Ralph Goodale

[Government Appointments, October 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we raised the transfers for health care to the highest level ever in Canadian history.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a defining characteristic of our country, much valued by the vast majority of Canadians. However, appointees of the minority government do not share that view, like the chief of staff to the Minister of the Environment. He attacks the charter and the judiciary. He argues for discrimination and against tolerance. He labels those who disagree as Nazis, like “Adolf Hitler and his bunch”.

Would the government at least take this opportunity to disavow that former Conservative candidate?

[Government Programs, October 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, despite diversionary tactics, careful packaging, warm and fuzzy language and all its efforts to muzzle itself, the true nature of the right-wing government is dribbling out. Ideological zealots are planted in key positions. Secret legislation is planned to undermine the charter, judicial independence is devalued, access to the courts for low income Canadians is blocked and federal funding for the underprivileged is cut off.

How is this meanspirited attitude consistent with the values the vast majority of Canadians have cherished for generations?

[Points of Order, October 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, during the course of this question period and others this week, there has been a controversy about certain remarks made by the President of the Treasury Board, which he persists in denying that he made. I have pointed out on occasion that there is both a written record and a verbal record on tape of those remarks. I was invited during question period to table that material.

With respect to the written record, I would simply refer to government news release number 2006-047, dated September 25, 2006, which uses the words “wasteful”, “trimming fat” and not “good value”, all in relation to the programs that we have referred to with respect to literacy. So, in the government's own official record with its news releases, the information is very clear.

Further, when the President of the Treasury Board was out canvassing for loonies on the street corner earlier this week, his remarks were in fact recorded. I have them with me. I am certainly prepared to table that recording of what he said, which perfectly verifies what has been alleged here in question period.

I would simply make two requests. First of all, I would like to get the tape recorder back when the Table is done with it, and secondly, in the spirit of fair play, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister would table his BlackBerry, from which he quotes repeatedly in this House.

[Business of the House, October 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on the eve of the break for Thanksgiving, I wonder if the House leader for the government could indicate the agenda he will be pursuing for the balance of today and tomorrow, as well as the first week after we are back from the Thanksgiving break.

I also wonder, because obviously the high interest in the House and the very high degree of interest in the country, if the House leader could give us some indication of when the government will bring forward its various proposals with respect to same sex marriage.

[Literacy, October 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Treasury Board president was deafening by his silence.

We have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, both on the written record and on tape, that this minister has dismissed funding to address adult literacy as wasteful and not something the Government of Canada should help with after the fact.

The Treasury Board president denied those remarks, but the hard evidence clearly proves otherwise.

Will he simply confess that he misspoke himself and reinstate $18 million for those Canadians who need that help with their literacy skills?

[Literacy, October 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the government has just proven my point.

As the Mike Harris hatchetman on social services, the President of the Treasury Board spent a lot of time designing meanspirited schemes to keep welfare from the poor in Ontario. One of his big ideas was that welfare should be denied, and get this, unless the poor took a literacy test. He said that literacy could empower people, improve lives, expand jobs and boost the whole economy. That was his view in 2001.

Was that just an excuse to block poor people from welfare, or will he now buy his own argument and restore $18 million in federal funding for literacy?

[Literacy, October 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues today have demonstrated how the minority meanspirited Conservative government has cut the heart out of literacy services across Canada.

As the chief hack-and-slasher, the President of the Treasury Board gave the back of his hand to millions of Canadians who need literacy help. “No value for money”, he said. The government should “not be trying to do repair work after the fact”. He has denied that quote.

I have two questions. First, does he know that insult was caught on tape, and second, does he still deny it?

[Government Accountability, October 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians will not be fooled by the minister's bluster. They recognize the Mike Harris style, the meanspirited right wing that left Ontario with massive legal problems like Ipperwash, with massive environmental problems like Walkerton, with massive economic problems like a $5 billion hidden public debt, and that minister with massive ethical problems like millions for partisan advertising and personal image consultants.

Will the minister at least promise that he will not do to Canada what he did to Ontario?

[Government Accountability, October 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the minority Conservative government is straining its credibility. It failed to report Conservative convention money. It violated the access to information rules. The Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary had to admit a deliberate disinformation campaign. Conservative insiders are using their privileged connections as stepping stones to private lobbying. Partisan patronage is exposed in virtually every ministry.

Canadians are concerned by all these contradictions and double standards. When will the government walk its own talk?

[Points of Order, October 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in fairness, I think the Minister of Justice would want to acknowledge that those judicial advisory committees include nominees of all provincial governments in Canada, the chief justices of Canada, the bar association of each of the provinces, and the Canadian Bar Association. They are not Liberal committees.