House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 34% of the vote.
Supply February 11th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
I do know that social democratic countries in Europe are now looking at that very seriously. In fact the country of Holland, which most people call the Dutch miracle, is implementing that program as we speak. It probably would be a very good time to debate that in this House of Commons for the new economy for the new millennium.
Supply February 11th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, there is one thing the government can definitely do. The government could work closely with the farmers to find out about the Crow rate. We cannot take $200 million off the Crow rate and expect the farmers to be able to pick that up. We cannot abandon grain elevators in a lot of the communities and expect the farmers to drive an additional 100 miles with their product and still keep it at the same price.
The member for Selkirk—Interlake knows very well that farmers are the breadbasket of our country. If we cannot look after them and their families so that they in turn can look after us, we have a very serious problem. I think this government has completely abandoned farmers in terms of the agriculture crisis that is happening with the pork farmers and the wheat farmers. We negotiate trade deals that do absolutely no good for the farmers.
It is time we sat down and talked to the farmers to find out exactly what their concerns are instead of telling them from Ottawa what they should be doing.
Supply February 11th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that the hon. member of the Liberal Party recognizes the pressure and the good work the New Democratic Party can put on the Liberals.
The problem is that if a tax break is given to the lowest income earners and then they are charged user fees on products that they obtained before, it does not work. The private services that have been downloaded from the federal government on the health care issues would be an example.
What used to be taken care of by the government for these low income workers, they now have to pay for. The government gave them back 10 cents but now they are charged $1 for the services that they had before.
The government did not go all the way with it. It credited them in one hand and debited them in the other, which was most unfortunate.
Supply February 11th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
First of all I thank the hon. member for Shefford and her party for introducing the motion today. I think it is an extremely timely debate with the crisis of this country, although it is not a crisis that just happened yesterday, this is an ongoing crisis which has been going on for many years. I am glad that today is a good day to discuss this.
Next week my hon. colleague from Acadie—Bathurst will be bringing out his long awaited EI report. After his travel across the country from coast to coast to coast he will be relating the report and putting a human face to exactly what this government and the previous governments have done to people who are collecting EI and exactly what has happened to these people. He will be relating their personal stories for the House of Commons for all parliamentarians to have.
If I may digress to a personal experience, my mother and father and I were born in Holland. In 1956 when Holland was discussing the closure of the coal mines, and my father was a miner then, my mom and dad and six brothers and sisters plus thousands of other people in Europe at that time had no other opportunities but to abandon not only their homes but their countries and migrate to a great country like Canada and other countries.
I am very proud to say that my mother and father and all my brothers and sisters have done very well in Canada in terms of the social fabric of this country. The only unfortunate part is I now speak to my mother and father on a regular basis and what they see around them is the degenerating of the social fabric of this country.
For over 20 years my mother and father ran a group home for various children from across this country who were abandoned or abused, neglected or just basically forgotten about. They had well over a few hundred children go through their home. It was their way of thanking Canada for opening up Canada's doors when we needed a place to come and live and survive.
Unfortunately after living in this country for over 43 years they feel now that Canada is reverting to dog eat dog, forget about them society, a user pay, merger monopoly society aided and abetted by the provincial and federal governments.
A tax program like the GST is not implemented without having some detrimental effect on the lowest paid citizen. To give a tax break to citizens start lowering the GST. That is probably the most balanced and fair tax break that every single Canadian in the country can be given, especially for those who are the lowest paid.
Ravage cuts to EI cannot be introduced without a negative effect. I would like to give a quote of a very famous Canadian from February 17, 1993: “By reducing benefits and by imposing even higher penalties on those who leave their jobs voluntarily, it is clear that the government has little concern for victims of the economic crisis. Instead of addressing the underlying cause of the problem it attacks the unemployed”.
Believe it or not that was a quote by the Prime Minister. If that is not a metamorphosis in the Liberal Party I do not know what does.
The Liberals have abandoned all the principles of the great leader Lester Pearson. They have abandoned all the principles and the moral fabric of Mr. Warren Allmand. They have abandoned all it was to be a Liberal in the 60s and 70s. Their agenda is tax breaks for the wealthy and their friends high on the economic scale while completely abandoning poverty, those who are homeless and those who are disenfranchised in society.
I work on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. When we had the previous member from Gander—Grand Falls as the chair of the committee, we were on extensive tours across the country, especially in small isolated coastal communities. It did not take a rocket scientist to understand the problem these people were going through.
What the government with those in the corporate sector has done is take a common property resource, the fish, and given most of it through the ITQ, IQ and EA programs to their friends in the corporate sector.
Someone like John Rifley of Clearwater can go from 15 years of selling lobsters individually and on a small scale to a grand scale. People will say that is really great but what has happened is that Clearwater and also Highliner Foods have managed to grab most of the licensing in the scallop sectors for example. Literally thousands of people on the east coast and the west coast have now been taken out of an economic opportunity in terms of their livelihood which is fishing.
The same thing is happening to our farmers, especially in the prairies. Back in 1977 there were 110,000 registered farmers in the province of Saskatchewan. These were family farms. They were independent and proud people who did not want to rely on the handouts of government to put food on their tables. These were people who put food on our tables.
Unfortunately now in 1999 we are probably down to about 58,000 registered farmers in Saskatchewan and with the recent crisis in the country, by next year we will probably have fewer and fewer farmers. That indicates that instead of being individually run and family owned by people who are proud to call themselves Canadian who support us and put food on our table, now we are going to the corporate sector of farming. We are literally giving these farms away because of the policies of the government. It is the same as in the fishing industry.
I find it absolutely abominable that the government can talk about its pride when it comes to the financial record of the country when in essence over $20 billion has been taken out of the unemployed of the country. It is proud of that record. It is absolutely scandalous when only 35% of people who pay EI can actually qualify for it now.
Last week the government again got its hand caught in the cookie jar with a memo that was leaked from HRDC that indicated that if HRDC personnel in Prince Edward Island did not cut enough people off EI and maintain a certain quota they themselves would be on the unemployment line.
Knowing the way this government works, it probably would not have been able to collect EI. This government is absolutely hollow when it comes to the concerns of the unemployed, the homeless and those who have to rely on shelters and the generosity of food banks in order to get by in their daily living.
For Canada to have an increase in food banks should send alarms right across the Liberal caucus telling them very urgently that we have a crisis and a problem in this country. But no, the Liberals talk about the 1.3 million jobs they have created. They never ever talk about the thousands and thousands of jobs that have been lost in most cases by people with limited education but with great vocational skills. They are proud working people. Now they are in their forties and they no longer can look after their families.
Recently I was in Sointula, British Columbia. There was a gentleman in his forties with his wife and his three children. The man was extremely proud to be living in that community but he stood in front of the committee, a group of total strangers, and he started weeping. He no longer knows how to survive. He no longer knows how to look after his family. And all this government does is say it will probably give him a tax break or try to look at some sort of program. All the man ever wanted was a job.
Years ago a Cape Breton woman wrote to Prime Minister Mulroney saying “Go ahead, threaten me with a full time job”. I encourage every single one of the Liberals and my fellow opposition members to go ahead and threaten the unemployed with a full time job that pays them a decent salary, that gives them proper labour standards, that gives them the opportunity to look after their families and live in their communities without being forced to abandon their homes like they do in Catalina or Burgeo or up in Canso, Nova Scotia. They literally board up their homes and then leave.
The track record of this government is very poor and abysmal. I thank the hon. member for Shefford for this opportunity. I know the work she does very well with the homeless and impoverished.
It is time that the government understood the crisis of what it has done. Not only is it important to pay attention to the fiscal problems, but it is also important to talk about the social deficit that has been caused by the previous Tory government and this current Liberal government.
Supply February 11th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member from the Liberal Party for whom I have great respect.
When she talks about national standards and caring Canadians why did her government abandon social housing in my province of Nova Scotia?
Supply February 11th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, what does the hon. member think should be done with the EI surplus? Should it go to balance the deficit and other programs? Or, should it go back to the workers so they can look after their families, especially those in remote communities?
Public Service Of Canada February 11th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, over 12,000 employees of the federal public service are being discriminated against by the policy of regional rates of pay.
I will give the President of the Treasury Board the opportunity to speak directly to the lowest paid PSAC members and explain to them why the Liberals betrayed the workers with broken promises. When will the government get back to the bargaining table?
Supply February 11th, 1999
Madam Speaker, I just wanted to ask the hon. member, whom I greatly respect by the way, about the recent letter which was referred to by us last week in the House of Commons. Is one of those programs he talked about the quota that HRDC personnel are now required to meet to take money from EI recipients in order to protect their jobs from the wrath of this government? How is arbitrarily taking people off EI especially in remote communities going to help them feed their families and end child poverty?
Supply February 11th, 1999
Madam Speaker, it is amazing to hear a Liberal backbencher talk about poverty when it was his government that gutted the EI system and caused a lot of the problems in this country today.
The fact is that people want to work. Fishermen in the coastal communities and farmers on the prairies want to work. When they could not work they had to rely on the EI system, an EI system that is failing well over 65% of the people in this country. It is not just lone parents and families that break up which are suffering, there are many families with a husband and wife who find it difficult to make ends meet today.
I would like the member to respond to the fact that it was this government's drastic cuts to EI, to satisfy its fiscal objectives and banking needs, which created a huge social deficit in which parented families are greatly suffering as well.
Supply February 11th, 1999
Madam Speaker, I agree that we should be talking about finances and issues of taxation, exactly what the hon. member spoke about for the first eight minutes of his speech. He talked about the NDP wanting to redistribute the wealth. I remind him that we have not said that. We have said that it is better to redistribute allocation of resources.
An example is our fishing communities on the east and west coasts. DFO's practices and policies have allocated that common property resource to fewer and fewer hands, which is the corporate sector. That sector gets richer and richer while thousands of people lose their livelihoods to partake in the economy he talked about. Would the member not agree that a better allocation of resources, which would enable people to work in their coastal communities, would be a better way to end child poverty in those communities?