Peter Stoffer

[The Budget, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the House that I took great delight in hearing what I guess I could call stretching of the envelope by the hon. member over there. The reality is his entire speech originated from the south end of a north bound cow. He knows very well that NDP members are very concerned about debt and deficits as well, but we would like a balanced approach.

As an example, if my roof is leaking and it will cost $2,000 to repair it, I will have to make a choice. Either I will repair it for $2,000 or I will put $2,000 on the mortgage. Those guys would put the $2,000 on the mortgage. Meanwhile, the roof would leak which would cause great damage to the House. Now they would have a $20,000 repair job. Was the $2,000 an investment? Of course not.

We are asking for a balanced approach. The Auditor General said that the $100 million purchase for the two Canadair jets was a complete breakage of all the rules and regulations. She mentioned that to the previous cabinet and to this cabinet. The cabinet response was the same. It did not break any rules. How does the government spend $100 million on two jets that its own Department of National Defence said it did not need? Would the member to respond to that?

[The Budget, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, one of the items in the budget is the income tax exemption for our armed forces personnel who serve in a theatre of conflict. Right now, it is confusing to our men and women in the military, including their civilian counterparts, of who exactly would receive this so-called benefit. France, Holland, England, and the United States have already extended this benefit to their armed forces personnel, but I am not quite sure who in those various countries qualifies.

We in the NDP are of the mind that all armed forces personnel and their civilian counterparts who serve in a theatre of conflict, for example the Arabian Gulf, Bosnia, Haiti, or Afghanistan, should be entitled to the same benefits as everyone else.

Would the hon. member from the Conservative Party agree with us that this is the way the government should be going with this particular item in the budget?

[Canadian Forces, March 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, some of our greatest Canadians are those who serve in our armed forces and in overseas theatres to help bring peace and democracy to other countries of the world. However, with the recent budget, there is great confusion about which armed services personnel will receive a benefit.

When we send these brave men and women overseas, along with their civilian counterparts, will the Minister of Finance now stand in the House and say that all members of our armed forces personnel and their civilian counterparts, when involved in theatres of conflict, be it Bosnia, Haiti, the Arabian Gulf or Afghanistan, will receive the same benefit that was announced in the budget?

[Post-Secondary Education, March 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, under previous Conservative and now current Liberal governments, post-secondary tuition in this country has more than tripled and students and their families are suffering under an increasing debt load.

My question for the finance minister is quite clear. Will the next budget offer significant relief for our students and their families or will this government continue to pull a “Bertuzzi” on our students?

[Income Tax Act, March 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge that we in the New Democratic Party fully support the initiative of this bill and we will be voting in favour of it when it comes up for a vote.

However I do want to agree with the tail end of the speech by my colleague from British Columbia concerning the problems in the forestry industry. We believe the government should be attacking the softwood lumber crisis in a three-pronged attack.

First is the stabilization of the forestry workers in their communities by ensuring that those funds get to where they have to be. To delay it through bureaucratic means is simple nonsense, and that needs to stop right away.

Second, the government needs to go into the United States and, with their allies in the U.S. who are supportive of our initiatives, work toward changing the minds of those congressmen and senators.

Third, the government needs to continue the attack through the legal challenges of NAFTA and the WTO.

I have a very simple question for the member. When it comes to business deductions and expense deductions, what is the difference between a toolbox and a laptop? A business person with a laptop can travel across the country for his or her business and deduct those expenses, but a worker with a toolbox cannot. That has to change.

Although we do know what the member from the Conservative Party is saying, that this just targets one specific section of one specific set of workers, the fact is that we have to start somewhere. I am sure the hon. member from the Bloc would love to have included all kinds of people, like carpenters, metal workers, name it.

We have a tremendous amount of people who leave Atlantic Canada and move to the oil patch but they cannot write off their traveling and meal expenses, et cetera. However if they were accountants or lawyers they could write off those expenses. All we are asking is that there be a little fairness in the taxation system.

The Bloc member has done it very strategically. He has taken one section of the occupational workforce and one aspect of the tax deduction in the motor vehicle. We know this is a start, and no, it does not include all other workers at this time, but in opposition, sometimes we have to throw the Liberals a bone. Hopefully they will chew on it a bit, like the taste of the marrow and run with it, which is really what is required. We want them to say that it actually makes sense. We want them to ask what the difference is between a toolbox and a laptop.

My colleague from Yukon knows how many people travel up and down the Dempster highway, the Alaska highway and the Campbell highway to and from their jobs. If they are business people they can write off their mileage as an expense, but if they are forestry workers they cannot. We fully support the initiative of the Bloc member in this particular regard.

However, at the same time, we would like to see the government move fairly quickly in terms of including many other workers who come from here. We have workers from Nova Scotia, in the building trades for example, who have been asking for quite some time to be included in budgets, to be given the opportunity to deduct their meal expenses, their vehicle transportation costs and their lodging expenses. They do not want to sit at home and collect EI or welfare. They want to be able to follow a job somewhere else in the country in their trade because they have pride. However, if it is extremely cost prohibitive, if they cannot afford to get to a particular place, then they are behind the eight ball and that is unacceptable.

We need to allow these workers who wish to move to another part of the country, where they will have an opportunity for employment, to do so. We should be congratulating these people. We should be honouring the fact that they are willing to leave their homes in order to find work in other jurisdictions in Canada. We should be assisting them through the tax system so they are not prohibited from making that decision.

I do not want to be critical of the business community. If they are willing to move across the country and assist other businesses in their endeavours, that is great, but if they get to write off their expenses, then surely forestry workers should be allowed to do the same when it comes to their motor vehicles. When we as members of Parliament travel across the country to follow our critic areas, our expenses are covered.

We are just saying that if we are doing our job in terms of our constituents and the Canadian people, then we ourselves should apply those same types of principles to the workers of our country, especially to those forestry workers.

We thank the hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois for bringing this very worthy bill to the floor of the House of Commons where the debate should take place. We encourage the government and all opposition members to seriously look at this type of initiative to see where we can go forward on this to make it easier, especially financially, for workers who are transient in following their workplace.

[Fisheries and Oceans, March 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the real scandal in the country is the government's treatment of our Coast Guard and our marine habitat.

The commissioner for aquaculture, Yves Bastien, has made recommendations to the minister that aquaculture be exempt from the habitat and pollution provisions of the Fisheries Act. This is simply outrageous.

We are asking the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to categorically reject the recommendations of the commissioner of aquaculture and to ask for Mr. Yves Bastien's immediate resignation from the department.

[Supply, February 26th, 2004]

I could not agree more, Mr. Speaker. The government should have done what Mr. Chrétien did with the trade missions. He brought with him on the trade missions members of Parliament, members of the Senate, provincial leaders and industry leaders. This issue should have been taken much more seriously.

The government cannot do it by itself. It needs to show that this is a national problem and that we will work on this concern on a national level. The scientists, the industry, the farmers and the political leaders of all stripes need to go to the other countries and prove once and for all that our product is the best in the world.

[Supply, February 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member from Saskatchewan for that great question.

The reality is that coming from Atlantic Canada we know exactly what happened in 1992 to the fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador when their industry was completely cut out from under them. The farmers on the Prairies especially with BSE concerns are going through the exact same thing.

What has to happen is that with support from this side of the House the federal government needs to ensure that those people are financially stabilized. Perhaps it could be something similar to TAGS on the east coast. We need to ensure that the families especially in rural Canada have dollars coming in to ensure the survival of their enterprises and their families.

At the same time we need to work with the United States and other countries to ensure, as my colleagues from Regina—Qu'Appelle and Palliser said, that we operate on the best science. One cow should not bring down the entire industry. We have to get the message out that our beef in Canada is some of the world's best. I know there is nothing better, except for an Atlantic lobster, than good Alberta beef. Put that surf and turf together and we have a meal.

When we have our dinner tonight we should say a little prayer for the producers and those farmers and their families who sustain us and give us the best quality food in the country.

As well as financial support, we have to work cooperatively, not just separately, and tell the world that our food is the best in the world and that we have nothing to hide. We should show our support for those families so that years from now the kids on those farms can have a livelihood and can provide sustenance for our children in the future.

[Supply, February 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Conservative Party for bringing forward this valuable motion.

Accountability in the House of Commons, in the other place, and for that matter in all provincial and territorial legislatures and municipal legislatures is crucial. It is critical at this time in our history that all politicians of all political stripes be extremely accountable and responsible for the taxpayers' dollars. As we know, there is only one taxpayer. Through the media of television, newsprint and radio we get our message out to them that we must be accountable.

People are very angry and upset about the recent scandal that has hit the Liberal government. They are also very confused. They are also very intelligent about the issue. They know the scandal that has hit the present government is not brand new. This type of scandalous operation in the federal government has been happening since Brian Mulroney hit this place in 1984. There has been over 20 years of unaccountability by majority governments in this country and it has to stop.

The NDP believes that one of the ways to do that is to actually change the way we are voted into this place. We have to bring in a system of proportional representation. It would make us all that much more accountable to the Canadian taxpayers who, right now, are getting their taxes together. Many of them will have to send cheques to the Receiver General for Canada. When they see their tax dollars going out of their wallets to the government, knowing that the government has given hundreds of millions of dollars out the back door to its friends, they will be very upset. I empathize and sympathize with the Canadian taxpayers because it is unacceptable that their dollars are mismanaged in such a callous manner.

I would like to narrow down the debate to Atlantic Canada and the issues that face it.

According to the Auditor General's reports, the gun registry itself has cost close to $1 billion with no end in sight. The previous minister of industry, Mr. Rock, said very clearly that it would only cost the taxpayer around $2 million to implement. How wrong the government was. If the government can mismanage that amount of money, from $2 million to $1 billion, what else is it mismanaging that we are unaware of? Almost $187 billion is spent. The government must be more accountable for what it does.

On a personal note, I say scrap the gun registry, bring lawful gun owners into the debate and come up with a system that is not only fiscally accountable but also is socially responsible. If we were to do that, we would not only be saving the taxpayers a lot of money, we would be inviting citizen participation in this very worthwhile debate.

I also want to thank all the wonderful people in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The recent storm set a record snowfall for our province. There were health care providers who worked around the clock. They did a great job looking after the needs of the citizens in that area. Snowplough operators, including those who came from New Brunswick to assist our Nova Scotia operators, worked around the clock to get the streets cleared.

The great people in Nova Scotia are amazing. A lot of people called my office concerned not about their well-being but about the well-being of the elderly and shut-ins who were not able to shovel their way out or get the supplies they needed. There is story after story about the great neighbourly goodwill of the people of Nova Scotia looking after their neighbours.

That is why I am extremely proud to say that I come from Nova Scotia. I am very proud to be able to stand in this House and represent the people of Nova Scotia. A tip of the hat to all those people who did yeomen's work in alleviating the pressures that the snowfall caused in our area.

On specific notes as to what the government could do with our tax dollars, we believe that the shipbuilding industry in the regional part of Atlantic Canada has been overlooked. It has been neglected for far too long.

Instead of the gun registry and the sponsorship scandal, it easily could have invested in a proper shipbuilding policy so that our Coast Guard vessels, ferries and naval replacement vessels could all be made in Atlantic Canada. For that matter they could be built in Quebec, Port Welland, Ontario, and out on the west coast. That would encourage thousands of highly skilled people to come back to work and earn a very decent living not only in Atlantic Canada but across the country.

We implore the government to take this issue very seriously and to bring in the shipbuilding policy that Mr. Tobin had commissioned, that was done by the industry and labour. Those ships could be built in Atlantic Canada and then people would not have to go down the Trans-Canada Highway to find work. They could stay and work in their own communities in Atlantic Canada and be very proud of a traditional shipbuilding industry, just as we used to have.

There is also the softwood lumber crisis. There is a lot of talk coming from the Minister of Industry and the Minister of International Trade about what is called the pan-Canadian solution to meet the protectionist attitudes of the United States.

We have a serious concern in that if we get into that kind of a solution with a quota system, Atlantic Canada would suffer. In Atlantic Canada almost 80% of our lumber is cut on private land whereas from Quebec to B.C. the opposite is true and most of that lumber is cut on Crown land.

We have always had an exemption on the east coast called the maritime accord. This is what the lumber and mill producers are asking for in Atlantic Canada. We want to make sure that any deal made with the United States takes into very serious account the special circumstances of Atlantic Canada.

We on this side of the House, and all members from Atlantic Canada regardless of party I am sure, take this issue very seriously. We encourage the government to always remember that in the negotiations.

As well we could talk about equalization. The premier of Nova Scotia rightfully asked about the royalties from the natural resources of oil and gas. We should be able to keep more of them for our province. If we did that, people's attitude and impression of Nova Scotia being a have not province would go away.

I reject categorically suggestions by any politician of any political stripe or any commentator that Nova Scotia is a have not province. It is absolute nonsense to say that. We are a have province. We have some of the best natural resources in the country. Some of the finest people in the world live in our province. We are a have province.

Maybe financially we are not as well off as the other provinces but the reality is that if we are given the development dollars that are required and the infrastructure, Nova Scotia would be a fabulous province in terms of economic opportunities and activities. We encourage the federal government to work with the provincial governments of Atlantic Canada to move toward that goal. If we did that, it would go a long way.

I also want to talk about the issues relating to fiscal responsibility toward our military. The government is in discussions with the Americans about some nuclear missile defence shield, ballistic missile defence, what some people call star wars or the weaponization of space.

I represent the Shearwater air base and a very large military base in Nova Scotia in the garrison city of Halifax. I say very clearly to the government that instead of concentrating on some futuristic possibilities, the government should be putting core dollars into our military, the infrastructure, the men and women and their families

Members of our military need to be properly trained and properly equipped. They need to receive the right direction and support from the government. For that matter, they need the support of all members of Parliament. We constantly see stories in the papers about the possible closure of bases, the reduction of the forces themselves and the fact that a lot of armed forces personnel are suffering from burnout. We encourage, especially in the next budget, the government to look at the military in a much more positive light than it has done over the last 10 years.

In conclusion, I again thank the Conservative Party of Canada for bringing the motion forward. It is imperative that all of us ensure that we look after the taxpayers' dollars. Tommy Douglas used to say that he would never spend a farmer's nickel unless he told him where it was going and what benefit it would have to him and his family. We on the east coast agree with that, especially members of our party. We just want to make sure that the government is more accountable for the tax dollars that it spends.

[Veterans, February 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge and thank the government for admitting the error of its ways in recognizing that some form of compensation needs to be forwarded to these brave individuals who served their country so well in terms of experiments back in 1941.

This Thursday marks the 61st anniversary of the internment of the Japanese. It is funny how it was a Liberal government back then that did the mustard tests on our soldiers. It also interned the Japanese. Some people would say that was wartime and different actions had to be taken; however, what was scandalous about that was that the government was warned in those days. If we go back to Hansard and other articles, the government was told not to do these types of experiments and not to intern the Japanese.

It has taken very long for these brave men, many of them who suffered for many years along with their families, to finally get recognition from the government by saying it is sorry and to offer them compensation. As previous colleagues have said, no amount of money is enough to satisfy their concerns.

We cannot help but notice there is a string going along here. The merchant mariners and aboriginal veterans received about the same amount. It seems that every time soldiers and veterans come up for compensation, it is around the $20,000 to $25,000 mark. We believe that some of these soldiers may have a valid option when it comes to fighting this debate in the courts, if need be.

On behalf of the New Democratic Party, I wish to acknowledge what the government has done. Our party also wants to salute and honour those brave men and women who took part in those tests and their families who fought so long and so hard. We would wish now that those veterans who are suffering from mental disabilities would also have those rights and not have to go to the courts, as they did just recently.

The government took these disabled veterans, those who were mentally challenged, took their money and said they were not capable of looking after it, so it would do it for them. These veterans and their families had to fight year after year, and in the end lost their case in the Supreme Court of Canada.

This government did that. We would like it to ensure that no other veterans' group or any other group in this country must fight so hard and so long to get what is rightfully theirs.