Peter Milliken

[Government Response To Petitions, December 8th, 1995]

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

[Questions On The Order Paper, December 7th, 1995]

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

[Committees Of The House, December 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 107th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in relation to the operating budget and the vote structure in the estimates.

Treasury Board officials presented a document entitled "Operating Budget and the Vote Structure". This document explains the reasons for altering an aspect of the votes in the estimates and proposes that a new operating expenditures vote be introduced for the 1996-97 main estimates. The new vote would contain items of minor capital expenditure currently included in separate capital votes. Parliament would be presented with a more accurate view of the way departments and agencies expend the funds which are allocated to them. The proposed change is an interim measure that will be in place until the government adopts a new accounting system.

Officials of the office of the auditor general have advised the subcommittee of the procedure and House affairs committee that the change being proposed by the Treasury Board Secretariat is largely administrative in nature and that it is designed to make it easier to manage government departments and agencies. The subcommittee was assured that Parliament's ability to scrutinize and approve the expenditure plans of the government would not be diminished by a change of this kind.

I am pleased to present the report. There is no need for concurrence, Mr. Speaker, as it is simply for the information of members.

[Government Response To Petitions, December 7th, 1995]

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

[Recognition Of Quebec As A Distinct Society, December 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in what can only be regarded as a historic debate.

I would like to talk about a couple of things that are important with respect to the national unity of our country. These are things members opposite perhaps failed to mention when they talked about what they perceived to be the wrongs or the injustices suffered by their fellow citizens in various parts of the country. I say various parts of the country because this is not a case of complaints only from one province. We hear it from many provinces. We hear it from the provincial premiers when they complain about some of the changes the government is proposing in the amending formula. I know that bill is not before the House tonight, but it is part of the package of reforms the government has introduced, which I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss.

Although members do not mention it often, always in back of their speeches is the famous battle that occurred in Canada on the Plains of Abraham. I am not going to go through that. But there was a second battle, which I think is virtually of equal importance for the future of the country and which is never mentioned. I want to remind hon. members about this story because it is of tremendous significance for Canada.

The battle happened 220 years ago this year. There was a revolution that started in the United States. The American revolutionary Continental Congress decided to send a force to invade Canada and take over the colony of Quebec, which was then part of the British Empire, having been captured 15 years previously in the famous battle I mentioned earlier.

The Americans dispatched General Montgomery to capture the province of Quebec, or what was then the colony of Quebec. Starting in September he moved up the Richelieu River and captured Fort Saint-Jean and Fort Chambly on the Richelieu River before October 18, 1775. He subsequently attacked Montreal, where the British governor, Sir Guy Carleton, was stationed.

Governor Carleton realized that the defence of Montreal was hopeless, given the fact that he was outnumbered substantially by the American force. He had only 800 British regulars with him to defend the entire colony. He left Montreal by ship and sailed for Quebec on November 11, 1775, and immediately began fortifications of the city of Quebec.

General Montgomery took Montreal on November 13, stationed 500 of his troops there, and then moved on to Quebec City with about 300 men. He gathered with him various people from the countryside, des habitants pour l'aider avec son attaque sur la ville de Québec.

It is estimated that he had between 1,600 and 1,800 men outside Quebec when he started his siege on December 5, 1775. The governor, Sir Guy Carleton, was in a heavily fortified position with apparently adequate food, but of course the city of Quebec was

pounded by a bombardment launched by Montgomery and his forces as they besieged the city.

As winter continued to move into the area and made things colder and more difficult for Montgomery's troops, he realized that in order to maintain his position he had to take the city and get the battle over with reasonably quickly. So he launched an attack on the city of Quebec on December 31, 1775 in the early hours of the morning. It was dark. There were a lot of shots exchanged and ultimately Montgomery was killed in the streets of Quebec. The battle was lost for the Americans. The siege continued until the spring, but a British ship arrived, lifted the siege, and the Americans had to retreat.

That battle was won because the residents of the city of Quebec helped the British governor. They sided with the British governor, the recent conqueror, in order to preserve what they thought was a better way of life under the British crown as an independent part of North America and not as part of the United States. In a way, they were the first United Empire Loyalists, because they made that very significant decision. If they had not made that decision and had sided with the Americans and rebelled against the British force, as they could easily have done, no doubt Quebec would have fallen and no doubt we would have been part of the United States as a result of the revolutionary war.

The men and women who made that decision were residents of the city and of the surrounding countryside. In my view they were the first great nation builders of Canada. We never hear mention of them whenever a member of the Bloc Quebecois or any separatist is busy talking about Canadian unity.

It is a battle that holds tremendous significance. In my visit to Quebec I saw the place in the street where Montgomery was killed. I believe there is a plaque in the street where this happened.

Some of ancient buildings in Quebec bore marks for a long time of the bombardment they suffered from the Americans in that war 220 years ago at the end of this month, the anniversary date of the attack on Quebec led by Montgomery.

This was a very significant event in Canada's history which saved Quebec, basically the only part of Canada that was then of any significance as a British possession that operated as part of a group of colonies that began to grow and prosper, all of them not prospering quite so well but at least growing in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and ultimately in Upper Canada, in Ontario.

By 1840 we had the Union Act of 1840 that put the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada together under a single administration, at least legislatively.

Subsequent to that the debates took place in respect of the union of the Canadian provinces. It is to those debates that I want to turn because I want to quote some nation builders. That is what we are engaged in here in a very modest way today.

It is important to bear in mind some of the words some of these people spoke. I turn first to the remarks of the hon. Sir John A. Macdonald. He was not a knight at that time. He was the attorney general for the western part of the province of Canada and at that time the member for Kingston.

He was one of the senior Fathers of Confederation. I quote what he said in respect of Confederation at that time. This is in the Confederation debates in 1865, talking about the union of Upper and Lower Canada:

It was felt that a dissolution of the union would have destroyed all the credit that we had gained by being a united province, and would have left us two weak and ineffective governments, instead of one powerful and united people.

Those words apply precisely to the situation we faced in pre-referendum Canada a few weeks ago. I submit those words are of importance now just as they were then. He went on to say:

The Lower Canadians would not have worked cheerfully under such a change of system-

He was talking about a different system than the one I was reading about before-

-but would have ceased to be what they are now-a nationality, with representatives in Parliament, governed by general principles, and dividing according to their political opinions-and would have been in great danger of becoming a faction, forgetful of national obligations, and only actuated by a desire to defend their own sectional interests, their own laws, and their own institutions.

He was speaking of having a unitary government where there would not be a federal division of powers as we now have where different parts of the country have the right to decide certain things.

We have a situation in which both the opposition parties are claiming the federal government should give up powers and where the federal government has acknowledged that is so and has chosen to do that.

I refer to Sir John's conclusion:

In conclusion, I would again implore the House not to let this opportunity to pass. It is an opportunity that may never recur. At the risk of repeating myself, I would say, it was only by a happy concurrence of circumstances, that we were enabled to bring this great question to its present position. If we do not take advantage of the time, if we show ourselves unequal to the occasion, it may never return, and we shall hereafter bitterly and unavailingly regret having failed to embrace the happy opportunity now offered of founding a great nation.

I quote another one, Sir George-Étienne Cartier, Macdonald's great partner in putting Canada together. He said, and these words apply today as much as they did then, in the same debates in 1865:

The question for us to ask ourselves is this: Shall we be content to remain separate-shall we be content to maintain a mere provincial existence, when, by combining together, we could become a great nation? It had never yet been the good fortune of any group of communities to secure national greatness with such facility. In past ages, warriors have struggled for years for the addition to their country of a single province.

Here we had the great willingness on the part of all these people to unite and form this great country we now enjoy.

I quote another great nation builder, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, one of the great prime ministers of our country. He said, from page 1842 of Hansard , on March 13, 1900:

If there is anything to which I have given my political life, it is to try to promote unity, harmony and amity between the diverse elements of this country. My friends can desert me, they can remove their confidence from me, they can withdraw the trust which they have placed in my hands; but never shall I deviate from that line of policy. Whatever may be the consequences, whether loss of prestige, loss of popularity, or loss of power, I feel that I am in the right, and I know that a time will come when every man, my hon. friend himself included, will render me full justice on that score.

As our forebearers did, we can do no less but to engage in the nation building which they did in this great and vast country of ours.

[Political Party Fundraising, December 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, indeed we will not because I am talking about electoral financing, which is what the motion concerns. The hon. member may have missed the point since he got on about young offenders and so on. I am trying to address my remarks to the subject matter of the motion which is, after all, electoral financing, but that may have escaped him. His remarks seemed to be all over the place.

The other thing he should know is his colleague and our very good friend, the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest, introduced a bill dealing with electoral financing which is currently being studied by the procedure and House affairs committee which I have the honour to chair. I know the bill is going to come up next Tuesday. It is going back on the agenda for consideration in the committee.

Does this bill abolish public financing of parties? No, it does not. It eliminates funding for parties that get less than a certain percentage of the vote but it will continue it for everybody else. I believe there has been some agreement reached between the hon. member and members of the other parties which improves the situation somewhat. However, I do not know what the final result is and I would not presume to discuss the final details of the bill not knowing them.

I think the hon. member for North Vancouver ought to be aware that the policy of his party which he spouted with such apparent sincerity is being ignored quite blissfully by the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest in the bill he has presented to Parliament and which now he is pressing my committee to report back to the House on so he can pass it.

I hope the hon. member for North Vancouver is here in the House to support his colleague's bill when it comes to a vote. It is a votable item and he will have that privilege. I am looking forward to seeing what he says because here he reads the policy on the one hand and he will get a chance to vote for the policy by voting against his friend's bill. We will see what happens then.

The Liberals on my committee are supporting the bill as are the members of the Bloc Quebecois. They have good sense. The hon. member for North Vancouver would do well to learn from his colleague, the member for Edmonton Southwest, and scrap the ridiculous policy he says his party members have voted in. I find it quite extraordinary. Let me turn to the motion before the House.

The Canada Elections Act provides for the reimbursement of a portion of election expenses incurred by registered political parties. Specifically, a registered party is entitled to a reimbursement of 22.5 per cent of the expenses declared in its return provided it spends at least 10 per cent of the election limit.

Some of us have criticized this because we feel it encourages parties to spend money in order to collect the reimbursement. If they do not spend up to 10 per cent of the expenditure limit they do not get any reimbursement. Therefore they must spend like crazy to get there. It can be a fairly substantial limit, as hon. members know. They then get back 22.5 per cent of their expenses so that once they hit the limit it is basically a 75 cent dollar they have put out.

There is no limit on the amount that can be contributed to a registered political party but there is a limit on the amount that can be spent.

The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing recommended that registered parties receive at least 1 per cent of the votes cast in an election before they are entitled to any reimbursement and then receive 60 cents per vote received for a maximum of 50 per cent of election expenses. They could not get more than 50 per cent of their expenses back under this system.

In the last Parliament we had a special committee on electoral reform which considered the matter but did not agree with the Lortie recommendation. I was a member of that committee. I believe I am the only one left in the House. The others have moved on to other things.

We reviewed the report and recommended that the 10 per cent expenditure requirement be applied to a party's direct election expenses and that the rate of reimbursement be increased to 25 per cent of direct expenses, a very modest change from the present law.

I do not mind saying the reason we could not agree on anything else was that we ran into a stone wall with the Conservative majority, which saw that its electoral chances were failing. Those members realized that if they went to a 60 cent per vote arrangement, as recommended by the Lortie commission, they would get very little money if their vote fell out the bottom, as the polls at that time indicated they would. That is exactly what happened. Had we had that rule in place the Conservative Party would have been worse than bankrupt. It is in trouble now but it would have been much worse; the rule significantly helped it in the last election.

The hon. member for Edmonton Southwest has proposed a bill that would eliminate reimbursement for parties that gain less than 2 per cent of the national vote. He is going to change that because he has received agreement from the other parties to make changes. I do not know what the changes are so I do not want to go on about his bill.

Now we have a proposal from the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lièvre. I am sure the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest, being a generous spirited individual, has looked at other possibilities. I know he has because he has had suggestions made to him in the course of the committee proceedings where he had the advantage of hearing from other members. He said that all makes sense, let us make some more changes. He is making more changes and I commend him for that. I am looking forward to seeing the bill in its possibly final form when it rolls out of the committee possibly next week. If that happens we will all have the benefit of that and perhaps it will make the motion of the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lièvre unnecessary.

However, we are dealing with his motion today. It is not a votable motion despite the efforts of the hon. member for North Vancouver and so we will have to deal with it as it stands. We will have a discussion about it and then go on to something else.

The hon. members opposite, although genuine in their desire for reform, do not agree on how they should go about it. They are making efforts to raise the level of debate by discussing these things and I respect that, particularly by the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest. It looks to me as though he has a speech coming up and I am looking forward to hearing his remarks.

The point is how to solve this problem. I do not know the answer but I do think the Lortie commission report is worth looking at again. The point of it was to ensure parties get reimbursed based on the number of votes they receive. Another possibility is to have a pot such as that suggested by the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lièvre and have a fixed amount of money available in accordance with the limits on election spending and then divide the fixed amount among the parties that participate in the election based on the number of votes they receive.

I believe there is general agreement that no party should get more than 50 per cent of its expenses reimbursed so that it would prevent some party that won more than half of the vote from getting more than half the money available. That strikes me as fair and reasonable.

However, I do not think that is what has been put forward today and we need to look at that kind of proposal in greater detail. We need to look at it with respect to the charter of rights and freedoms because, as we know, there have been challenges to the expenditure limits on parties and on others, third parties in particular not participating in elections.

All those issues will concern the procedure and House affairs committee as it undertakes the review of the Canada Elections Act, which I hope it will be doing soon. No doubt at that time it will consider the very worthwhile proposal put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lièvre.

[Political Party Fundraising, December 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lièvre for bringing this motion before the House for debate. It is a useful topic for debate and I am glad we have this opportunity for discussion.

However, listening to the hon. member for North Vancouver, it was one of the most extraordinary things I have heard in a while.

He came out with this policy of the Reform Party which is another case of do as I say but not as I do policies Reform spouts so often in the House.

We all know that during the last election the members of the Reform Party scooped their hands into the public till. Although they abhor the idea of public financing of elections, they all applied for the rebate they were entitled to get from the federal government. Then their party applied for its 22.5 per cent reimbursement which it is entitled to get from the federal treasury. The members had no reluctance about going after that money to the best of my recollection.

Now they say their policy is they will not take that kind of money. Yet according to the rumours I hear they have fundraisers from time to time. They issue tax receipts for those fundraisers the way other parties do even though they say their policy is they do not do that.

They say that is their policy but they do exactly the opposite. They do as much as any other party does to take advantage of the laws of Canada that give political parties advantage. Frankly, they ought to do that but not if they are saying their policy is different. It is what I would call hypocrisy, but I think it unparliamentary for me to say that a member of the House is hypocritical or a hypocrite. I would not do that. However, the Reform Party policy is very hypocritical on this matter.

Those members use the money in the most unorthodox ways like paying suit allowances of $30,000 a year to their leader so he can be properly dressed while he gives up the publicly paid car.

[Motions For Papers, December 6th, 1995]

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

[Questions On The Order Paper, December 6th, 1995]

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

[Government Response To Petitions, December 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 16 petitions.