Peter MacKay

[Privilege, December 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this is simply to support the position that has been taken by my friend from Yorkton--Melville and to reiterate, as has been clearly stated, that members of Parliament, in relying upon that information, not only should and do expect that information to come in a timely fashion, but that the answers themselves must be accurate and reliable.

The irony of course is that within this context of the gun registry, one of the complaints about the evidence that is to be registered is that it is not accurate and reliable. That is the exact point here to be concentrated on. If the information that comes forward is not complete and not fulsome it is the same as giving a false answer.

Members of Parliament have to be able to rely on that information as completely accurate and pristine. It is, I would suggest to the Chair, akin to the evidence that must be adduced in a court of law. It is no different from the expectation that one would have in a court of law that the information received under oath is accurate and fulsome.

[Firearms Registry, December 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on that side of the House the members should be concerned.

They have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Auditor General. She has exposed the government's shell game. Evidence shows that the registry does not save lives, but it sure can waste taxpayer dollars. What is worse, the minister is about to ask the House for millions more dollars.

I know he is between a rock and a hard place, but will the Minister of Justice withdraw his request for an additional $71 million until this mess in his department has been cleaned up? Will he do that?

[Firearms Registry, December 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, here is the Liberal legacy price tag thus far: $1 billion wasted in the HRDC grants; hundreds of millions on an ill-conceived advertising campaign; hundreds of millions lost in a helicopter cancellation; and now it is $1 billion wasted on the faulty firearms registry.

Almost 10 years ago the Prime Minister was quite prepared to play politics in cancelling the helicopter contract replacement for the aging Sea Kings. Will the Prime Minister today cancel a program for the right reasons and cancel this firearms registry fiasco?

[Firearms Registry, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General confirms that the firearms registry database is not only off the rails financially but that it is also inaccurate and untrustworthy. The RCMP made this known in 2001. There are also 900 other police agencies using this database and the Auditor General cannot even examine them.

Clearly, there is no accountability and no ability to do accounting.

When will the Liberal government end this farcical, face saving exercise and cancel the billion dollar bureaucratic blunderbuss?

[Kyoto Protocol, December 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by offering very sincere congratulations to the hon. member for Macleod. I think he has given a very precise and informative discourse on this subject matter. In particular I want to congratulate him on pointing out, and doing so very articulately, the difference between the issue of pollution and CO

2

, atmospheric pollutants and that of greenhouse gas, which I think has caused an immense amount of confusion, not only in this chamber, but throughout this entire debate.

I want to pick up in particular on the issue he spoke to near the end of his remarks, that is, the types of incentives we can put in place to encourage provinces, individuals and corporations to take part in actual concrete actions to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In my home province of Nova Scotia, as well as in Alberta, the province of the hon. member for Macleod, there are already tremendous efforts being made to harness such things as wind power, to do more with solar power, to do more with water generated power and obviously with nuclear as well. These are exactly the types of directional changes that the country will have to make in order to comply with Kyoto and to ensure that Canada will be able to meet certain targets.

The difficulty, as the hon. member has pointed out, is that the government has set out a position which is unrealistic. By ratifying this accord, we are being disingenuous, not only with Canadians but with the world, the signatories, and perhaps as important, those who have not signed, like the United States. The United States has said it cannot meet those targets but it is going about doing what it can to meet certain reductions that it will set for itself.

Would the hon. member therefore agree that certainly we can do a great deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that the provinces have to be on side in that effort as well as corporations and individuals, and that Kyoto, in and of itself, is not the panacea? It will not help to simply pen our signature on this before Christmas. It will not help create greenhouse gas reductions, as the hon. member has pointed out.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is that type of minutia that the government is asking Canadians to do. It is asking them to fix their homes so they are more energy efficient. They are asking them to drive less. They are asking them potentially to take on all of the costs of Kyoto and the provinces are concerned about what the impact would actually be.

The hon. member made a couple of points with respect to the propaganda that some provinces are putting out. I wonder if he is aware of the propaganda that his government put out, including advertisements during the Grey Cup. Now he talks about the need to quickly ratify the accord in Parliament. His government prorogued Parliament, delayed coming back, monkeyed around with some of the bills, and backed this particular debate up against the release of the Romanow report. Now we are in this huge rush, three weeks before the Christmas break.

He spoke of the merits of the United States approach and praised the U.S. position. The government is trying to make up ground now on Canada-U.S. relations, but clearly provinces like the American states can do things on their own. The member from Quebec mentioned what his province was doing.

The member who just spoke made some inconsistent remarks in his short speech. His future leader has flipped and flopped on a lot of things, including GST, free trade, tax cuts, and military spending. He has flipped again on this issue. He initially said we should take our time, and that we should have a fulsome debate. Today and yesterday he said we should quickly ratify.

Why the rush to ratify knowing there is no consensus, no impact study, and no realistic acknowledgment that this is an achievable plan, that we in fact will be able to meet the 6% reduction targets by the year 2012?

[Kyoto Protocol, December 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for her remarks. I believe she is very sincere in believing that Kyoto will improve the world.

She said in her remarks that we have to keep this simple. She was asked a very simple question about the impacts, the costs and what it will mean for Canadians in terms of their home heating oil and what it will mean for industry upon which Canadians rely for something as basic as a job.

She talks about pollution as if this agreement will affect pollution. That is a completely different issue. We are talking about greenhouse gas emissions here.

She also mentioned that 78% of Canadians support Kyoto. I suggest that figure is very questionable and is shifting, as are many of the statistics on this issue. However, she went on to talk about the fact that many Canadians are unclear on what Kyoto will do. That is evidenced even by her own comments, I say respectfully. There is a great deal that is not known about the impact of Kyoto that Canadians deserve to know.

My question to her is what is the rush? Why are we rushing headlong before Christmas to ratify this agreement, this international accord, this obligation? We do not want to be disingenuous, I say to the hon. member. Clearly, we want to live up to those commitments. We want to have the provinces onside, we want consensus, all of these good things, she would have to agree.

Again, why would the hon. member support this agreement knowing that eight of the provinces are not onside and knowing that the detail is still lacking on such an important issue that will affect our grandchildren and great grandchildren?

[Kyoto Protocol, December 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his most interesting and emotional speech.

I say emotional because, fairly put, this debate and this subject matter does conjure up a great deal of emotion because it has the potential of having a grave impact on the future of our country and on future generations.

I do have some concerns about the statements that the hon. member has made about how the government intends to implement this without the cooperation of the provinces. I also take some umbrage at his suggestion that Quebec has done it better. Regarding the suggestion that Quebec relies on hydro, I dare say that the members from Newfoundland would be a little upset with the suggestion that it is only Quebec that is doing this.

Given the fact that the federal government has on many occasions gone ahead without the cooperation and support of Quebec, given the fact that we have eight provinces that have expressed grave concerns, given the fact that the government has broken its word on many issues--

[Kyoto Protocol, December 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the position taken by the hon. member. Moments ago he said that Quebec felt it could meet those Kyoto targets as did the rest of the country, but we hear contradictory words coming from industry and the provinces. He knows all too well that the provinces themselves would bear the brunt of implementation. It would be up to the provinces and industry to comply and yet we know there is no consensus.

My question for the hon. member is, what is the rush? He says we could meet those targets and he may be right. However without consensus and without significant input from Canadians themselves and from industry, how can we be assured that we will be able to meet those targets? Should the government not take its time and bring those provinces on side as well as industry and Canadians generally? We are not questioning the science. What we are questioning is whether we can realistically meet those targets.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for his speech.

Why is the Bloc Quebecois or the province of Quebec supporting this accord without having any of the details? Also, why is the Bloc supporting the government's position, when eight provinces are saying that they do not support this accord?

I know the province of Quebec well; it understands the impact of such an accord with the support of the other provinces, particularly the province of Quebec.

I would like to repeat my question. Why is the Bloc Quebecois supporting this accord, knowing that the government has not provided all the details?