Michael Savage

[Business of Supply, April 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have some respect for Mr. Sears, Mr. Mulroney's spokesperson, whom my colleague mentions. I think he is right on a lot of issues, but he is not specifically addressing the in and out system. A lot of us do different things that are entirely legal within the purview of Elections Canada. What is being done here is not legal. It has been pointed out by Elections Canada as being specifically not in keeping with the Canada Elections Act. Other things have not been. There are many things that we all do and we make sure they are done with the support of Elections Canada. What the Conservatives did violates the election law and it is wrong.

[Business of Supply, April 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there certainly is a better way, a more sensible way, a way such that I think Canadians would have said that maybe there is more here than meets the eye. But we did not see that from the government in the way it approached the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. We did not see it from the government in the way it approached the Wheat Board or the ethics officer or untold other non-partisan, non-political organizations and individuals.

This is simple in its design. There is all this money nationally and a party wants to funnel it to the local associations so they can pool their money to pay for the national ads, to get around the spending limits and also to bulk up the rebates. I think of the old expression “to have your cake and eat it too”. This is a case of the government having its cake, eating it too, getting somebody else to pay for it, and then suing the person who sold them the cake, all in one big package. It is unconscionable.

It is wrong. It is simple in its execution but it is devious in its principle. If the government would take a more reasonable, sensible and Canadian approach to dealing with organizations with which it has issues, Canadians would be a lot more likely to say that maybe they could give the government the benefit of the doubt. That doubt is long gone.

[Business of Supply, April 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk to this motion. I congratulate the member from the Bloc who brought it forward.

What is occurring here is very troubling. It is particularly troubling that we have to take a day in Parliament to discuss this, but in fact I think it is worth the time that it is going to be accorded.

An institution such as Elections Canada has a reputation that is unimpeachable. The question I find myself asking is this: how did we get here? As parliamentarians, how did we get to the point where nothing is sacrosanct, where impugning the reputation of individuals and institutions is now a normal part of daily discourse, particularly for this government? I think a lot of MPs come here thinking they will do a good job and work hard for their constituents, and then they get caught up in stuff like this coming from the Conservative Party and, by extension, the government. It is very unfortunate.

My colleague, the member for Beauséjour, who has been on this issue for a long time, outlined what we are talking about. Very simply, this is a case of the Conservative Party trying to do two things, in my view.

The first is to get around the spending limit of I think $18.2 million in a national campaign and to do so by taking money, of which the Conservatives have a lot, and flowing it through constituency associations, in most cases constituency associations that are not going to spend the amount of money they are allowed to. They probably are not competitive in a lot of those constituency associations. They take the money, they pool it to pay for national ads and they send the money back, but the hook is that they are then told they qualify for a rebate. In other words, the taxpayers subsidize this form of creative election financing. It is wrong.

In my riding, the Conservative candidate in the last election was one of the 67 or so candidates who were implicated in this scandal. I do not think he is a bad guy. Robert Campbell had never run before. He is an ex-RCMP officer. I do not agree with him on a lot of things, but I do not doubt that he is an honest and decent person. I do not think it is his fault.

I do not think it is necessarily the fault of the people who were involved in this in neighbouring ridings: Halifax West, which the Conservatives will never take from the member for Halifax West, and Halifax, where the Conservatives are not competitive. These are the ridings in Nova Scotia where they used this ploy.

I do not blame Mr. Campbell, who is a decent person, but I do blame the national Conservative Party of Canada, because it came up with this plan and foisted it upon a lot of unsuspecting candidates across Canada. We know that. We can go back to something that Tom Flanagan, the Prime Minister's guru, suggested in his book:

Even though there is a cap on national campaign spending, it is easy and legal to exceed it by transferring expenditures to local campaigns that are not able to spend up to their own legal limits.

So we have a national Conservative Party with a lot of money and some local associations that do not have money. We tell them that if they are part of this they will get a rebate, so why would they not do it? Even some of the Conservative candidates came out and said after the fact that they did not really know exactly what was going on.

There was Mr. Hudson, a Newfoundland campaign official for the Conservatives, who said, “I have realized that this is a transfer in and back out, same day”. That is what he knew about it.

As for other Conservative candidates, there is Mr. McDonald, the official agent for a Conservative candidate in Winnipeg: “Mr. McDonald was not aware of and could not recall receiving any invoice or invoices, from either Retail Media or the Conservative Fund Canada”. He did remember “a wash in and out of our account”.

For another candidate in Toronto, in Trinity-Spadina, the agent suggested, “There was no discussion pertaining to the advertising or its benefit”. He “was simply instructed to post the funds as an advertising expense, and he did so”.

It is pretty clear that what we have is the national Conservative Party of Canada, this institution that now forms the backbone of the Government of Canada, putting this system in place across Canada. It got caught, frankly. I commend my colleague from Beauséjour, who raised this probably close to a year ago when it first came out.

The government laughed it off and asked him what he was talking about. Then we had the fact that Elections Canada said it was pretty serious, and it investigated. What does the government do? It goes after Elections Canada.

If there is a particularly disturbing trend about the Conservative government, it is that it has an enemies list. It does not like people who disagree with it, including members of its own party who do not fall completely into line, such as my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley and my colleague from Halton, who were gone.

Also on that list are programs and organizations that do work the government does not like. The court challenges and status of women programs get penalized, as do non-partisan organizations that do not toe the government line and the Wheat Board, our ethics officer, the Nuclear Safety Commission, and now Elections Canada. As well, journalists who do not print what the government likes do not make the A-list for press conferences.

In short, anybody or anything in the way has to go. MPs who disagree are booted. Public servants who do their jobs are fired. Journalists disliked by the Conservatives are shunned. Rules they do not like, such as the Minister of Finance in regard to tendering, are ignored. Parliamentary committees they do not like are shut down.

That is an appalling way to run a country. It is not the way that the people of Canada want to see this country run. When one maligns an organization like Elections Canada, which does the very important work that it does, it is very concerning. It does important work not just for candidates or at election time but throughout the year in making sure we have a system that works for all Canadians. This should be of concern to all of us.

The integrity of elections is the cornerstone of democracy. We can see it around the world right now and in the last year or so in Zimbabwe, and in Kenya, a country that I had a chance to visit a year ago and which was racked by violence, the immediate precipitator being electoral fraud, similar to Zimbabwe.

As Canadians, we look at that and say it is wrong. In fact, Canadians are well known as people who go all over the world to help fledgling democracies conduct elections, elections that have integrity and in which people can believe when they see the results. We do a strong job as Canadians in making sure that the systems we believe in and the systems others want to have for their own countries are allowed to flourish in free and fair elections.

We do not need that here in Canada because we have Elections Canada. There are things that Elections Canada put into law and has suggested as the rules for Canadians to follow in election campaigns. Any one of us may say that we disagree with this or that, but we know that the integrity of Elections Canada is unassailable.

It is our job as politicians, as members of Parliament, as incumbents, and as challengers in the next election, and we respect our challengers, to follow those laws, to make sure that the elections in which Canadians vote do not carry with them any question about integrity. It is assumed and understood that it is always in place.

The government has gone against that. The government has maligned Elections Canada. I believe it has gone around the rules that we have all accepted as the rules for running elections in Canada. The government should be ashamed of that. I support the motion from the Bloc Québécois. I encourage all members of the House to do the same.

[Competition Act, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-454, introduced by the member for Montcalm. I think it is a timely discussion for us to have in the House.

Bill C-454 is an act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. We will support the bill at this stage because we believe it is important that it should go to committee to be discussed.

Other members have spoken about some of the things that are contained in Bill C-454. I want to address some of those, but I also want to talk in general about why it is important that we as parliamentarians take our responsibility seriously when it comes to competition.

I filled up my car on the weekend in my home riding of Dartmouth and the price was $1.32 a litre. That is pretty high and the big concern is not what it does to my pocketbook. As a member of Parliament I get paid well to do the job that I do. I have an awful lot of constituents who cannot afford gas at $1.32 a litre. It may be in fact that the price of gas is going to continue to go up. That may be a simple fact of life.

I think Canadians have the right to expect that their government, their members of Parliament, takes seriously the fact that in a free market economy we nonetheless have a responsibility to make sure that competition is real and open, and that in fact it is a free market and not a closed market.

In a previous life I used to run a home heating oil company for the Irving family and I can recall, and I am actually probably younger than I look, but I can recall when the price of heating oil in Nova Scotia was 26.3¢ a litre, which was the posted price for home heating oil in Nova Scotia on or about 1986, just some 22 years ago. The price of heating oil in Nova Scotia now is I think somewhere around 90¢ a litre, so we have gone from 26.3¢ a litre to somewhere around 90¢ and on top of that of course the new government disbanded the EnerGuide for low income houses which has made it even more difficult for families to heat their homes.

If we look at the basics of life, home heating oil in a province like Nova Scotia, where most houses are heated by oil, is not a luxury. It is an absolute necessity of life that one has to heat one's home. At 26.3¢ a litre, even 22 years ago, it was a lot easier to do that than at almost 90¢ a litre today. I think that consumers have a right to ask, where is the protection and is it a fair price?

Consumers are concerned about many things. I think that certainly the bill could address some of those things because people are nervous. What the bill would do is ensure that there is proper scrutiny on what is supposed to be a competitive market and appropriate penalties when companies, large big companies, abuse their right on the open market and are unfair to consumers.

The bill is very similar to Bill C-19 that was brought in during the last Parliament and that was in response to a report released by the Standing Committee on Industry in 2002, entitled “A Plan to Modernize Canada's Competition Regime”.

One of the things that I often talk to my constituents about, and I talk a lot in high schools about, is the work that Parliament does outside of question period and even outside of this chamber, and the fact that committees can do a lot of good work. The committee that I sit on now is the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. We released a report recently that was very good. The committee was well chaired by the government member for Niagara West—Glanbrook and the work that was done was very positive.

This obviously was a report done in 2002 following up on the VanDuzer report, an independent study of the Competition Act, that was requested at that time by John Manley, who was the minister of industry, and a good one.

The committee worked hard on the report, consulting widely with stakeholders and provided a comprehensive report with a list of recommendations to bring Canada's competition laws up to date. Canada was one of the first industrial countries in the world to adopt a competition or anti-trust law.

Competition legislation is intended to prevent monopolies and price conspiracies that work against the interests of consumers. The Competition Act, Canada's competition legislation, is administered by the Competition Bureau, an independent federal agency.

The way companies and corporations do business has changed a lot in recent years because of new technologies, mainly in communications and transport. Of course, we have had the globalization of trade and a number of government and private members' bills have been introduced to try to cope with these changes.

Bill C-454 is a bill that is similar to Bill C-19, introduced in the 38th Parliament, but some amendments have been added which I think reflect the work of the committee in 2002.

Bill C-454 would, among other things, do the following: authorize the Commissioner of Competition to inquire into an entire industry; create administrative monetary penalties, AMPs, for abuse of dominant position; increase administrative monetary penalties for deceptive marketing, which I think is something else that a lot of consumers are looking for some action on; and repeal provisions dealing specifically with the airline industry, which has been an intermittently scrutinized industry.

At the time that the study did its work, just after the coming together of Air Canada and Canadian Airlines, there were concerns about that. I think there are still concerns about the airline industry and while I am talking about this, I want to commend my colleague from Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, who is bringing forward a private member's bill for an airline passengers bill of rights, which also reflects issues that I hear in my constituency from people who have concerns.

Bill C-454 would repeal criminal provisions for price discrimination, predatory pricing, discriminatory promotional allowances and geographic price discrimination. It would authorize the court to make an order requiring a person who made a false or misleading representation to compensate persons affected by that and to issue an interim injunction to freeze assets. It would allow for these AMPs that would abuse their dominant position in the industry. Now there are criminal penalties, but we need to go beyond that to allow for these other direct penalties to be put in place.

When we talk about consumers and a free market, I think that in general, Canadians would support the fact that we have a free market and would say that it works, but it causes concern when we have price spikes, and it happens in gasoline and heating oil, it has happens in insurance, and it happens in many areas. We are hearing now, with the potential of a downturn in the economy, that food prices are going up, and of course we have the international issue of food scarcity and the hungriest people on this planet are once again those who are penalized the most by that.

All these sorts of issues are causing Canadians concern and to wonder how they are going to pay their bills, how they are going to fill their oil tanks, how they are going to fill their cars, how they are going to afford groceries, how they are going to afford shelter, what will happens if the economy continues to deteriorate, and what will happen if manufacturing jobs continue to go elsewhere.

Other industries such as forestry continue to suffer. An awful lot of consumers are very worried and I think they look to Parliament and to their representatives to say that we believe in a free market and we think that this is the best way to have it, but if we believe that competition works and if we believe in capitalism and that there is in fact a free market, then it has to be free. We cannot allow large companies to have a half free, half closed market which always benefits them. It is important that there be direct action that can be taken to protect consumers in that case.

This bill is complex and it is important that we give this to the committee. The industry committee in 2002 did a good job in having a look at this. That is what committees do well. They call witnesses, talk to consumers, talk to consumer groups, talk to business advocates, and talk to the people who are most affected to consider the work that needs to be done.

Stakeholders and other interested parties will have an opportunity to make recommendations or changes as this goes forward. I am pleased to stand here today and support in principle this bill, so that we can let the industry committee do further work.

[Committees of the House, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

[Business of Supply, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will preface my comments by suggesting that the member for Brant, probably more than any other member I can think of in this House, is a person of civility and conducts himself in a way we should all aspire to.

As I have said, I come from a military riding. I have met with a number of people who have served in Afghanistan and with families who have lost beloved family members in Afghanistan. There have been a number from Nova Scotia. My colleague from Cape Breton—Canso would know that. I think we have eight or nine members from Nova Scotia.

It is a very sobering experience to talk to people who have lost family members. It is a very informative experience to talk to people who have served in Afghanistan and their learning must not be lost.

[Business of Supply, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that is not one of the usual zingers we get from the member for Timmins—James Bay. I appreciate his comments.

I do recall when we voted in March 2006 discussing this with a colleague of his, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, the day of the vote. He had some issues and he voted the way he felt was right. I voted the way I felt. It does not mean that we feel any less well toward our troops.

People know that his colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore is a strong supporter of the troops as are the members over here. I should also say that, I agree, one of the biggest decisions we can make is to move troops into harm's way, move Canadian citizens into harm's way.

I also believe it is a huge decision for Canada to not put more money into international development in other parts of the world. There are millions of citizens in this world who are dying everyday because they do not get the assistance they deserve, frankly, from some of the richer nations. Those are the kinds of equations that I have wrestled with in my own head, as I am sure he and other members have as well.

It is an important motion and we need to move forward. This place works at its best and the great episodes in parliamentary history in Canada were done in a tone of civility, not in a tone of nastiness. We should do that as often as we can.

[Business of Supply, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity today to discuss this important motion that is before the House. The mission in Afghanistan is of extreme importance to Canadians. It has caused a lot of discussion, some dissension and spirited public debate from coast to coast to coast. The House passed a motion a month ago that was supported by the government and by the official opposition, but the motion thus far has not been enacted.

I want to talk a little from a personal point of view as a member of Parliament from a community that has a large military population, that has a lot of veterans and that takes service very seriously.

I supported Canada's purpose in entering Afghanistan some six years ago. This is a NATO-led mission under the express authority of the United Nations at the invitation of the Afghan government. Our role, however, has evolved over the last six years. I would not be truthful if I did not say that it has caused me some concern over that period of time.

One of my own personal passions is Canada's place in the world, in Afghanistan certainly, but more particularly for me in international development and development assistance, and Canada's role in assisting the poorest of the poor. I have had a concern that Canada's international development assistance program has been largely gobbled up and dedicated to Afghanistan, possibly to the detriment of other places in the world. That causes me concern. There are a lot of places where Canada should play a role in the world, Darfur being a prime example, but there are others as well.

However, I also have heard from those who have been to Afghanistan, those who have served, those who have been there and those who understand the situation there, and they tell me that there are significant improvements in the way of life of the Afghan people.

As I say, I come from a military area and I have in my riding many serving members of the Canadian Forces and many veterans. The highlights of my constituency work include a lot of military events: the Battle of the Atlantic, the Battle of Britain, D-Day and Remembrance Day. These are all very important. When one lives in the community of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, as I do, one is constantly reminded of the sacrifice of those who have served and of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

For me, the mission hit home in a very profound way on March 2, 2006. On that day I flew home from Ottawa. When I arrived in Halifax along with other members of Parliament and turned on my BlackBerry, it was buzzing with the news of the death of Corporal Paul Davis, 2nd Battalion, Prince Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, one of the first deaths in Afghanistan.

It struck home for many of us because we knew his family. Jim Davis, his father, is a very good friend of mine. On the way in from the airport that day, I called Jim and expressed my condolences on the loss of his son. He was obviously distraught, but people who saw him that day and as he was interviewed on the news that night were struck by a number of things, most particularly by his belief that his son had died for a good cause and that before he had served overseas they had in fact talked about that.

On that same day, Master Corporal Timothy Wilson from Grande Prairie, Alberta was killed, and a number of Canadians were wounded. It was one of the first times that we had to deal with that as a nation: the shocking news that we had lost a serving member of the Canadian Forces.

Two months later, we had the vote in the House in May 2006. After some consideration, I supported the extension of the mission, and I believe still that it was the right thing to do. Over the past couple of years our troops have continued their work and the country has continued to debate the progress of the mission.

In January, the Manley panel issued its report and made a number of recommendations. Whether one agrees with the conclusions or not, I think Canadians should read this report. I think it lays out well not only its recommendations but how it comes to those conclusions, along with the history of the mission in Afghanistan and the reasons for being there. I think in some ways it has very frank recommendations for what should be done.

One of the things that struck me when I read it early on, because I think it is something that we need to be reminded about, is what the report states on page 8: “Informed and fair-minded Canadians can differ on the policy choices before us”.

One thing that has irritated me is the expressed belief by some members and by some Canadians in regard to those who have not supported the extension of the mission. I did support it, but I have friends in a number of political parties who did not. It offends me when they are referred to as friends of the Taliban or when they are told that they care more about the Taliban than they do about Canadian servicemen and servicewomen. That is not right. That allusion in the report to the fact that we can disagree and differ on these choices is I think very important.

The report makes a number of recommendations. It talks about the 1,000 more troops, the medium lift helicopters and the high performance UAVs. It also makes some other recommendations. On page 20, it states:

Important issues of Canadian diplomacy and aid in Afghanistan have scarcely been acknowledged and seldom asserted in public by ministers or officials responsible. Canada’s ambassadors in Kabul, NATO and other capitals have had limited authority to explain Canadian policy. The Panel believes that this information deficit needs to be redressed immediately in a comprehensive and more balanced communication strategy of open and continuous engagement with Canadians.

It also talks about the necessity of moving to reconstruction and development to better assess our progress. If we are going to have people serving overseas, we need to have very strict benchmarks and metrics for measuring how we are doing, as well as the franker reporting.

On February 8, the government tabled its motion on Afghanistan. The tabling of the motion itself in some ways did not follow a recommendation on page 34 of the Manley report, which states, “Parliament might wish to defer judgment on Canada’s future in Afghanistan until the NATO summit”, which is the one in April, “ is concluded”.

Nonetheless, it came before the House and we had a discussion here. People will recall the debate that happened and the amendment that was put forward by the Liberals, which bought the support of both the government and the official opposition. I continue to believe to this day that this motion, as amended, is something that sits very comfortably both in my head and in my heart as we try to deal with what is the right thing to do in Afghanistan and what Canada's role is supposed to be.

I think we need to improve communications with Canadians. We have heard that not just from the report of the Manley commission but from Canadians, who want to be informed about what is happening in the mission. That is not to say that there are not some occurrences or instances where they cannot, but I think we all understand that happens. However, as a matter of policy, as often as possible we need to communicate that and we need to have that debate also take place in the Parliament of Canada.

Decisions have to be made by the government, and we all accept that, but the discussion has to take place in Parliament. The motion that was put forward and passed by the House called for improved communication with Canadians, or in other words shedding more light on this mission, and for setting dates for our move to reconstruction and redevelopment.

There is a lot of work that should be done in Afghanistan. There is a lot of poverty, gender inequity and even issues of environment that could be dealt with in a more effective way. We need to make the transition to that work and then we need to exit. Tonight we vote again on a motion very similar to the last one that was passed by the House.

The mission in Afghanistan has consumed an awful lot of public debate. It has caused some good discussion to happen in this country and I suspect that it has caused some bad discussion to happen in this country, but that is the fact of life with most issues we deal with.

We should pass this motion tonight. I urge other parties to support it. Let us move on with this special committee and get the work done. Let us shed some light on what is happening in Afghanistan. Let us really understand how we are going to make this critical transition in 2009 and then how we are going to get out of Afghanistan and leave it a better place.

I do not believe that the solution in Afghanistan will be a military solution any more than it is in most places in a modern age. The solutions come from the people in these countries and there has to be political support. That can be enabled and helped by development. There needs to be military support for it, but we have to allow for a political solution in Afghanistan.

Let us move forward with respect for our troops and respect for each other as parliamentarians and Canadians, recognizing that nobody has a patent on patriotism. We all want to do the right thing for the Afghan people. Let us get on with it.

[Jim Connors, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Jim Connors passed away last week. This was a man who made the world better, an outstanding lawyer, business executive and public servant, supremely dedicated to his wife, Cathy, and his children.

He was a leader in every aspect of his life, an optimistic, energetic, compassionate and vibrant man who tackled life, and perhaps more remarkably, tackled his own death. He was one of those people who made people happier, stronger and better, just by being Jim.

Knowing the seriousness of his illness, he fought furiously, managed his treatments, celebrated his victories and when appropriate, prepared to die. He fought hard for public coverage of a cancer drug that he could afford but others could not.

Jim's funeral took place yesterday in Dartmouth, a beautiful Nova Scotia April day. The sun seemed to reflect his optimistic outlook about life and death, and the hints of spring renewal serve to remind us of the next generation of Jim's family, his amazing children who will make their own significant contributions to this world.

Jim would be as proud of them as they are, and we all are, of him.

[Dartmouth Work Activity Society, April 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Dartmouth Work Activity Society officially opened its new home in Dartmouth.

For over 25 years this organization has worked to help people overcome barriers to employment. It works on life skills, academic upgrading and skills development and assists in job placements such as food service, office skills, woodworking and janitorial services.

For Canada to be competitive we need to maximize the potential of every individual. It is good for all citizens and necessary for a country such as Canada to remain competitive.

Organizations such as the Dartmouth Work Activity Society are community champions and work for all of us. The board members, led by Barb Hart, deserve our thanks for their vision, determination and leadership in enabling this move to a new facility. The staff members, led by Colin Herbert, are hard working and inspiring.

Government partners such as the Nova Scotia Community Services and Service Canada, along with community organizations such as the United Way and the private sector partners that donated, came together to make this new building a reality.

I extend congratulations to the Dartmouth Work Activity Society and best wishes as it continues its great work in helping people find their way back to meaningful employment. I know it will keep up the great work.