Mike Wallace

[Income Tax, November 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, recently the Liberal leader had the audacity to claim that our government had not taken action to tackle poverty. That is quite the statement from a leader whose own MPs, like the member for York Centre, openly admit that the Liberals have not done well in the past in combatting poverty. It is also astonishing coming from someone who is against our working income tax benefit.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance please explain the importance of this measure?

[The Environment, November 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of the Environment returned to Hamilton Harbour-Burlington Bay and demonstrated our government's commitment to action on cleaning up environmental hot spots in the Great Lakes by announcing $30 million for the Hamilton Harbour.

The mayor of Hamilton, eternally grateful to the Minister of the Environment, said to him, “You have made a fundamental and significant difference in the way this city is going to develop”.

Can the Minister of the Environment tell this House how this $30 million will help the Hamilton and Burlington area?

[Canada Elections Act, November 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am getting more and more frustrated.

In September there was a special meeting of the committee held here in Ottawa. All parties agreed that we needed to deal with the issue. All parties. That includes the Liberal members on that committee.

What I am hearing from the member today is that it does not matter what the parliamentarians had to say about it. The question he just answered was, who decided to bring this here and why was it an issue? It was the committee that decided it was an issue. It encouraged us to bring forward a bill. We have done it.

We would like to get the bill to committee for further discussion on any changes that are needed. I am not asking what the member's party is doing. Will the member support sending the bill to committee so that the committee can deal with the issues he has raised today?

[Canada Elections Act, November 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech on this important item. I am a little confused and want some clarification. In September, all parties in this House supported a motion that the Canada Elections Act be amended to ensure that persons voting at the polls be required to show their faces for identification purposes.

In his speech, the member talked about the bill getting to committee. Is the hon. member going to vote for this bill to move to committee so he can discuss some of his issues? Is he still in support of what the House unanimously supported in September?

[Business of Supply, November 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I continue to read the motion in front of us today. Part of it reads:

--specifically including a program to support businesses that wish to update their production facilities, a series of investments and tax measures to support research and development...a review of the trade laws to better protect our companies against unfair competition--

My question to the parliamentary secretary is this. Is this not exactly what we are doing? Why is the Bloc Québécois trying to bring this forward? Those members should be celebrating and thanking the government for moving on these items instead of saying that we are not doing anything when we are actually doing something. Could the parliamentary secretary comment on that item?

[Business of Supply, November 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the other side for his speech regarding the opposition day motion.

I have been sitting here all morning listening to the speeches. My colleagues from the Bloc Québécois have made a number of points. I am very glad that they will never form the Government of Canada. They would drive us so far to the left that we would not be able to see back from that spot. Their tax and spend policies would be unbelievably bad for this country. Thank God they will be always on that side of the House in a small corner, which hopefully will be even smaller after the next election.

I take a little offence with some of the comments, not just from the member, but the Bloc members who spoke previously, in talking about big bad companies doing things. I am from a riding which has a number of small manufacturers, not that the forest industry is a small manufacturer, but they are desperate for employees. Things are tough, obviously, with the dollar. They understand that. At the end of the day, it is people in Canada, employees, who make things, not big bad companies, as if they do not exist. Companies would not exist without people.

Does the member not understand that the unemployment rate is at an all time low in this country? What would the Bloc do to improve the unemployment rate?

[Phthalate Control Act, November 1st, 2007]

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member who brought Bill C-307 forward. It is important and I know he wanted me to speak from my heart, so that is what I am going to do. He did not want me to speak from paper, so I am not going to speak from paper. I want to say why it is important.

It is important to my family. I have had a close family member, my mother actually, who has had very serious operations all her life, been in the hospital numerous times as a child, as a young adult and as an adult. She has very serious complications and issues that she has to deal with in relation to her health and the operations required.

Never in my life would I have every thought that we had to worry about the bags that were hanging from the gurneys and in the beds that were keeping her alive, and keeping her well, that there may have been other issues that I was not aware of other than the immediate issue facing my mother.

I appreciate that the member, and members of the House, have taken the time to study the issue, to look at what the problems might be with these things so that the public knows. What we are talking is some of the chemicals that go into those medical devices, and I use this as an example, that make those things flexible, to make them more usable.

The bill, once passed, would make some changes or potential changes based on scientific evidence, that will make it safer for my mother and women like her, that when they are in there for other serious issues, that they do not have to worry, and their families do not have--

[Phthalate Control Act, November 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his speech on this private member's bill. It is a very interesting piece. I understand there is a bit of a consensus around the room to make sure that this chemical issue is dealt with in an appropriate manner, but part of our job as members of Parliament, particularly on the government side, is to make sure that we put on the record what we want to do in terms of chemical management in those areas.

I just want to know whether there is a reason he does not think it is appropriate that we get an opportunity, as members of Parliament, to speak to his private member's bill. Why is he in a rush to collapse the debate here tonight?

[Sitting Resumed, November 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to ensure that the House is aware and clear on the facts. I also have a question that goes along with the facts.

A number of members have made mention, including the previous speaker, that we have not been investing federally as a government in child care spaces. If they disagree with the $100 per child, per family, under the age of six, that is fine.

However, I want to point out that Bill C-52 was passed in the House on June 22, 2007 and received royal assent. A section in the act, if they would care to read it, is called child care spaces. The finance minister is authorized to give $250 million to the provinces to create child care spaces in the provinces. It was set up. The provinces have the responsibility and the expertise for developing child care spaces.

The question should be: Where did the money go? It was included in the social transfer; $250 million annually.

My question is for the member. Can you remember what the Liberals put in their implementation bills--

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Trinity—Spadina in the GTA, with which I am familiar being from Burlington.

I very much appreciate that the NDP member wants to talk about debt and debt reduction. It is obvious to her that debt is an issue for individuals and families. It is obvious to us that debt is a problem for Canadians in general and the government is in deep debt and we need to get out of it.

This year we put down $14.2 billion on the debt. In the previous year, we put $13.2 billion on the debt and then, with Advantage Canada, the program that we have been promoting and that we want everybody to support, for every dollar saved by not having to pay interest, that money will go to tax cuts to help working families in Ontario, Toronto and every province in the country. In two years we---