Pat Martin

[Patent Act, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to enter into the debate on Bill C-274. I would like to begin by paying tribute to my colleague from Windsor West, who is the sponsor of this important piece of legislation, and to recognize the contribution he has made to this debate. It is safe to say that among those of us here he has become known as somewhat of a champion on this issue of providing accessible, affordable, necessary pharmaceutical products to the Canadian public within the confines and parameters of a fair system, but one that provides access to necessary drugs without bankrupting the system.

I should point out that Bill C-274 relates to access to less costly pharmaceutical products. What could be more poignant, timely or topical as we all wrestle with the problem of our health care system and the difficulty in providing these basic needs to Canadians. We know that the quickest growing aspect of our health care system is the exorbitant prices that we are paying for necessary life-saving drugs.

I begin by simply recognizing how important the job is that my colleague from Windsor West has done in bringing this important issue to the House of Commons today.

This bill has been stripped down to its most lean form. One could sum it up by simply saying that the bill seeks to repeal the patented medicines notice of compliance regulations. We argue that Canada's notice of compliance regulations regime fosters an anti-competitive behaviour among drug manufacturers. It is antithetical to what needs to be done in our pharmaceutical industry, in that it does not encourage research and development and innovation. It means that Canadians, governments, hospitals and benefit providers are paying more for drugs than would be necessary if a fair system were in place.

After careful consideration of this issue, my colleague from Windsor West has arrived at the conclusion that the single most effective thing he could do to enable more Canadians to get the drugs they need at affordable prices is to repeal the regime known now as the patented medicines notice of compliance regulations.

It would be helpful to look at a bit of the history. From the 1920s to the 1980s our government played a key role in limiting market monopolies on pharmaceutical products. In the interests of access and competition, our government played an interventionist role to limit and restrict the possibility of monopolies. The regulations that we talk about took their first form relatively recently, in 1993, in a bill which I think we can all remember, the infamous Bill C-91, billed as the biggest corporate giveaway. The biggest corporate sellout in Canadian history was Bill C-91. We remember it with great regret as a turning point in the health of our health care system.

Compulsory licensing, I should explain, allowed a non-patent holder to compete with lower priced versions. The compulsory licence issue was done away with in Bill C-91. This is one of the most dangerous elements. People sounded the alarm. I remember the NDP passionately fighting against Bill C-91 at the time. The debates were very public and high profile.

It seemed that pressure from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1988 and then subsequently NAFTA in 1994 exerted enormous pressures that radically altered the way Canada dealt with pharmaceutical patents.

The compulsory licensing aspect was one of the changes. In fact a federal commission of inquiry in 1985 concluded that the use of compulsory licensing had saved hundreds of millions of dollars in the health care system at the time, had no adverse impact on the research and development of pharmaceutical products, or on the multinational drug companies regarding investment in research and development. It was found and held to be true in 1985 that government intervention in the form of compulsory licensing of real competition was saving money.

That reason and logic was thrown out the window in those days in the rush to implement the free trade agreement. Whoever negotiated these things on behalf of Canada I have always maintained should be dragged into the streets and shot because they really did sell us down the road. The names of the chief negotiators of the free trade agreement and NAFTA should live in infamy in Canadian history for what they did to us. We remember now the impact of NAFTA and the free trade agreement radically altering the way Canada deals with pharmaceutical patents.

If another federal commission of inquiry were held today, it would likely find the exact inverse of the 1985 findings. This radical shift in government policy that my colleague from Windsor West is trying to address has undermined the possibility of government to retain some element of control over pharmaceutical pricing to ensure that Canadians have access to affordable pharmaceuticals at the pharmacy counter and in our public health care system.

There is a contradiction in that there is a gap we cannot even span between the stated purpose of these notice of compliance regulations and the actual results of them. In actual fact the purpose of the NOC regulations was to protect patent rights, et cetera. Rather than protecting legitimate patent rights, these NOC regulations have actually incorporated and caused an abuse of litigation options and in fact of people extending, artificially some would add, the patent protection for a period longer than the 20 years, which we argue is already very generous.

I see I am running out time, so I will simply cite some of the key issues that others may not have touched on. One is evergreening, which implies the perpetual renewal of patents with small or insignificant changes or modifications to an existing drug. This is a bastardization of the patent protection that was agreed to under international guidelines and in our bilateral trade agreement with the United States. It is being abused widely. I will give an example.

In 2003, 103 patents were added to the patent registry by brand name companies but there were only 16 actual new substances approved. In other words, these patents were being listed based on a change in the colour of the pill, based on a change in the recommended dosage. The tiniest, most insignificant excuses are being used to provide a monopoly on these drugs, where companies can charge the highest possible amount without worrying about generic competition. This is what is killing us, figuratively and literally in some cases, because Canadians cannot afford the drugs they need because we are shackled by these monopolistic biases built into the system.

My colleague has tried to address this by eliminating the notice of compliance regulations within the drug patent review mechanism. I commend my colleague from Windsor West for being bold enough to bring this initiative before the House of Commons on behalf of Canadians who deserve access to life-saving drugs. If that means standing up to big pharma now and then, we are not afraid to do it. We are not going to sit and listen to apologists for big pharma justify the rip-off of the system in the form of billions of dollars. We are being fleeced by big pharma. My colleague from Windsor West and the NDP caucus are trying to address that. We should all stand up and support my colleague's bill today.

[Committees of the House, April 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Wild Rose. One of his best qualities is the plain language and the straight talk that he brings to the House of Commons. That is what makes people admire his tenure and his many years as an MP.

There is one point that I would like to leave people with as I finish my opportunity to speak. If we spent more time at the front end of our spending in the estimates process and less time after the fact reviewing what we have already spent, which is the public accounts and Auditor General process, Canadians would at least know what the government plans on doing. That is not too much to ask.

We have to reverse things somehow and spend more of our energy and resources at the front end, make the government justify and defend what it plans to spend, and why it is going to spend it. The former minister from the province of Manitoba could tell us, I believe, that the estimates process is a much more rigid activity in that province. Ministers there have to really know their books and budget because they are going to be grilled by the committee on every budget line they plan to spend. We do not do that here. We do not do enough of it and we would be better off if we did.

[Committees of the House, April 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Mississauga South for his lengthy preamble and short question, but I would like to quote my colleague, who is also a vice-chair of the government operations committee. At the very meeting in question, on Tuesday, March 8, the member for Mississauga South said:

I would, however, suggest that in reporting back on the supplementaries, we append a note that expresses our concern about the shortness of the time, in that it did not permit us to do a proper job, and that we fully intend to pursue this with regard to a change in the Standing Orders.

That is a quote from the committee Hansard, verbatim, of the member for Mississauga South. He has been sent here with a mission to defend the government, but he forgot what he himself said at the committee. He cannot have it both ways.

My argument is that members here do not need training to do their job well. They need opportunity. I think it is a little cavalier to say that maybe the members would do a better job if they were given an educational tutorial on how supplementary estimates work.

We know how they work. I have been here a long time, as has my colleague. We think we do not have the opportunity to do our jobs properly or are being denied that opportunity by a system that does not really demonstrate a commitment to transparency and accountability.

[Committees of the House, April 20th, 2005]

His best gamble would be to act like Jimmy Swaggart and prostrate himself before Canadians and beg their forgiveness. That is what I would advise him to do, but in all likelihood he probably intends to try to defend the indefensible.

Were we able to question the Prime Minister on any one single thing that we have found failing in the time we have spent here as members of Parliament and as members of the government operations committee, we would have to say to him that the notion of transparency and accountability has not been the reality in my experience.

I am sad to say that, because I believe most members of Parliament want to do a thorough job. They want to represent the interests of the people who sent them here. They want to be aggressive watchdogs of public spending. But we do not have the tools to do that unless we pass the motion as put forward by my colleague today, which is the report of the House of Commons standing committee.

In question period today, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, a man who is the dean of Parliament and has the respect of Parliament, stood up and chewed out the Prime Minister for, in his mind, the failure to act on the democratic deficit by ignoring the will of Parliament in situations just like this.

The member for Elmwood--Transcona cited four or five examples where we have moved concurrence in a report of a committee and passed it in a majority vote of Parliament, directing the Government of Canada to do a specific thing. The Air-India inquiry is one example. The motions then are ignored as if they were just minor irritants, just another thing to get through in a busy day.

When Parliament speaks, government is supposed to listen. Government is supposed to implement the will of Parliament. Otherwise, there is no respect for Parliament and we are just wasting our time here.

I raise this only to emphasize that when we finish this debate today on this concept, this notion put forward in good faith by a unanimous vote of the government operations and estimates committee, that when we are finished debating it for three hours today, it comes to a vote. If the vote of concurrence passes, as I expect it will, the Government of Canada will ignore that vote at its peril.

If the Liberals decide not to implement the will of Parliament in this, which is yet another example, then going to the nation tomorrow night at 7:45 p.m. and begging for forgiveness is not going to help them. They will be doomed. I predict that the wrath of Canadians will be upon them, certainly the wrath of those representatives of Canadians who make up the House of Commons. We will do it for them. If the Canadian people do not have a chance to tell the Liberal government what they think of it, it is up to us to tell the Liberal government what we think of it and we will do that at every opportunity.

As the vice-chair of the government operations and estimates committee, I support my chair, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright, in his efforts to drive this message home.

This is perhaps the shortest report that I have ever seen from a parliamentary committee. We wanted to keep it simple. We did not want to cloud this issue with unnecessary language. We did not want to mix issues. This is a single message. It is not pluralistic in any way. It deals specifically with the length of time we should be given to review and study the supplementary estimates when they come before our committee. Nothing could be more straightforward. The figure that we agreed to at committee and which is in the report is 21 days' advance notice. That is not too much to ask for a billion dollars worth of spending.

We are not talking about 21 sitting days of our committee. We are talking about 21 calendar days, during which time the committee would have had perhaps two or three meetings but during which time researchers and people working on our behalf could develop material and opinions for us to be able to do our job properly and make sound and wise judgments.

In my closing minute, I urge my colleagues to look favourably on this motion, to speak in favour of it and to restore the confidence of the Canadian people in how somebody around here cares about how their money is being managed. I would like to think that we in this chamber do and there is a way to demonstrate that: support this motion.

[Committees of the House, April 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to enter into the debate on the concurrence motion for the sixth report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

On behalf of the NDP, I welcome the opportunity to comment on the sixth report. I want to thank the member for Vegreville—Wainwright for giving us this opportunity today. This was not the regularly scheduled debate to be before the House.

As the chair of our committee, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright felt it important to bring to the attention of the House a very important and pressing issue on how the representatives in our House of Commons are managing the public finances. My colleague and friend, the chair of the committee, is doing a service to Canadians by allowing us this opportunity to reflect on this today.

By way of introduction, I am one of the vice-chairs of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. I was present when the frustration that led to this report took place. By explanation for those who have just tuned in, the very brief sixth report of the government operations committee is an expression of frustration of the members of Parliament who serve as members of that committee.

MPs, who out of good will and cooperation come to that committee on a regular basis to do the important work of being the oversight committee and the watchdogs on public spending, were very frustrated back on that day in March when we were called upon to review, study, research, comment on and entertain witnesses on the supplementary estimates of the Government of Canada in one day.

Imagine how we felt. We were given these fat volumes of budget lines, big enough that we could hardly lift and carry them. We were asked, on behalf of the people of Canada, to give our opinion and our views as to whether authority should be given to the Government of Canada to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than were estimated in the main budget estimates.

Supplementary estimates are a natural occurrence. There are some unforeseen spending necessities that come in the fiscal year of government that cannot be foreseen or anticipated by the main budget.

There are two things. In the first place, the government has a horrendous record on their main estimates. The evidence I can give is that successive ministers of finance have been so far out on the estimates that they astound everyone in the whole country who can count. Nobody can believe how far out these ministers of finance of the Liberal government have been. There is a skepticism right off the get go as we sit down at the government operations committee and we use the word “estimates”.

Second, if there are justifiable additional expenses within the course of the fiscal year that lead to the necessity of what they call supplementary estimates B, surely if the government expects the cooperation and the goodwill of the all party committee, it should be given the courtesy of letting us see those estimates and some justification for that spending well in advance to garner our support.

First, it is only courtesy and second, it is only common sense. Suffice to say it was frustrating for us as committee members.

I have a comment from one of my colleagues on that committee. He is a new member of Parliament, the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. He is a Conservative member who regularly makes good quality contributions to that committee. Here is the quote of that member from the Hansard of our committee. He said on Tuesday, March 8:

You know I'm new to this place, but to be handed the supplementary estimates on the day we leave, on a Friday, and have to come back and really, a day and a half later, vote on these...I don't believe the Canadian public thinks that's what we do with estimates or the supplementary estimates. They think we spend a great deal more time looking at them, going over them and finding where the good hard-earned money that they send up here is being spent.

This was before our week break.

I could not have said it better myself. There is an expectation in the country that we are sent here on good faith as the people's representatives to be the watchdog on their hard earned dollars. In the first hour of one committee meeting, we are supposed to make sense of this mountain of literature. It is confusing to anyone, especially lay people like us, with no rationale or justification, no little paragraph next to the budget line that says “we need this money because”. There is very little of that. We have to rely on the researchers of our committee to give us some of that.

The member for Elgin—Middlesex—London expressed his frustration quite clearly at the committee. We went around the table and everybody expressed the same frustration. They asked how we were supposed to make sense of these complicated supplementary estimates in that period of time.

We are kind of behind the eight ball because as committee members we do not want to be irresponsible and deny the ability of the federal government to meet its commitments and legal obligations. We do not want to grind the government to a halt by voting down supplementary estimates of this type. We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars.

In fact, I believe it was $1.4 billion worth of supplementary estimates, not a couple of bucks here and there, not an amount of money to make the rent at the end of the month for the government. We are talking about huge spending obligations, which, fairly or unfairly, would certainly indicate a poor budgetary process at the front end if at the back end one finds oneself $1.5 billion short in meeting obligations.

Then we have the Minister of Finance say things to the media such as the government does not want to build up expectations because it only has about a $1.9 billion surplus this year and there really will be enough money for all the regional needs. Then when the cookie jar is opened up, we find it is not a $1.9 billion surplus, it is a $9.1 billion surplus. He is dyslexic or something. He got the numbers completely wrong. I mean no disrespect to people with that affliction. Maybe he was looking in a mirror and was reading it in the inverse or he comes from some parallel universe perhaps where everything is reversed, like in the old Superman comics. Clearly, if the Minister of Finance cannot count that high, maybe he should take off his shoes and that might help him.

We go in to committee with some skepticism. However, to be asked at this late date, with virtually no notice, and to be given one day to deal with $1.4 billion worth of supplementary estimates is unfair, discourteous and an abuse of the process, in my mind, either by omission or co-mission. It is abusive to us. One could even call it a breach of privilege. I have a parliamentary expert here who will probably correct me, but I view it as a breach of my privileges. I am being denied the ability to do my job properly. I have a right as a member of Parliament in the House of Commons to exercise the tasks that have been assigned to me by the people of Canada in a thorough way, but I cannot do that when these things are plopped on my desk with virtually no advance notice.

I fully appreciate and recognize what my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright has done today to move concurrence in this report. It gives us the opportunity to ball the Liberals out, if nothing else. It gives us the opportunity to tell the Government of Canada that we are not satisfied, as the Parliament of Canada and the House of Commons of Canada, with the government's behaviour, track record, management of our funds and certainly not the way it approaches us for permission to spend more money at the end of the fiscal year.

I was one of the founding members of this relatively newly struck committee called the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We went into this with some hope and optimism that this would be an opportunity to add better scrutiny and oversight of public spending.

I come from the province of Manitoba, where the estimates process is quite different from the federal government process. Since this committee is called “government operations and estimates”, we thought that not only would we be reviewing the operations of government and trying to make sure there were efficiencies and streamlining, but we also thought we would be able to do a thorough review of the estimates process, like we do in Manitoba.

Let me back up and tell the House a bit about what that is like in Manitoba. Prior to budgets being granted in the province of Manitoba, ministers go before committees and get grilled on their estimates line by line. Here in Parliament we do a thorough analysis after the spending has been done.

The public accounts committee and the Auditor General have a thorough review of what spending took place and comment on whether they think it was wisely spent or not, if Canadian taxpayers received good value for their money or not. Very little happens at the front end. It is all after the fact. After the horse is out of the barn we get to comment on whether a good job was done.

In my home province, and I believe in Quebec and other provinces as well, the time, energy and resources are spent at the front end, before the spending takes place. A minister of the Crown has to sit before an all-party committee and defend why his department should get $100 million for X, Y or Z. That is torn apart and sometimes the minister is kept there all night long.

This has two positive consequences. First, there is a thorough oversight of what spending is anticipated and whether it is justified. Second, it forces ministers to become experts in their departments, because they have to answer the toughest of questions. They get a strip torn off them for every single budget line that says,“I need more money”. Those ministers need to prove it.

We do not do any of that here. My colleague from Elgin--Middlesex--London said in his remarks that the people of Canada would be disappointed to learn the actual facts of our estimates process. If what happened to us at the government operations committee is any example, there is none of this rigorous tearing apart of the budget in March at the government operations committee. There is a cursory overview if we have time to even flip open the book. I am not accusing members of Parliament of not doing their homework or not working hard, but we are just not allowed the time to do it properly.

Hundreds of millions of dollars, nay, billions of dollars are being spent by the government with almost no permission, no oversight and no scrutiny by members of Parliament, certainly not by opposition members of Parliament. Maybe there is some behind the scenes stuff on the government side. Who knows what those members do in their free time? But in the light of day where there is transparency and accountability, nothing goes on. I am not trying to upset or alarm Canadians unnecessarily, but I can tell members that there is not the scrutiny and oversight they expect.

I think all of us would be able to attest to the fact that transparency and accountability have become the buzzwords of Ottawa, would we not? There is no phrase more frequently used in Ottawa now than the phrase “transparency and accountability”. Where is the transparency and where is the accountability? It is almost an issue of natural justice. If we are denied access and the luxury of time to do a thorough job, that is not transparency. If we are denied a full opportunity to review estimates, that is not accountability.

Accountability is not the Government of Canada, the ruling party, being able to unilaterally and arbitrarily say it did not sharpen its pencil on the main estimates, it blew it and it needs another $1.4 billion, so “let us fire off some documents to the government operations committee and get it to okay them”. Is that good management? Is that sharpening the pencil and streamlining efficiency? Transparency and accountability may be the buzzwords in Ottawa, but they are certainly not the practice that I have seen since I have been here.

I have just learned by the magic of BlackBerry that the Prime Minister will be addressing the nation on Thursday night at 7:45 p.m. He is giving a state of the nation address. Maybe he will say something substantive about accountability and transparency.

[Points of Order, April 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, April 14 the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, in answering questions from the official opposition, made frequent reference to a document that he called a review of the books of the Liberal Party and at other times called an audit of the books of the Liberal Party of Canada. He made reference to the authors of the document as being Pricewaterhouse and I believe PricewaterhouseCoopers & Lybrand at different times. Given that the minister of the Crown made reference to the document, I believe he has an obligation to table that document in the House of Commons so that we may have the benefit of viewing the content of the reference that he made.

Having said that, as a point of order, I request that the Chair ask the Minister of Public Works and Government Services to table in the House the document he called the audit or the review of the books of the Liberal Party of Canada.

[Art Coulter, April 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the working people of Manitoba had no greater friend than Art Coulter who passed away on April 11.

Art dedicated his long and full life to elevating the standards of wages and working conditions for all Manitobans. After serving in the second world war, Art helped organize the union at Canada Malting, became secretary-treasurer of the Winnipeg Labour Council, executive secretary to the Manitoba Federation of Labour, and was elected to Winnipeg City Council.

A lifelong supporter of the New Democratic Party, Art served as the official agent for Stanley Knowles through seven federal elections and over 25 years. Art has been recognized with an honorary Doctorate of Laws, the Order of Manitoba, and many service awards. Perhaps his greatest legacy is the gratitude and appreciation of his brothers and sisters in the labour movement, and in the international struggle for social and economic justice.

Art Coulter, a social democrat, a life well lived, was a great Canadian.

[Income Tax Act, April 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased, on behalf of the NDP, to join in the debate on Bill C-285 and to hopefully build on the comments of some of my colleagues.

We too feel very strongly that Bill C-285 is a good bill. It speaks to the very direction that we should be going in trying to promote more young people to go into sports, whether it be at the highest level or at the lowest level, in neighbourhood hockey rinks or soccer fields.

As my colleague said, Olympic athletes, the high level athletes, have to start somewhere. They do not start at age 25 to seek to be a medal winning Olympian. They start at knee-high to a grasshopper, and that is when they need encouragement.

Bill C-285 is an example of a way we could use our taxation system for a number of things such as paying for necessary services. We could also use it to nudge people in the direction we want them to go and to steer them away from things we do not want them to do. For example, we put heavy taxes on cigarettes because we would rather people did not smoke.

We could also use positive taxation measures to encourage people to do things for their general well-being, for their health and their happiness and for the sake of our health care system which is already burdened with a generation of people who are less than healthy.

Bill C-285, put forward by my colleague from Cypress Hills--Grasslands, in some small measure recognizes the fact that we could encourage amateur athletics with our taxation system, with a very modest proposal.

I notice the bill is only one page long. In fact, it is only one paragraph long. It says that an individual could deduct income up to $8,000 donated to an amateur athlete from a non-profit club, society or organization. In other words, if the Manitoba Speed Skating Association donated $8,000 to a champion like Clara Hughes to subsidize her training, then Clara Hughes could write that money off. The $8,000 would not be viewed as income. It would be an acknowledgement by the federal government that it would be in all our interests to encourage Clara Hughes to continue making Winnipeg proud of her.

A world-class speed skating oval is in the heart of my riding of Winnipeg Centre which is heavily subsidized by volunteers, non-profit organizations, charity clubs and community centres. Imagine on a crisp cold Winnipeg night of -20° or -30° the sound of those long blades cutting into that flawless ice. To stop for a moment and watch somebody of the calibre of Clara Hughes carve that ice in that long track speed skating is a thing of beauty. I myself do not grace that ice because I would not want to spoil it with my clumsy efforts. However, there are people in Winnipeg who make us very proud.

If we reach our Olympic goal in the 2006 Winter Olympics of 25 medals, I am will say right here and now, and I can be quoted on this, that 10 out of those 25 medals will be won in speed skating. I also believe that seven out of ten of those medals will be awarded to Winnipeg speed skaters because where I come from we take that seriously.

The only thing holding amateur sports back in this country is the lack of financial support. In the absence of any real commitment to comprehensively subsidize amateur sport, the government should at least consider measures such as Bill C-285 which would put a bit more money in the pockets of our amateur athletes who struggle for their craft and art in spite of overwhelming financial adversity and sacrifice and who continue to maintain their craft and make Canadians proud.

An hon. member asked me when I skate on a skating rink, if I skate to the right or skate to the left. One has to be creative or else the ice wears out. We could view this as a metaphor for the political arena. If we only skated in one direction, we would wear a path or a rut in the ice. It would not be effective and we might trip and fall, so we try to balance things from where I come.

This is a type of creative measure. I should recognize that my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore has a very similar private member's initiative saying that all money spent on amateur sport should be tax deductible. He thinks that if $100 is spent for one's child to play soccer, then it should be deductible. I would go that far, too. I would support my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore. We know we have a generation of kids who are not as healthy as even we were when we were playing freely outdoors.

I know young parents now will not let their kids just go out and play on the front street the way we used to, or run around until dark, horsing around in the neighbourhood. They have to be supervised for their own safety. I do not think they get the same amount of physical activity that we did in our schools.

I have talked to family doctors who have said that they have 10 year old and 12 year old children coming in overweight with high cholesterol. Imagine a 10 year old or 12 year old child whose arteries are clogged with cholesterol because of their diet, lifestyle and lack of physical activity. Not only can we pretty well count on those people not being a medal winning Olympic athletes, but the quality of their lives are going to be jeopardized throughout their entire lives. Kids who cannot participate in sports do not enjoy life as much and do not become such well-rounded children.

If this in any way helps our amateur athletes to carry on with their first love, the sport that they have chosen, or in the case of someone like Clara Hughes, the two sports that she has chosen, and then won Olympic medals in both I should point out, then for heaven's sakes those of us in the House of Commons should be willing to entertain it at least to the point of passing it at second reading and getting it to committee where we can do a careful analysis and perhaps some messaging to ensure that it is practical, feasible and realistic.

I believe this measure could be costed out fairly accurately so we would know the cost to the Government of Canada in terms of lost revenue. I do not suspect it is a huge amount of money. I know the Government of Canada plans on spending a fair amount of money on amateur sport. It does not want to be embarrassed at the 2010 Winter Olympics, which we are hosting in Whistler, B.C. However, it could factor into its overall subsidization of amateur sport perhaps the cost of this measure, which is a realistic way to put money back in the hands of the athletes.

It also is a motivation for non-profit fundraising organizations to raise more money for amateur sport, knowing that the money they give to the athlete will not be taxed. In other words, if we raise $1,000 to subsidize Clara Hughes in her speed skating efforts, we would know that the whole $1,000 would go to Clara Hughes. I think it is more of a motivation for people who donate money if they know the money will not be gobbled up in administration or, God forbid, be taxed back by the federal government.

There are a multitude of benefits to the bill. We would be wise to look at it . If we listen to the amateur athletes across the country, they are telling us they can do it if we support them. They say they can deliver, make us proud and affect a whole generation in terms of health.

I suppose one thing we cannot ignore is the benefit it would be to our public health system. As we know, it is creaking under the strain of aging baby boomers who are putting unbelievable stress on the system. If can create a generation of young people who are healthier, they are going to be happier. They will not be the burden on our health care system. In other words, it is a penny wise and pound foolish situation. If we can find a way to promote amateur sport, we will all benefit in the near and distant future.

[Committees of the House, April 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, while I support the idea of my colleague from the Liberal Party, the chair of the environment committee, that this issue be sent back to committee and that we move a fulsome motion to accurately reflect the plan of Assembly of First Nations, he does a disservice to the debate by trying to soft sell how bad the current system is.

Any objective observer would concede that the current system is a catastrophic failure. The government is spending millions of dollars trying to paint victims as liars. What we are proposing is a lump sum compensation package where eligibility should be based on the fact that a person was there.

If someone was a student or a prisoner in one of these residential schools, in my view that person is eligible for compensation. I do not care how many times a person was touched or by whom. I do not care how big the stick was with which the person was beaten. I am not going to make people relive the horror of abuse they went through. Compensation should be based on the fact that a person was a student in one of those horrible institutions. To hear my colleague soft sell it does a disservice to the whole debate.

I am here to suggest that we should be voting against the motion for concurrence put forward by the Conservatives. The member and I agree on that point, but we certainly do not say that the status quo is in any way acceptable.

What we should move forward with is a three part recommendation that mirrors the report of the Assembly of First Nations, which calls for: first, lump sum blanket compensation to all victims so the $1.7 billion, which the Canadian people set aside for compensation, goes into the pockets of the victims; second, a full apology from the Prime Minister of Canada in the House of Commons to acknowledge this stain on our Canadian history; and third, a comprehensive truth and reconciliation process not just for the survivors to come forward to tell their stories but for both sides of this shameful piece of our history to begin healing. This would mean non-aboriginal Canadians, the churches and the government agents who put in place these horror stories.

Would my colleague, the chair of the environment committee, agree with me that the status quo is an abysmal failure and that what is necessary are the three steps I just outlined, as proposed by the Assembly of First Nations and the experts who wrote this report?

[Committees of the House, April 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that my colleague from Churchill River truly cares about this issue because we sat through that experience together at the committee and listened to life-changing testimony. I do not think that is overstating things. We should put in perspective that we only had a couple of days of testimony. There are many more stories that we never heard. Therefore I fully accept all the points that my colleague from Churchill River made.

What I do not understand though is why the motion that his party has put forward does not address the very points that he raised. For instance, if he believes in lump sum, universal, blanket compensation for all victims so that they do not have to be revictimized by the application process, then why will he not support a motion that calls for blanket, lump sum compensation?

The motion he has put forward specifically does not. It is very careful not to. The Globe and Mail made it clear that the Conservative Party's motion did not call for blanket universal compensation. It stated that the motion calls for scrapping the alternative dispute resolution system but asks for nothing to be put in its place. It does not call for an apology from the Prime Minister. It does not call for a truth and reconciliation process. It only talks about having a process where the survivors can tell their story.

As much as I would like to agree with my colleague on his entire speech, I can only say that his observations are correct and I share his concerns over what we heard collectively as a committee, but I am confused as to why he is defending a motion that falls short of the very points that he has identified as being necessary to provide justice and reconciliation.