Peter Stoffer

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, one of the suggestions made by my colleague from northern Manitoba was that Canada should institute a national housing program so that we could use a lot of materials within our own country to help support national housing programs and build units across Canada so that no one would have to be homeless. It would do two things. It would provide quality homes and jobs for people, and provide homeless people with a place to live. Would my hon. colleague from Medicine Hat support that type of initiative?

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but agree with the hon. member that one does have to bargain from a position of strength.

He did mention gas and pipelines. That refers to linkage in the argument. One thing many Canadians across the country have asked me and our party is why Canada does not just turn off the lights and the gas lines to America until it comes to its senses and gets rid of this.

I am asking the official opposition, is that the opposition policy or does it think that what the government should be doing is adding linkage to the discussion? How angry are we? Will we stand up for our agriculture producers and our softwood lumber producers by shutting down the gas and the electricity from Quebec or the natural gas from Nova Scotia in order to teach the Americans a lesson? Is it referring to that in that type of argument? Because if it is, it would be a great debate, one that I would love to participate in.

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to know that we in this party will be supporting today's motion.

We do have some concerns in terms of the view of the members of the Alliance Party. They have mentioned the word drought many times yet at the same time they deny that global warming even exists.

Regardless of the length of time it will take to negotiate these deals through the WTO or the NAFTA dispute panel, it will take a long time to do that. The member has indicated we need support programs for those people who suffer from the unfair trade practices and he is absolutely correct. The fundamental problem is NAFTA itself. When the U.S. cannot compete fairly it will use protectionist measures to protect itself. It has been doing that ever since we have been a country, since 1867. It did it with shipbuilding. It is about to do it with auto parts. Now it is doing it with softwood lumber and agriculture.

As a representative of the Alliance Party, the official opposition, what would the member's party do to fundamentally restructure that deal so that it is not just softwood lumber and agriculture but all the other things that we compete with the Americans in order to have a truly balanced and fair level playing field?

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is what the member does not recognize. Last year we had farm families come to our caucus. There was a young 12 year old boy there whose father was a farmer. Twenty-two thousand family farmers left the land two years ago; that was before the subsidy. I asked the young man if he would be farming in the future. He said no. I asked if anyone in his school would be farming. He said no.

My question for the hon. member, for whom I have great respect, is this: Who does she think or who does the government think will be the farmers of the future in this country?

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the reality of the situation is that thousands of farmers and thousands of softwood lumber workers are out of work. They need some measure of stability from the federal government to offset what the United States has done to our country.

My question for the member is quite simple. Besides fighting these deals in the international court systems, such as NAFTA or the WTO, what is the Liberal government prepared to do now to put food on the table of those people who are suffering because of these American injustices?

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Nova Scotia for his speech. He, as well as everyone else who comes from Atlantic Canada, knows full well the effects on families and communities when an industry dies. I am thinking of course of the groundfish collapse in 1992.

As we speak, whole logs are leaving British Columbia and going into the United States. These are logs and those are jobs. Those are jobs that are being exported from Canada to mills in the United States.

If the Conservatives were the government, would my hon. colleague make a suggestion to stop the export of whole logs into the United States?

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that nobody should be surprised by the protectionist actions of the United States. This is what it does best. It looks after itself first. We were sucked into a deal many years ago.

Our auto sector will be in a major crisis soon. Shipbuilding has been all but abandoned by the government. Now our agricultural and softwood lumber producers are in serious trouble. They understand the ramifications of these deals and the need for rules, but they want open access to markets and they want a level playing field. They are getting nothing but lip service from the government. The government talks about revisions to the deal or taking the issue to various trade dispute panels but that takes time. Meanwhile people cannot feed their families.

My hon. colleague mentioned something about a housing program for aboriginal people. Canada has markets that can be served through innovative ideas of the government and the House of Commons. I would like her to elaborate on a national housing strategy which would put a lot of people back to work and house the homeless in the country.

[National Defence, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the defence minister. The government has demonstrated a questionable track record when it comes to managing contracts on behalf of all Canadians.

Last week Colonel De Blois, national defence privatization guru, admitted that contracting out of the military supply chain is a very risky business. DND's own documents showed that there will be no savings or improvement in service as a result of the contract to Tibbett's of England.

Will the defence minister now stop the ultimate service delivery of the supply chain before he does even more damage to the men and women of our military?

[Veterans Affairs, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to the concerns of various and many legions across the country on the issue of the proposal by the French government to expand an airport which in turn may desecrate thousands of graves of British and Commonwealth soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Somme in the first world war.

News reports yesterday and today indicate the French government may have second thoughts about the expansion of the airport, but I call on the federal government, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Veterans Affairs to do everything in their power to ensure they tell the French government that any expansion of the airport which may alter or desecrate the grave sites of our fallen heroes is unacceptable to the memories of the brave men and women who fought so valiantly for peace during the first world war.

On behalf of all veterans in the country I would like to say lest we forget, and we will remember them at the going down of the sun.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague from the west coast to stretch the argument a bit. He mentioned tobacco smoking and the ill effects it has on children.

In Nova Scotia the provincial government recently put in what it would call a tough anti-smoking law. The reality is it is not that tough at all. Smoking is still allowed in many public places.

The hon. member is a medical professional. Would he agree with what I have been trying to say back home, that smoking should be banned, period, in all public gathering places to prevent secondhand smoke and also to deter people from smoking in the presence of other people?