing?

[Question No. 102, May 2nd, 2005]

Specifying for each the date it was awarded, amounts payable, a description, the name of supplier and whether the contract was awarded through open competition or sole-sourced, what contracts were awarded by Old Port of Montréal Inc. to the following companies: ( a ) Lafleur Communications; ( b ) Groupaction; ( c ) Groupe Everest; ( d ) Media I.D.A. Vision Inc.; ( e ) Tremblay Guittet Communications; ( f ) Gosselin, Vickers and Benson; ( g ) BCA Group Ltd.; ( h ) Groupe Polygone; ( i ) EKOS; and ( j ) Earnscliffe?

(Return tabled)

[Question No. 101, May 2nd, 2005]

What criteria did Old Port of Montréal Inc. use in the awarding of contracts from 1994 to 2004 and what changes, if any, were made to the criteria over that time?

[Question No. 100, May 2nd, 2005]

By year, what was the amount paid in dividends from 1995 to 2004 by Old Port of Montréal Inc.?