Peter Stoffer

[The Budget, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre for his remarks today.

I would like him to elaborate a moment longer on his private member's motion in terms of the energy retrofit of those 50,000 government buildings. This is one of the better ideas I have ever come across in the House. Both sides of the House passed that motion. What has the government done after one year? What is it doing to create jobs and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels?

[The Budget, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party will have to let all of Canada decide in the next election whether or not he will be returned.

The budget completely ignores defence and the replacement of the Sea Kings, which in my riding is a very important issue. As well it ignores a very vital issue in Atlantic Canada, a shipbuilding policy which the Liberal caucus of Atlantic Canada said it wanted included in the budget. Would the member respond to those two issues, please?

[The Budget, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague from the Bloc Quebecois party.

The Liberal government has completely abandoned its moral obligation toward health care and has thus forced the provinces looking at other avenues for more privatization of health care in terms of user fees and everything else. In fact the premier of my province of Nova Scotia is now talking about user fees for some forms of health care and other forms of doctors appointments and so on. We hope that does not happen in the next budget. We also notice in the province of Quebec that one of the hospitals is initiating some sort of user fee system for some aspects of health care.

Does the hon. member think that is the way the provinces should go or should the federal government actually start to live up to its obligations to health care and to the five principles which it originally signed on to.

[The Budget, March 27th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great pride to my hon. colleague and good friend from the backbenches of the Liberal Party. He took a turn in the debate on the budget and talked about initiatives and issues on the environment which are very serious to the New Democratic Party.

I know the hon. member has a private member's bill before the House now which I support. It is a great initiative. I only hope that the frontbench of his party will give the attention to that bill that someone like me might give to it.

My question is for the hon. member. With environmental legislation and regulations going through wherein provinces and municipalities have so much of a say in how they are incorporated, how does he see working closely with provinces and municipalities on this budget or future budgets of any government?

For example, in the Halifax-Dartmouth harbour we are pumping raw sewage into the harbour. We have done that for over 200 years. How does he propose that his government would work with that municipality to keep it in public hands and to maintain the protection of our waters, harbours, bays and inlets?

[The Budget, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure all of Canada is very proud of the member. I congratulate his party for what it is achieving for what it believes is its view of politics in Canada, although I disagree on most issues it has talked about.

One issue I do want to mention is that this budget clearly gave the top 6% wage earners in the country the biggest tax breaks over that period of time. That is a fact. He was talking about a 15 year old boy that had to pay a lot of taxes on his very first paycheque, yet the government gave the top 6% wage earners the highest tax breaks over the long term in the budget. It completely ignored the aspirations of health care, shipbuilding and farmers. I would like his comments on that.

[The Budget, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to two backbench Liberals speak about the budget, I was quite amused by the fact that they accuse our party, the NDP, of just throwing money at health care. In actuality, with this recent budget, for every dollar in tax cuts the government gave two cents for health.

The Liberal government has lost the moral authority to even talk about health care in the country when the Prime Minister goes to Alberta and literally kowtows to Mr. Ralph Klein in terms of bill 11 and the privatization of health care, the most valued and cherished program in the country.

We know the Liberals do not understand the concerns about health care. Another thing they do not understand is the shipbuilding policy on the east coast and elsewhere in the country. There was not a single word in the budget on shipbuilding.

This industry employs thousands of people not only in Atlantic Canada but in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. They sit there and completely ignored the industry, the workers and employers such as the CAW and the Irving Company when they came together with a shipbuilding policy. We are one of the few nations in the world without a comprehensive policy.

Tomorrow there will be debate at third reading on a bill proposed by one of the Bloc members. Will this member be supporting that initiative and will the government be supporting a shipbuilding policy in the country?

[Petitions, March 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have three other petitions from the fabulous provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

The petitioners call on parliament to investigate the powers and the undemocratic actions of the unelected Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and the National Energy Board and remove NS98-2—Parcel 1 off the western coast of Cape Breton Island from the very hazardous conditions of our fragile lobster and fishery sites.

[Petitions, March 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, you have saved the best for last.

The first petition I have is from my riding of Lower Sackville. The petitioners pray that parliament withdraw Bill C-23, affirm the opposite sex definition of marriage in legislation and ensure that marriage is recognized as a unique institution.

[Canada, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House we passed an historic bill, Bill C-20, to protect the interests of all Canadians when it comes to the possibility of a province indicating its desire to separate from Canada, but today a senior American defence official is quoted as referring to Canada as the 51st state.

The Canadian Minister of Industry is indicating his desire to eliminate the foreign ownership rules of our most important of industries. The Canadian Minister for International Trade is still discussing ways of giving away our sovereignty and resources such as water through the WTO.

The Conservatives and Reformers would only like the Liberals to put up their for sale sign faster. Only New Democrats such as my colleagues from Halifax West, Winnipeg—Transcona and Regina—Qu'Appelle are standing up for Canada. I ask the Liberals who are having their convention this weekend which flag they will be flying, the Canadian flag or the American flag?

[House Of Commons, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as you and the House well knows, there was a gentleman who was in the House for many years, Mr. Stanley Knowles. He respected the House, the rules of the House and especially the Speaker probably greater than any other parliamentarian who has ever been here.

The member for Winnipeg—Transcona knew that gentleman very well. Could he briefly comment on what Mr. Knowles would say on a motion of this nature?