Peter Milliken

[Committees Of The House, May 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 23rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of committees.

If the House gives its consent, I intend to move concurrence in this report later this day.

[National Library Act, May 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think you will find unanimous consent to dispose of this bill in committee of the whole this day.

[Budget Implementation Act, May 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am almost finished, anyway.

I am glad the hon. member is paying close attention to what I have to say.

I wanted to say that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance has been an exemplar of patience in his dealings on the bill. I know he has put up with a great deal. I know he has bent every nerve and every muscle to assist opposition members so that they have full opportunity to debate the bill in the House and in committee. That opportunity has been granted. This government is not using bully boy tactics to get the bill through the House.

I can appreciate the hon. member has disagreement with parts of the bill. I recognize that in government sometimes tough decisions have to be made. However I respect the Minister of Finance for the decisions he has chosen to make in this case.

I believe it was the hon. member for Terrebonne who suggested it was somehow improper for the Minister of Finance to make the changes he did and he could have reduced the rate of contribution to the unemployment insurance fund on January 1 this year instead of next year. Yes, he could have. However, for financially and fiscally prudent reasons the minister chose not to do that. He chose to do it next year and I respect his decision in that regard.

Frankly, the reception the minister has received from the Canadian press and the media and indeed from the business community generally has been very positive for this budget. This is notwithstanding the cries from the Reform Party that deficit slashing did not go far enough and notwithstanding the cries from Bloc Quebecois members along the same lines. They have also complained about the lack of deficit reduction.

I see my time is running out. I could go on at length on this bill. I appreciate the opportunity to address my remarks and to explain the government's tactics in respect of this legislation.

[Budget Implementation Act, May 26th, 1994]

I had some reason for it and of course I did not whine.

[Budget Implementation Act, May 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I was not going to participate in the debate but this morning I heard remarks by the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot and I could not resist the temptation to step in because of course what he said was an attempt to create a monster. He wanted to pretend that the government was a big bully boy, doing a bad thing in ramming the bill through the House.

I thought it was useful to clarify the position so that the statements made by the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, which were patently false, can be exposed for what they are. He knows that there have been no bullying tactics by the government on the bill. He tried to suggest the government was railroading this particular bill through the House.

As parliamentary secretary to the House leader, who has been more than fair in his dealings in all matters in respect of House business, I felt that the record should be clarified. I want to do that.

I cannot imagine where the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot got his ideas, but I can only suspect that he went through Hansard for the last few years and read speeches by the Liberal opposition in the last Parliament.

We were faced with a government that was using bully boy tactics all the time. It used closure a record number of times and time allocation a record number of times. He must have read our speeches, the only thing I can conclude, and decided he would make the same kind of speech himself at report stage of the bill because after all it is a budget bill.

The last government used closure on almost every budget bill that it introduced. We have not used closure on the bill. I want to state that for the record. There has been no time allocation on the bill. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot has been given ample opportunity to express his views and he knows it. He tried to suggest otherwise this morning. That is why I am rising this afternoon: to correct the record.

Let us look at what happened and let us not bother looking back at the old Liberal speeches in the last House. Let us look at the record that has gone on in Parliament in respect of the bill.

The bill was introduced on March 16 and was called for second reading on March 25. Therefore nine days had elapsed between first and second reading. At second reading there was ample opportunity for members on all sides to read the bill and become familiar with its terms and indeed also for members of the public to obtain copies and become familiar with the terms of the bill.

The bill was called for second reading on March 25. There were a number of speakers that day. It was called again on April 11 and there were a number of speakers on that day as well. There were a number of speakers again on April 14. It was called again on April 15, when the bill was given second reading after the speeches ran out. There were no more speakers; speeches ran out on April 15.

Seventy-one speakers participated in the debate. Some members spoke twice. I for one spoke twice. There was ample opportunity again for the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot and all his colleagues to make speeches on second reading of the bill. Second reading occurred on April 15 and the bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Finance at that time.

This morning the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot suggested it was rammed through the committee in a week. It was referred to the committee on April 19-I do not know why my record is different from the last day of debate on the 15th-but it was referred at the latest by April 19 and it just came back from the committee yesterday.

Where is this week the hon. member speaks of? That sounds to me like a lot more than a week. Yesterday was May 25 and the bill went to committee on April 19. Where is the week in here? That sounds like five weeks. What happened in this case was the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot suddenly discovered there was some opposition to the bill and he had better oppose it because he had done nothing of any significance up to that time to oppose the bill.

When the bill was in committee he discovered there were some opponents to it, so what did he do? He ran back to the Hansard for the last Parliament and pulled out the speeches saying: ``What do I do now?'' He read all the precedents and said that the first thing to do was to attack the government and make it look like a bully boy.

In committee he tried to make it appear the government was a bully. He tried in the House in his speech this morning to make it appear the government was a bully. If he made it appear as though the government was a bully then maybe people would think the government was doing something wrong.

The government is not doing anything wrong. This is a normal budget bill. It was introduced in the House with notice in the budget. The minister said what the bill was going to contain. It was introduced in the House on March 16 after the budget. It has been debated extensively in the House since that time. There have been 71 speakers on the bill at second reading stage. There were extended committee hearings and there was opportunity for five weeks of hearings.

The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot obviously took his time in the committee. He had ample opportunity to consider the bill in committee and this morning he had the nerve to stand in this House and rant and rave, whine and whimper a lot of stuff and nonsense about the government being a bully and ramming this bill through the House. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We have not heard a peep about that kind of tactic from the Reform Party because it knows better. It knows the government has behaved with perfect propriety in this matter. It knows the government has dealt honourably with the opposition in giving ample opportunity for debate at all stages of the bill.

We agreed by all-party agreement to limit debate to two days at report stage and one day at third reading. It was all-party agreement, but it is a good agreement. It is a reasonable time to debate the bill. Therefore we have all day today and all day Monday. They are long days.

At the request of the opposition, we deliberately selected long days for the debate on the bill. Instead of having it on a Friday we put it on a Monday so there would be a long debate. At report stage everyone is limited to 10-minute speeches anyway so there is plenty of time for members to express their views. There is no bullying here. This is a fair and sensible arrangement in respect of the bill.

Ample opportunity was granted at second reading. Ample opportunity was given to the Standing Committee on Finance and its subcommittee which considered the bill to review the bill.

I know the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance spent endless hours listening to complaints and whining from the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot because he decided he had to oppose the bill late in the process. He has shown great patience in enduring hours of argument. I know members of the Reform Party have been subjected to the same kind of treatment, but we have all survived that.

Why continue the whining today in the House? Why not acknowledge that the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot has made a good arrangement. He has had ample opportunity to express his opposition. Certainly he objects to the bill; he has reservations about it. I was in opposition once. I used to make speeches of the kind he made, but I had some reason for it.

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Government Response To Petitions, May 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), the government's response to three petitions.

[Motions For Papers, May 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Question No. 35 will be answered today.

Question No. 35-