Pierre Poilievre

[Sponsorship Program, October 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister does not need to wait for the commission to go further before he reveals what he already knows. When he was mad as hell, he called on anyone with information to “come forward and not wait to be compelled to do so”.

Yesterday the Gomery commission learned that the Prime Minister's office was fully involved in the sponsorship program. He knew what happened. Why will he not turn himself in to the Gomery commission without a subpoena and tell Canadians what he did with the missing millions?

[Sponsorship Program, October 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Gomery commission once again linked the Prime Minister to the sponsorship scandal. His office intervened to help his friends get up to $250,000. However, this did not prevent the Prime Minister, later on, from pretending to be outraged and suggesting that everyone condemn such practices.

When will the Prime Minister admit to the commission that these millions were used for partisan purposes?

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, the member across the way raised the question of finding new markets. He was bragging about his government's efforts in Russia, China and most recently Japan in order to discover new markets for Canadian beef. That is generally good in the long, long term, but let us acknowledge the reality here.

Canadian beef is not going to go to Russia or Japan or anywhere else outside of North America unless it is in a box. Until such time as we can kill the cattle and pack the stuff, it is a red herring to say that we are solving the problem by looking for new markets in far-off lands. Our number one objective needs to be the continuation of providing killing capacity here at home, because right now there is a domestic demand that our cattle producers cannot even meet because they cannot get through the bottleneck that is the slaughterhouse capacity.

Does the hon. member agree that while this is a nice, long term objective and that it may be important 10 years from now, in the immediate term we need to acknowledge the fact that we scarcely have the slaughterhouse capacity to service even Canadian retail demand?

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Madam Chair, we have discussed a lot of what has happened on the domestic front to mitigate the problems that have resulted from this crisis. I would like to address the international side.

I would like to ask the member his view on the approach of the government in getting the southern border open. Here are some concrete suggestions on how that might have happened more quickly. We could have lobbied more vigorously the consumer groups in the United States of America who consume Canadian beef. We could have linked arms with the American slaughterhouses that slaughter Canadian beef and make a livelihood from it. We could have sent our representatives to Washington to link arms with the congressmen and senators from the states who consume Canadian beef. We could have built the domestic pressure on that side of the border to get the border open to Canadian beef.

Instead of doing that, we have a Prime Minister who is not in Washington today, but is globe-trotting in Europe. Members of his own caucus, whom he refuses to discipline, are attacking our closest friends and biggest consumers as idiots, morons and worse. What does the hon. member think of the approach of the government to getting the borders open?

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Madam Chair, the parliamentary secretary pointed to his government's willingness to listen to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association's suggestions with respect to dealing with this crisis.

I would like the hon. member on the government side to discuss with me why it is that the government was reluctant to look at a temporary income tax deferral to help producers temporarily suffering with this crisis and why the government refused to look at tax averaging options to balance over a 10 year period. Why were we not able to balance over a 10 year period tax payments for those producers who have decided to exit the market?

Finally, could the hon. member talk to us a bit more about the government's plans to provide tax incentives that would help attract capital investment, venture capital, to increase slaughter capacity here in Canada?

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Madam Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for her remarks and I would also like to note with delight the presence of five members of the Liberal caucus here, including the--

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to further elaborate on the theme that the hon. member laid out in her presentation, which is the constant intrusion of the federal government into the areas of provincial jurisdiction.

The throne speech promises to further erode provincial jurisdiction with a pledge to assemble a massive, multi-billion dollar government-led child raising program it calls child care. This is an area of provincial jurisdiction. It is not part of the competence of the government. However, at the same time it applies a tax burden on the average family that is so burdensome it is inadequate for one parent to go out into the workforce and raise income by him or herself. As such, both parents have to go out to work.

The overall policy direction of the government is to discriminate against those families who make the sacrifice to keep one parent in the home to raise the children and instead forces upon them a decision that is not their first prerogative, which is a government-led child raising program.

I wonder if the hon. member might expound upon her earlier discourse about the intrusions into provincial jurisdiction with particular reference to this upcoming proposal.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spoke often of immigrant communities in the country. I have some of those immigrant communities in my own constituency and many of them of Taiwanese background have come to me with concern that the World Health Organization does not recognize their home jurisdiction or observer status at the World Health Organization.

This issue came before Parliament not long before the last election. The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to support the observer status of Taiwan at the World Health Organization. It is with great sadness, however, that this community learned that the diplomats of our country stood up at Geneva and in the end voted against the will of Parliament. They decided to collapse under pressure from communist China and oppose the recognition of that small democratic island at the World Health Organization at a time when east Asia and indeed much of the free world was suffering with the problem of SARS.

Imagine a jurisdiction like Taiwan with 23 million people suffering from SARS not having recognition at the World Health Organization. How does this hon. member stand in support of the throne speech when her own government voted against the will of this Parliament, voted against the health of all people, and voted against the basic recognition of what Parliament had said?

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I certainly agree with the hon. member in his characterization. I would add that it is impossible for this industry to get back on its feet until two things happen: slaughterhouse capacity is expanded and access to our largest market is obtained.

[Agriculture, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, first I congratulate the member for being with us at this hour. It is exhausting for all of us.

In direct response to his remarks, I believe that our presence could be stronger in Washington. I am amazed and astounded by the number of lobby groups in the United States of America that are nowhere near as important to the United States economy as is Canada and that have a much stronger presence on Capitol Hill.

We should be working harder. We should have a stronger diplomatic and economic presence in the United States capital. We should be advertising in the states that consume Canadian cattle, targeting consumer groups and consumers directly to inform them that their prices for beef are actually going up because of the failure of their government to allow Canadian beef into the market. We should at the same time be focusing domestically through tax incentives and other instruments on getting the slaughterhouse capacity up to speed so that we can properly service our own domestic market and the international markets.