Pierre Poilievre

[Finance, February 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to discuss this dinosaur analogy. This comes from a party that would force middle class families, whether they support the program or not, to pay higher taxes and face new strains on their own financial capacity to pay for a new government bureaucracy.

She would take away a woman's right to choose how to raise her own children by forcing her to pay higher taxes into a government run bureaucracy. I propose to give the family the right to choose. Perhaps there are some families that want to use day care alternatives. I do not have any problem with that. That is why the government should give the dollars directly to those parents and let them decide how to spend them properly.

Instead, the member across the way would coercively take those dollars in the form of taxation and force an option on that family. She calls us dinosaurs. That is one of the most retrograde ideas I have heard since arriving on the Hill.

[Finance, February 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I confess I am new here and I do not know all the rules, but I always thought it was against the rules to bring pets into the House of Commons. I have just noted that in fact there is a big elephant in the room, an enormous elephant that we are not focusing in this debate. It is quintessential to the discussions surrounding the budget, this elephant is, yet no one seems to be discussing it.

Of course I refer to the Liberal plan to institute a national government-run babysitting bureaucracy, or what the Liberals call a national day care program. We might be hearing something about this elephant in the upcoming budget, but we are not yet sure. I would like to discuss this enormous elephant in my address to the House today with regard to the budget that we expect to see here at the end of February or in early March.

Let us start with the principles that the Liberal government says this elephant will be guided by. The first principle, of course, is one of the Liberals' catchphrases. They love using this word even though they are not quite sure what it means. They call it universality. They plan to put into place a government babysitting bureaucracy or an elephant that can universally carry every child on its back; that is what they are promising, anyway.

The Liberals have been promising this for the last 10 years. In 1993 they promised this elephant. In 1997 they promised this elephant. And in 2000 they promised it. Now they are promising it one more time.

It is not that I worry they will not keep their promise. I am actually worried that they will on this particular subject, because this elephant will be anything but universal. The social development minister has told us that the national day care program he proposes will only go to government sponsored day care facilities, which means by definition that this national daycare system will not be universal.

It will exclude parents who make the decision to raise their children in the home. It will exclude neighbourhood nannies or others in the community who give community based care to children. It will exclude synagogues, mosques, temples and churches in communities that provide child care throughout the day. It will exclude qualified professionals who operate private facilities where children are cared for throughout the day.

I do not have my dictionary with me, but as far as I know, if some program excludes 80% to 90% of potential recipients then it cannot be, by definition, universal. This is a universal program that excludes 85% or 90% of children. That is the first point. That is my first problem with this elephant.

Second, the Liberals say they intend to provide this program for 2,500 children. We know there are more than 2,500 within the specified age group, so once again, it will not be universal.

We should keep in mind that even those parents who do choose alternative methods of raising their children, who choose not to use the government babysitting bureaucracy, will still have to pay for it. That would be like forcing people to pay at my restaurant even though they do not like what is on the menu and even though they have not dropped by to patronize the facility.

So it is not universal and it will still make others who do not use it pick up the tab.

Let us discuss the cost of this elephant, because I can assure the House that it is going to be very expensive to feed this beast. The Liberal government says $5 billion over five years.

Can we have some common sense here for a moment? Do hon. members really believe that $1 billion a year, spread across this entire country, the second biggest nation on earth, is going to adequately finance a universal day care program? The Liberals are going to spread $1 billion across 10 provinces and 3 territories.

I suspect that in my province of Ontario we would get something in the neighbourhood of $300 million a year. Is it really realistic that the Liberals are going to bring in a universal day care program in the province of Ontario for $300 million? Of course not.

Then they are going to unionize all of the professionals who will work in these facilities and be faced with labour turmoil and potential strikes like the kinds we see in other sectors. And they expect us to believe they are going to be able to do all of that for $1 billion a year nationwide?

Excuse me, but I am a little bit skeptical of this elephant we have in the room today. Ultimately it is going to cost a lot more. We know what the Liberals said about the gun registry. They said it would pay for itself. It is costing us $2 billion.

We know about the massive overexpenditures that have happened in other departments. We are sure to see similar overexpenditures in this new bureaucracy, which will ultimately mean higher taxes for middle class families and parents with children. It will mean that parents who have the responsibility to care for kids are going to be paying more to the government in higher taxes, which means there will be greater stress on the family unit. It will continue to be more difficult for parents to raise their own children, thus defeating the purpose of having this elephant in the room in the first place.

Then the Liberals talk about quality. I wonder who believes that this government can be trusted with raising our children. Let us look at the way in which it manages other programs.

Consider the Canada pension plan. I am a young person. If I could invest the premiums I am forced to pay into CPP myself, I can assure members that I would be receiving a much higher rate of return than the 2% or 3% maximum, optimistically, the government managed program could ever pay.

Consider our military, with submarines that will not go down and helicopters that will not go up. This is a government that has horribly mismanaged our national defence. As recently as the catastrophe in south Asia, we were unable to transport our troops because we do not have heavy airlift capacity. It is another example of blatant government mismanagement.

Consider Technology Partnerships Canada, where the government recovers only 5% or 6% of all of the loans it gives out. And it considers this program a success. A recovery rate of 5% would bankrupt any of the major banks in the country, but somehow this government considers that to be a marvellous success. I guess it is the same kind of logic that would lead them to believe that a child care program which only serves 5% or 6% of the nation's kids is universal. But we will return to that in a moment.

I would be remiss if I did not propose an alternative. I believe in parents. I believe in the truism that civilization is passed on from parent to child and that our civilization exists today because parents have carried out that duty and responsibility. That is what we on this side of the House of Commons believe. We would take those same child care dollars that this government would give to a babysitting bureaucracy and we would give it to parents directly. That is because we trust families. We trust parents. We believe that no one loves a child more than its own parents.

In conclusion, I would like to announce that the colour of this elephant, of course, is white, and the only value-added it brings to this debate is that potentially it will carry on its back the Minister of Social Development and the Prime Minister to legacy land. Other than that it does not serve our nation's children and it goes clearly against the norms that have built our civilization and against the priorities of the Canadian people.

[Question No. 57, January 31st, 2005]

With regard to the potential move of National Defence Headquarters: ( a ) is the government considering moving the site of National Defence Headquarters from its present location and, if so, what locations are currently under consideration; ( b ) has the government entered into negotiations with any party and, if so, at what stage are negotiations; and ( c ) what is the government proposed timeline for the move?

[Question No. 56, January 31st, 2005]

With regard to the potential move of National Defence Headquarters: ( a ) is the government considering moving the site of National Defence Headquarters from its present location and, if so, what locations are currently under consideration; ( b ) has the government entered into negotiations with any party and, if so, at what stage are negotiations; and ( c ) what is the government proposed timeline for the move?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2, December 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to broaden the overall theme that the hon. member for Medicine Hat has constructed for us.

He pointed out the essential difference between this side of the House and that side of the House. On this side, we believe in economic freedom, that it is individuals, not big government, who create wealth. It is entrepreneurism, not politicians, who create jobs.

That theme of overall individual freedom was further illustrated today in the House of Commons when numerous members of the House on this side had to stand up and defend charter provisions, which protect religious freedoms and the rights of individuals to exercise their own religious morality, against the position of cabinet ministers on that side of the House who oppose religious freedom and who want to impose their values on various different religious and cultural groups. People who come here from other countries to enjoy religious freedoms will have those freedoms impeded by a government that wants to force independent religious organizations to perform weddings that are against the religious values of those religious institutions.

Ironically, we saw the minister on democratic reform stand in the House repeatedly claiming that he believed in the charter, when in fact he stated on CPAC that those marriage commissioners who refused to carry out same-sex weddings should lose their jobs. Other ministers have said that churches that fail to perform same-sex weddings should lose their charitable tax status.

I bring it back to the ultimate question of individual freedom, and I ask my friend from Medicine Hat this. Is it not true that it is us on this side of the House of Commons who are defending the Canadian constitutional values of individual freedom, economically, religiously and in other facets of Canadian life?

[Youth, December 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board offended anti-agism provisions in the Charter of Rights when he hurled insults at young people's participation in the democratic process in committee last week. This is no way to encourage young people to participate more fully in our democracy.

Will the minister rise in the House and apologize to young people everywhere for offending their charter right to participate in the democratic process?

[Youth, December 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday the President of the Treasury Board attacked Canada's youth.

Faced with my questions about the revenue minister's decision to break all the rules and give a cushy job to his banking buddy, the member for Winnipeg South said “you are young, give it a break”. Had the minister directed this anti-youth bigotry at a racial or religious minority, he would have been forced to resign, but apparently, my generation is fair game for ridicule and prejudice.

Well, we are not going to take it any more. The minister might miss the good old days when young people were only good for polishing his shoes and picking up his drycleaning, but those days are gone. We do not need to run for coffee. We can run for election and win. That is why I am part of the youngest caucus in the history of this country.

The minister says “with age comes wisdom”. Well, if his crusty attitude represents wisdom, I am happy staying young.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity, now that we have the subject of post-secondary education before the House of Commons, to raise what I believe to be a critical issue with respect to the rising costs our young people face as they study in post-secondary institutions.

As the youngest member of Parliament in Canada, I am probably the most recent student of our university system. One of the greatest costs that we experience when we are students is actually a cost that many people do not know about at all. It is the cost of buying new textbooks year after year. Some students spend as much as $1,500 a year on textbooks. That is three, four or even five months' rent, depending on where the student finds housing.

I want to know what kind of a solution the hon. member has for reducing the cost of textbooks? In this particular context though, many of these books could easily be reused year after year through used book stores which many student associations have set up.

However, the publishers, along with the professors, have set in place a policy requiring students to buy new textbooks every single year. As a result, as students move from year one to year two, they cannot even sell the books that are now obsolete to them because a new edition is now required. This costs probably millions of dollars to students right across the country.

I am wondering if there is some sort of a solution that the hon. member across the way can propose to deal with this problem.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by first informing the hon. members across the way that oftentimes the unions of students who come to this place to lobby do not speak for the students that they purport to represent. I say that as the youngest member of Parliament in Canada, I also am probably the most recent attendee at a Canadian university of anyone in this room.

There is tremendous frustration among students at the radicalism of some of the student organizations that find themselves here. Indeed, these organizations spend hard earned student dollars on radical causes and on protests that have no correspondence with the issues that matter to real, every day students.

I want to move on to an entirely different point. There is some area where we can find some agreement with the hon. member from the New Democratic Party.

As a recent student, I can point to one of the greatest costs that students face. It is beyond tuition and it is beyond just food and other traditional costs that one would expect. It is the enormous cost of books.

What a lot of non-students do not realize is our young people are paying in the neighbourhood of $1,500 to $2,000 a year on textbooks. This bill does not deal directly with it, but I want to take this opportunity to address what I believe is an injustice which students face every year.

These books could be far cheaper. We could get them for the price of maybe 10% of what we are paying now. The reason we cannot is because year after year the professors in the universities demand that a new edition of the textbook be purchased. Instead of allowing students to sell their used books to students who take over their seats in the class, the books collect dust in their basements for the next six or seven decades. New students then have to pay between $150 or $200 for the same textbook that they could have bought for a fraction of the price from the outgoing students.

I do not know exactly what the remedy is for this problem. It seems utterly insane that young people are spending exorbitant amounts of money, paying for books that they could acquire for a fraction of the price if only it were not for the need to buy the new edition every year.

It is very clever for the publishing companies. They change a few pages and alter a bit of the content. The reality is, substantively the book is the same. They run year after year profits on the backs of students.

Would the hon. member offer some solutions to this problem?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, November 29th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, the fact that the government continues to portray the Queensway Carleton Hospital as some sort of threat to the greenbelt is at best absurd and at worst ludicrous. Selling a parcel of land to a community hospital would not imperil a massive body of property which we know as the greenbelt. As such, I do not understand the logic behind refusing to do for this hospital what municipalities and other levels of government, on a regular basis, do for other hospitals.

The Riverside Hospital bought its property, a similar piece of land, for $1 from the City of Ottawa. Why can the federal government not be similarly reasonable and allow this community hospital to do the exact same thing, or does she really believe that this hospital is a threat to our greenbelt?

Finally, when will the people of Nepean-Carleton--