Peter Van Loan

[Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, February 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the difference between our government and the previous government is the use of Challenger jets.

The biggest difference is that every time the Liberal ministers wanted to go anywhere, home for the weekend or otherwise, they were not getting into a car. They were getting on a Challenger jet for the occasion.

In fact, the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie had no trouble having the Challenger fly empty to Montreal to pick her up for a cabinet meeting, when there is a commercial flight maybe every hour. That is the real difference.

[Government Appointments, February 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated, all appointments are very qualified. We did attempt to put in place a public appointments commission, with the person in charge to be one of the most qualified and respected individuals in the country. Unfortunately, the members of the opposition united to dismantle the reputation of that man. As a result, that has been delayed. Otherwise that process would have been in place already.

The difference is, under the Liberal Party we saw appointments like Allan Rock, Karen Kraft Sloan, John Harvard, Yvon Charbonneau, Sophia Leung and a series other former MPs who were given going away parties, including some fellow name Gagliano to Denmark.

[Government Appointments, February 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as all members of the House know, the appointments that we have made are all very qualified, including those who have been made to that board. In fact, the chief official on that board, who was responsible for screening, told the committee of Parliament that the individual in question was indeed qualified to do that job.

[Justice, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know that the opposition House leader was listening to what I said.

I said that police officers are pretty good at judging what needs to be done to combat crime in our country. I think they know something about the problems of combatting crime in our country and they know something about dealing with the judicial system in our country. Every day police officers are in our courts providing evidence, bringing criminals before the courts for prosecution, for adjudication. As a result, I think they have a lot of experience in what is necessary and what is good in the courts.

[The Environment, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that the previous government, the Liberal government, promised to spend a lot of money on the environment, but in actual fact, it did almost nothing.

The Liberals did virtually no spending. They did virtually no actual action to improve the environment. We are finally getting around to making those changes that were never made. We were committed to commitments internationally, which the last government never took any steps to do. In fact, under the previous Liberal government, Canada went to 35% above its Kyoto commitments. Obviously, we have a big hole dig out of.

[The Environment, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, our government is taking action on the environment after 13 years in which very little happened. We know there are others who would like to see Canada spend money, for example, on greenhouse gas hot air credits by giving billions to Russia.

We believe in acting in Canada. We have done that through the ecoenergy program and the ecotrust proposal. These are putting billions of dollars into the hands of Canadians who are seeking to make their environment cleaner. We are putting billions in the hands of Canadian provinces to have a program to make our environment cleaner. The government is taking action.

[Judicial Appointments, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this government has its agenda. I invite the Bloc Québécois to join our government by supporting Bill C-10, for example. This bill proposes minimum sentences for criminals who commit an offence with a firearm.

I would invite the member of the Bloc Québécois to join with us and with Quebeckers and other Canadians in ensuring that that bill, which the Bloc Québécois together with the Liberals have effectively gutted at committee, gets the meaningful penalties restored in it when it comes back to the House.

[Judicial Appointments, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as I have already said, our party's agenda, and that of this government, is to make communities safer.

We want to make our streets and communities safer. We want to get tough on gun crime. We want to get tough on dangerous offenders. We want to get tough on sexual offenders. This is not any kind of secret. This is what Canadians want. This is what Quebeckers want. This is what this government wants.

[Judicial Appointments, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I think that, on the issue of crime, Canadians are united. They want safer communities. Clearly, our program is trying to achieve that objective.

In terms of making our streets and communities safer, we make no apologies for putting police officers on the judicial advisory committees. Members of the Liberal Party of Canada may think that is bad. They may think police officers know nothing about the legal system. They may think they know nothing about crime. We think that police officers are perhaps the best judges of what needs to be done to make our streets and communities safer.

[Judicial Appointments, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if I could continue my further response to the deputy leader of the Liberal Party, we have actually made 51 judicial appointments so far this year. That is a fair number to clear up the backlog.

If he thinks it is an extreme ideological agenda, perhaps he could explain. One of those appointments is Julie Thorburn, former fundraiser for the campaign of the deputy leader when he was seeking to become leader of the Liberal Party. I suppose he thinks she is not qualified, or perhaps that is the sole exception, someone who fits the Liberal test for appointment to the bench: membership in the Liberal Party.