Pierre Poilievre

[Government Contracts, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the fact remains that section 14 of the Parliament of Canada Act bans senators from participating in government business, whether they were appointed before or after that government business started. That means the Liberals broke the law and paid millions to a Liberal senator's company for an empty building.

What will it take for this Prime Minister to stand in the House and announce what he will do to punish this Liberal senator who has broken the law?

[Government Contracts, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Liberal Senator Massicotte would have us believe that he broke no rule in signing a $100 million contract with the federal government. But subsection 14(1) of the Parliament of Canada Act states, “ No person who is a member of the Senate shall...be a party to...any contract under which the public money of Canada is to be paid.”

What is the Prime Minister waiting for to punish this Liberal senator who has broken the law?

[Government Contracts, May 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, where I come from people start paying rent when they move into the place.

The government has been paying half a million dollars per month to the company of a Quebec Liberal senator for a building that was totally empty for an entire year, and half empty for the last six months. Only in Liberal wonderland would that be considered a good deal.

Will the Prime Minister stand in the House and explain to us why Canadians paid nearly $10 million to rent a vacant building from one of his Liberal friends in the Liberal Senate?

[Government Contracts, May 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, a lease contract between Liberal Senator Paul Massicotte and the Liberal government once again turned into a taxpayers' nightmare.

I am trying to understand the logic. The government paid Senator Massicotte's company $10 million over one year for a building that was serving no purpose, except perhaps that of squandering public funds.

Why did this government pay millions of dollars to the Liberal senator's company to rent a vacant building for no apparent reason?

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a substantive question about the direction of the government. The government promises to spend at least $5 billion on a day care bureaucracy. Experts in the field, advocates who support this plan, actually say it will cost ultimately $10 billion a year to bring in a fully institutionalized day care bureaucracy, the kind the government is ultimately promising. That is $10 billion per year which is a massive cost for Canadian parents through higher taxes.

Why will the government not have the modesty to just give those child care dollars directly to parents, so that they can make their own decisions as to what is in the best interests for their own children?

[Infrastructure, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, three days before the last election campaign, Ottawa Liberals held a fancy press conference in Barrhaven, where they promised $200 million in infrastructure.

One year later, they have broken their promise. The money still sits in the federal vault. The federal Liberals have not even signed a contract, just a press release.

Now they are playing politics again. The Liberal mayor and Liberal helpers on council have teamed up to threaten that if local voters do not choose the Liberals in the coming election, they will lose the dollars altogether.

Liberals could put an immediate end to this fear campaign by simply transferring the dollars now. No delays and no more excuses: they should just keep their word and pay up.

Our community cannot afford these political games. We need the Armstrong Bridge to serve Riverside South and Barrhaven residents. People in South Gloucester need to get across the river to the west side. This needs to happen. As their member of Parliament, I am--

[Property Rights, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address the entirely and deliberately specious aspect of the Liberal argument on this issue. The Liberals argue that this motion, which protects private property in a way that is done in most civilized nations of the earth, would somehow inhibit the government's ability to recover stolen property.

If property is stolen, it does not become the possession of the thief. In law it is still the possession of the owner, so these property rights provisions would have absolutely no application to people who have stolen other people's belongings.

I wish I did not even have to say such a thing because it is so patently obvious. I think the members across the way know it is so patently obvious, but instead of addressing the core principle that the member for Yorkton—Melville has put forward, they have tried to insert this specious confusing argument into the discussion in order to move away from the core principle.

Why would they not want to debate the core principle? It is because their position, which opposes basic property rights protection, is totally, intellectually indefensible. They are not prepared to defend their position, so they are injecting distortions that take away from the overall principle debate.

Now that I have demolished that distraction, I am going to return to the principle that we are here to discuss. We are discussing one of the foremost rights that has led to the very civilization that we have today. As the hon. member from Edmonton already pointed out, it is essential that when a human being creates with her hands, or his mind, that the property, the resulting fruits of that labour, become his or her own and that no state agent has the right to interfere with that ownership.

[Property Rights, April 21st, 2005]

That is beautiful.

[Property Rights, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Nepean--Carleton is the riding I represent and it is the region I want to speak about today. At the outset of the creation of the Federal District Commission, which has now become the National Capital Commission, farmers had huge pieces of land confiscated. They were paid only a third of the market value of that time.

The National Capital Commission now charges full market value rent on those lands. The National Capital Commission has effectively become a commercial enterprise, using these properties which it expropriated from farmers and families as a revenue-generating tool.

All of this is documented in the Spirit of Nepean , authored by the famous D. Aubrey Moodie, who was the reeve of Nepean. He is 97 years old today and can tell us all these important historical facts.

It seems to me that this is one practical example of how a group of people were abused by their government and not given fair compensation. It seems to me that this right is so basic, so quintessential, that it is burned onto the heart of every human being, that that which they create with their hands is their property and must be protected. Why is it that in a country as advanced as Canada we have yet to respect that right?

[Charitable Organizations, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, tonight our Prime Minister will perform a nationally televised panic attack. He is now desperate. He has tried for months to get people to forget about the Liberal ad scam.

Now the Liberal scheme is to claim that everyone is corrupt. Citizens should learn that all politicians steal and all charities take money that does not belong to them, so goes the Liberal line.

Yesterday Liberals smeared Lawrence Cannon for his work in the charitable sector. Mr. Cannon legitimately employed a small grant to fund a successful 34 nation business meeting that brought $4.5 million in trade to Canada. None of the dollars went into Mr. Cannon's pocket. It was all put toward building our economy. This is not the same as the Liberal payola scam.

Here we have it, Liberals will now attack every charity to which they gave sponsorship money. Are they saying that all of these volunteers were involved in conniving to skim money into Liberal coffers? Canadians deserve better and soon they will have a chance--