Scott Reid

[Contraventions Act and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (marijuana), April 11th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, whenever the occasion permits I try in my remarks to the House to develop arguments that form part of a larger, more coherent whole than is permitted by the 10 minute speaking slots that are assigned to us under the Standing Orders.

A larger, more complete picture on an issue under debate in the House can be developed by means of public addresses, published papers, opeds or other media. In this way I try to ensure that my contributions to the debates that take place in the Chamber will become part of what I hope will develop over time into an ever more complete, thoughtful and well reasoned organic whole on whatever subject is under discussion.

Ideally, the longer term result of this approach would be that as time progresses these disparate commentaries could together be taken as part of a coherent and tolerably exhaustive review of the background to a subject as it percolates its way through the realm of public debate. By the time it is ready to be dealt with legislatively I will have completed a thorough review of the subject accompanied where possible by something that amounts to a kind of policy manifesto.

In my remarks today I will be expanding upon a thesis with regard to the subject of banned and illegal substances that I had partly addressed in an essay entitled “Should we end prohibition?” in the October 2001 edition of the journal Policy Options. Today's remarks are given some context by these earlier thoughts. If hon. members find what I say to be of interest I encourage them to seek further information along the same lines by looking at that essay.

Today's debate centres on Bill C-344, an act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (marijuana). Under the bill it would no longer be a criminal offence to possess marijuana for personal use. However, the possession of marijuana would remain a non-criminal offence and persons found to be in possession of the substance would face fines of $200 for a first offence, $500 for a second offence and $1,000 for any subsequent offences.

Currently, the penalties laid out under subsection 462.2(a) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act for a first conviction can include fines as high as $100,000 or six months in prison. The penalties for reoffending range as high as $300,000 and one year's imprisonment.

The present standard for determining whether marijuana is intended for personal use would remain in place under the proposed law. If any person were found to be in possession of amounts in excess of three kilograms this would be regarded as prima facie evidence of an intent to sell some since it is highly unlikely that one person could possibly consume such a large quantity on his or her own.

My inclination is to support the proposed law for reasons that I will explain in a moment. However, if the law makes it through the legislative process and is presented to the House for third reading I will attempt to hold a survey of my constituents as to how to vote and I will respect their wishes even if these wishes do not correspond with my own preferences.

With this caveat in place I would like to state my personal views. I favour the legislation for two reasons, the second of which I will spend more time on than the first.

First, it would greatly reduce the amount of Canada's limited police and law enforcement assets that are being consumed by the enforcement of the current Criminal Code provisions relating to marijuana possession. About $200 million is spent each year in this country on enforcing laws against the simple possession for personal use of all illegal drugs. Of this, $150 million goes to the enforcement of the criminal sanctions against the use of marijuana. This proposed law would therefore save our police departments $150 million each year which could be used instead to deal with the many other urgent issues that face our law enforcement officials.

Second, it would pave the way for marijuana to be used under careful monitoring for medical purposes. The most important of these purposes would be for use as a pain relieving agent. It is to this subject that I wish to focus the remaining portion of my remarks.

Marijuana, whether smoked or ingested in another manner, can provide relief from chronic pain and in some cases from debilitating pain when no other remedy is available. It is for this reason that several American states, including California and Arizona, have legalized the use of marijuana for pain relief.

Those of us who do not suffer chronic pain in our everyday lives have little idea just how devastating it can be. In many cases severe, untreated pain can be so overwhelming that individuals who are not able to find relief, find that the pain outweighs all of life's joys. In extreme cases life ceases to be worth living.

I will give one example among the many from which I could choose. A retired New York state police officer named David Covillion suffered chronic back pain as the result of a traffic accident. He was deprived pain medication in the form of a prescription drug that combines acetaminophen and the narcotic oxycodone after his long term use of the drug raised red flags with medical authorities. When this occurred Mr. Covillion tried to go from one doctor to another seeking narcotic prescriptions. Mr. Covillion described his pain in the following words:

As I ran out of medication, I was confined to my bed totally, because it hurt to move...At times I'd have liked to just take an axe and chop my arm right off, but I would have had to take half my neck with it.

When he had been completely cut off from prescription narcotics Mr. Covillion approached Jack Kevorkian, the famous suicide doctor, to ask how to end his life. Dr. Kevorkian refused to assist Mr. Covillion end his life. He then turned to a group called the National Chronic Pain Outreach Association which for a few months was able to re-establish his access to the pain relievers he needed. During this period his quality of life improved and Mr. Covillion's story came to public light. He conducted a number of interviews including the one from which I have just quoted. However he was cut off again from medical supplies, his pain became too intense to bear, and on September 11, 1996 he killed himself.

In a general sense Mr. Covillion's story draws our attention to the need for more generous rules for the distribution of prescription pain relief. In his case the medication in question was not marijuana. It was a story like this one that caused voters in some parts of the United States to reconsider their harsh rules with regard to all forms of pain relief, including marijuana.

In California, in 1996, the voters chose by means of a binding referendum to change their state's laws to allow the use of marijuana as a means of relieving chronic pain. This change to California's law and the United States federal government's subsequent decision to ignore state law and to continue to prosecute the users of medical marijuana allows us to engage in an interesting experiment in finding out what happens when marijuana is available for the relief of chronic pain and what happens when it is taken away.

I would like to illustrate this story by referring to a specific example. I am referring to a man named Peter McWilliams, the editor of Liberty magazine of which I am also an editor. In 1996 he fell ill with AIDS and with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Like many people who are afflicted with these illnesses his medication caused him to have severe nausea.

In 1996 it became legal to use marijuana for pain relief and Peter McWilliams began to use it. This allowed him to temporarily conquer his nausea and as a result he was able to keep his symptoms under control. However federal authorities cracked down and seized his marijuana from him. In order for him to be freed from jail where he would not have had access to his medication and to necessary lifesaving treatments he was required to put up as bond his brother's and mother's house. He also had to submit to regular urine testing to confirm that he was not using drugs. As a result his viral load began to soar. He said:

Unable to keep down the life-saving prescription medications, by November 1998, four months after my arrest, my viral load soared to more than 256,000. In 1996 when my viral load was only 12,500, I had already developed an AIDS-related cancer...Even so, the government would not yield. It continued to urine test me. If marijuana were found in my system, my mother and brother would lose their homes and I would be returned to prison.

He stopped using marijuana, and tried to carry on with his medication and the nausea he suffered without the aid of the pain relief drug. On June 14, 1999, his home care nurse arrived at his home to find him dead, having choked on his own vomit.

I suggest that the availability of marijuana for medical use and for pain relief could prevent this sort of tragedy. For this reason the legislation is an excellent measure which the House should consider.

[Grants and Contributions, March 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, a document provided by officials of the minister's department in response to a motion for the production of papers placed by the Alliance includes a history of the contract prepared by the president of Groupaction.

It states that on May 1 contract was received by Groupaction; that on June 1 there was a meeting with Mr. Guité where he confirmed the importance of remaining within budgets; and that the qualitative aspect of the report would either remain uncompleted or would be the subject of a request for an upward revision in the cost of the report above the originally agreed amount.

Will the minister still deny that Groupaction has been getting very special treatment from its Liberal friends?

[Grants and Contributions, March 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we all know that Groupaction has been a generous donor to the Liberal Party of Canada. We all know that Groupaction was paid several hundred thousand dollars to produce a second report that was virtually a mimeograph of the first. What is new is the revelation as to how this came about.

After receiving a contract on May 1, 1999, for $612,000 to perform what is called qualitative research services, Groupaction had managed within one month to negotiate a variance whereby it would be paid in full without actually complying with the terms of the contract. I would like the minister to tell me why.

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the Group No. 4 amendments to Bill C-5.

As a way of developing a theme in which to frame my remarks I make the observation that there are concerned members of parliament on both sides of the House. There are those opposed for a variety of reasons who express, as many do on this side of the House, the concerns of rural Canadians, in particular, farmers, fishermen and people who make their living in and from nature. There are those on the other side who express the point of view that the bill does not go far enough or it is in some degree a sham and avoids dealing with and genuinely protecting the environment. I actually find there is quite a common theme between what both sides say.

The legislation as it is worded, and particularly as it would be amended by some of the government amendments put forward in this group, and in some of the other groups, manages to achieve both of the violations to which those who feel it goes too far and those who feel it does not go far enough are pointing.

It does this because it continues a dangerous trend that is prevalent in Canadian legislation and in some legislation of other countries as well. We are not the only ones guilty of this.

I refer to a tendency to enshrine in law unspecific provisions that would bind the executive but rather general instructions to the executive, instructions that talk about what ministers may do, that set timelines that might be met, that put in requirements that if not met do not bear any consequences for the government and which therefore may not in practice be met.

On the other hand if all these measures were taken to the full power that is considered or is potentially available under them, they could have the effect of putting draconian powers in the hands of the minister and government agencies. Both sides are justifiably concerned by the same piece of legislation.

Curiously enough, if the legislation were amended it could actually at the same time satisfy the concerns both of those who are worried that it is overpowering and those who are worried that it is underpowered. This can be demonstrated by turning to some of the specific amendments that have come up in earlier discussions.

For example, in Group No. 4, the member for York North mentioned government Motion No. 76 which says that action plans are advisory as opposed to being binding upon the government. Her point, a point well taken, is that if they are not binding then very little will be achieved by having these action plans mentioned at all in the bill. One is justified in asking, why are this things here at all? Why are action plans written down when they are not really action plans, they are really advice that the executive might or might not draw upon in the future?

By the same token on the other side of the equation there are members, including myself, who are concerned that when we talk about compensation it is compensation that may be given according to a standard that would be set up after the bill was passed.

Rural Canadians, farmers and developers, and others, want to have some kind of assurance that compensation would not be merely contemplated, considered a potential, or happen in an inadequate way. They want to have some kind of assurance and we can fight over what the amount should be. I believe in full compensation. Others would say it should be less than full and while I disagree with them they have a case to be made.

None of us have any clue as to what it would be. We are all expected to simply take it on trust. This is a dangerous sort of principle to have in law.

The legislation contemplates reviews at five year intervals. There was a contemplation that this law would be taken out if government Motion No. 130 is passed. This assumes that we do not have perfect knowledge now. There is a requirement to adjust the legislation five years from now and the assumption is that five years from now we would have perfect knowledge, we would have it all down pat and there would be no further reviews because the legislation would be perfect. Of course, that is a preposterous assumption.

Worse than that is the fact that this comes back to one of the points I was dwelling upon a bit earlier. We have provisions in our laws that are not actually enforceable. Legislative reviews under the government unfortunately have become something of a joke.

For example, there was the legislative review of the Referendum Act that was passed in 1992. It was the legislation under which the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown accord took place. Members may recall that the Referendum Act, which was proclaimed on June 15, 1992, had a provision stating it would be legislatively reviewed three years after the date of its proclamation. Three years after the date of proclamation was June 15, 1995.

I remember at that time working as a researcher on Parliament Hill and I gathered all the information together so that my party, the Reform Party at the time, could present a series of intelligent, thoughtful critiques of the bill and ways it could be improved. June 15 came and went and no review took place as far as we could tell.

It turned out there had been a review. As a member of parliament I had a chance to ask the chief electoral officer about this many years afterward when he was a witness before our committee and he informed me there had been a review. A motion was brought up without notice in committee. The motion essentially said that the act was being reviewed and that there was no particular reason to actually have witnesses appear before the committee. The committee did not think there was any need to have discussion of it and it was killed just like that. It was passed so quickly that members of the very same committee were unaware it had happened. People were present at the meeting when it occurred and happened not to be paying attention at that particular nanosecond in time that this review came and went.

If this is the kind of review we can expect then it is not a review at all. This is provided for by the legislation so it is clearly a flaw in the legislation. There must be a provision. When the government is required to do something and when the executive is bound there must be a requirement that this has some kind of consequence. If the executive fails to act, some form of independent action must take place.

If these kinds of changes are made to the legislation I suggest members will discover that there will be much more support for Bill C-5 than currently exists.

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Unfortunately it will be much harder to tie them in because of the fact that some of my time has been eaten up by the intervention of the hon. member. The point I was driving at was that this former piece of private member's legislation served as a thematic link to the amendments I have proposed in this group as well as some other groups of amendments.

The point I am attempting to make is that in that piece of private member's legislation, which is the ancestor of some of the amendments I put forward, the idea was that a transferred burden could be placed by the government on an individual if that burden were transferred along with compensation. Specifically under the bill the following wording occurred:

A party on whom a transferred burden is imposed is entitled to full and prompt compensation in an amount equal to the cost of the transferred burden.

Some amendments to this bill includes similar provisions. If such provisions were included there would be almost no opposition in rural areas among farmers, fishers, and others in Canada to this piece of legislation. I strongly urge members of the House to consider adopting some of the amendments which include this kind of compensation provision.

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address my comments today to the amendments in Group No. 3. The amendments have been divided into several groups. Group No. 3 deals with amendments on the theme of socioeconomic interests and public consultation.

A great deal of the work I have done in putting forward amendments to the bill was based upon public consultations in which I engaged in my own constituency on the subject of Bill C-5. This is a bill which has a different kind of impact and a different kind of response in rural areas as compared to urban areas.

My constituency of Lanark--Carleton is divided almost 50:50 rural-urban, so it seemed appropriate to me to consult with people in my constituency and inquire on how they felt about the bill. I had a tremendous amount of feedback and many suggestions and ideas which I tried to incorporate as best I could into amendments to the legislation, including some amendments in Group No. 3 and in some of the other groups. I believe I have put forward more amendments to the bill than any other member of the House.

Rather than speaking directly to any one amendment I thought I might deal with the theme of this group of amendments as a whole and the government's general treatment of this theme. Then I will speak to how it could be improved as a general thematic discussion.

I will start by talking a bit about the government's approach and the minister's approach to the theme of the bill's impact on socioeconomic interests. To frame that discussion I will be quoting somewhat extensively from the hon. minister's commentary before the Standing Committee on the Environment on October 3 of the year past. On the issue of compensation he said the following:

We then got deeper and deeper into this and it became more and more of the proverbial swamp, more and more difficult to do partly because, of course, governments should not pass legislation which is open-ended in terms of funding.

Do we not wish that were true with some of the other things to which the government commits? He continued:

We have fiscal responsibilities which, as you can well imagine, are fairly strict on us. Forty-five million a year is what we've been given to run the process and that's what we can expect and that's it.

A few days ago in the House it took us about 10 minutes to pass $16 billion of expenditures, so one wonders why there is this tremendous concern about adding $45 million in potential compensation costs to the government's budget.

This is indicative of the whole attitude of the minister toward the bill. It is an attitude which clearly could be dealt with, by the minister's own admission, for the very modest cost of $45 million. That is modest for a government which measures its expenditures in the tens of billions of dollars and the liabilities it has imposed upon future generations of Canadians in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Nonetheless, it is a matter that could be dealt with if we were to adopt some of the amendments that have come forward with regard to the bill. If that were done, the bill would transform from being something unpopular among farmers and rural landowners to something they could support.

We should not forget that no one is more naturally friendly to that environment than those who live in it. Those who live surrounded by our woodlands, our fields and our lakes are those who have the deepest and most profound attachment to woodlands, fields, lakes, plains and mountains. They more than anybody else want to enjoy the direct personal benefit of knowing they are husbanding and protecting endangered species.

The proposed solution can be found thematically described best in a piece of private member's legislation from a previous parliament. It was a piece of legislation proposed by Herb Grubel, former member of parliament for West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast. He was one of the most intelligent members of parliament to serve in the House in recent decades and one of four members of parliament when I was a researcher who I thought had the most profound grasp and intellect.

The other three included the current member for North Vancouver with whom I worked on issues relating to direct democracy; Preston Manning with whom I worked on issues relating to national unity; and our former national unity critic for the then Reform Party, Stephen Harper, who had an extraordinary intellect. He was a truly remarkable man and I am sure hon. members will appreciate having him in the House soon.

Herb Grubel and I worked together on a piece of legislation known as the balanced budget and spending limit act which in the 35th parliament was under the title of Bill C-213.

That piece of legislation contained a compensation provision which would serve as a thematic guide for the government in this piece of legislation or indeed in any similar piece of legislation where the government considers engaging in what the Americans refer to as a taking, that is to say, some kind of restriction upon property rights possibly in the form of actually taking that piece of property from the private owner and placing it in government hands, moving it to some agency or simply restricting the use of that piece of property.

In the case of environmental legislation the most difficult kind of taking is a restriction upon use. One cannot, for example, cultivate a field, clear a woodlot or develop a subdivision because it is perhaps a nesting site. These are not unreasonable restrictions if some form of compensation is provided. By the government's estimate around $45 million in compensation would be necessary to protect the various animal, bird, reptilian, plant, mollusk and fish species, et cetera.

Under the bill that Herb Grubel put forward this kind of obligation was referred to as a transferred burden, that is to say, a burden of expenditure which the government has taken and transferred to a private individual.

[Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, March 20th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am privileged to speak to Bill C-15B which contains unfortunately provisions that are continuations of some of the greatest flaws in the legislative drafting practices of the current government. It behooves us to look at what some of these themes are and to think about what could be done to avoid doing them both in this law and other laws in the future.

There are three themes. First, this is an omnibus bill, but not as bad as it started off being. However it is still an omnibus bill dealing with more than one topic. Second, it strips basic legal protections from individuals who are accused of making offences under the law. This is a current theme that is also quite strong in Liberal legislative drafting practices. Third, it contains vague regulatory guarantees and requires us to take it on faith that the government would undertake the protections that it has refused to place within the law. At the very same time we are finding these guarantees withheld we are told to trust the government. The guarantees would be placed in the regulations at a later point in time subject to the government's arbitrary will.

These are three themes that are strongly present in the general legislative practices of the government. For example, Bill C-36 was an extraordinary omnibus bill that contained provisions like rules relating to the Internet and appointment of judges as well as the enactment of provisions relating to preventative search and detention, and provisions that related to the enactment of United Nations conventions and so on.

This law follows the same general pattern. It contains unrelated provisions dealing with cruelty to animals and dealing with firearms. I cannot see any reason why these two subject matters are contained in the same bill. There is no logical connection between them whatsoever.

The bill was worse before. It contained measures relating to child pornography which fortunately were split away from the bill and are now contained in Bill C-15A.

It is difficult to deal intelligently and to vote rationally on a bill that is effectively a package deal, a part of which might or might not be acceptable to an individual member. How does one vote one's conscience when something good and bad is contained in the same bill?

To some degree we have divided the good from the bad in the bill, but the bill should have been subdivided into several sub-measures.

This is a trend that has existed in Canadian legislative practice for some length of time. It has been a disastrous practice that nearly split up the country on some occasions. I am thinking of the Meech Lake accord which contained five unrelated constitutional amendments as a single package. They all had to be passed. Most Canadians were quite comfortable with certain aspects of the Meech Lake accord. Other aspects were quite contentious, particularly the distinct society clause. However they all had to be done together.

The Charlottetown accord was even worse. It was a package that effectively would have gutted the entire Constitution and cobbled it back together in a vast document that was several times as long as the entire United States constitution. It was presented as a single package deal. Had it been broken into a series of smaller items not all of them could have be passed, but many could have been. Some of them were good; a lot of them were terrible.

This practice has continued on in Bill C-15B and it should be stopped. It should not be a practice that occurs at all in Canadian legislation.

I will turn to the stripping of basic legal protections. This is another thing that occurs frequently in current Liberal legislation. I recall Bill C-36 and the way in which basic legal protections of Canadians were stripped away under the preventive detention provisions of that bill. That bill made it possible to be prosecuted for one's religious beliefs. Amazing, but true.

Bill C-5 has provisions which I am attempting to amend. I have several amendments before the House that deal with the question of mens rea, whether one must have a guilty mind prior to being found guilty of destroying an animal habitat or destroying an endangered species. That law denies the requirement that one must have a guilty mind, a mens rea, in order to be found culpable.

This law does much the same thing. I will say it is not as bad in this respect as Bill C-5, but it is still problematic. It takes the aspects of the criminal code that deal with animal cruelty and removes them from the property offences section and moves them to a special new section.

I cannot determine what the legislative reason for this is, that is to say what is the need for this, but I can determine what the result would be. The result is we would remove the various protections that are built in under the property parts of the criminal code. There are certain basic protections that are not accompanying this section of the law as it moves from one part of the criminal code to the other.

The phrase legal justification or excuse and with colour of right in subsection 429(2) of the criminal code currently provides protection to those who commit any kind of property offence. That would cease to be available as a protection.

It is a funny thing that those on the government side of the House are always happy to attack members on this side of the House as somehow being out to strip those who are accused of offences against the law of their legal protections and legal rights. The fact is, and the record will show this, it has been entirely the other way during the course of the government.

This law would strip those who are accused of offences of basic protections. Protections, which are inherent to our traditional rule of law, to the common law, and to our entire legal structure, would once again be stripped out in Bill C-15B, Bill C-5, and Bill C-36. This is a consistent, unacceptable, inexcusable and entirely avoidable pattern.

The meritorious goals found in parts of each of these three pieces of legislation could all have been achieved without stripping Canadians of these basic legal protections. They are absolutely not needed. That should be corrected in this law. Or, potentially, if the government were unwilling to protect it, then the law in my opinion, on that basis alone, should be dropped from the order paper.

I want to turn to the offer of vague regulatory guarantees that protections which are not included in the law would be included later on. We are told by the minister that this would be taken care of. There would be protections for those who are accused or charged, but they would not be included in the law, they would be included elsewhere.

The record of governments, not this government in particular but of governments in general, of protecting individuals administratively when they are not protected by law is very poor. That is the whole reason why our system of government is based upon the rule of law.

I encourage the minister and all members of the government to look at the classic academic text written by Albert Venn Dicey which deals with the question of the rule of law. It is a book called An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution published in the 1880s and republished in many editions prior to Dicey's death around the time of the first world war. He deals with the question of the rule of law at length.

[Supply, March 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the member for Calgary Southeast.

In my presentation I will talk first about some directing principles of the Canadian Alliance policy in this area. Second, I will talk about health care and how the motion applies to health care. Third, I will talk about the spending power.

Whatever motivated the government in the past, it is clear that the complex fiscal agreements signed between the federal government and the provinces over the years cannot be abruptly set aside without causing some serious problems.

We, in the Canadian Alliance, believe that the governments should first and foremost try to reach an agreement on the appropriate relations to establish. Then, the current agreements would have to be reviewed to see how different they are from the goals set. Finally, a step-by-step problem solving plan would have to be developed. It will not be easy, but it is in the interest of all governments to be able to rely on rules-based long-term stable planning.

We recommend that the federal and provincial governments agree on the following five issues before embarking on a reform of their financial relations.

First, there is only one taxpayer, and Canadians do not want to pay for any overlap and duplication; second, the federal government should respect the provincial areas of jurisdiction as set in the constitution; third, wherever they live, Canadians are entitled to reasonably similar services; fourth, the federal government's involvement in services provided in areas for which it provides financial support should be proportional to its financial contribution; and fifth, rules regarding federal contribution to the provinces should promote provincial autonomy.

I will turn now to the second part of my presentation regarding health care.

We in the Canadian Alliance believe that normally the provinces, as the level of government closest to the people being served, should have the right to determine day to day administrative policies in their area of responsibility, including health care.

Moreover, clear respect by Ottawa for provincial jurisdiction would promote efficiency since remote federal bureaucracy will never have the same knowledge as will provincial governments of local conditions and local priorities.

We believe that the federal and provincial governments should jointly develop national standards in health. One way would be to consider a national standard when it is supported by a majority of provinces representing a majority of the Canadian population. When the standards are established there must be an impartial arbiter to decide whether the standards have been respected.

The current situation where the federal government, under the Canada Health Act, is the judge, the jury, the prosecuting attorney, the executioner and the complaining party with regard to alleged violations of the Canada Health Act, is clearly arbitrary and unacceptable.

What Ottawa can do better than the provinces is provide the research and the expertise necessary to determine how our national standards compare with international trends. Another role for the federal government is to assist in rationalizing the delivery of services across provincial borders. We therefore support the transfer of tax points from the federal government to the provinces. This would ensure stable, long term funding and would grow as provincial economies grow thereby ensuring that provinces enjoy the increase in funds over time that is necessary as their populations age to ensure satisfactory health care.

I should say that the four provinces for which the transfer of tax points is insufficient, it would be necessary to provide additional block funds for those supplementary amounts.

I turn now to the spending power.

Although financial agreements work well in practice—after a few major battles—few issues undermine more federal-provincial relations generally, and relations between Quebec and Ottawa in particular, than spending power.

Ottawa has a habit of interfering directly in areas of provincial jurisdiction, and Quebec is insistent when it comes to the division of powers established in 1867, which provide for Quebec to establish priorities as it sees fit.

Even Pierre Elliot Trudeau, prior to entering federal politics, believed that spending power should only apply in areas of federal jurisdiction. However, when he became Prime Minister, he understood the “virtue” of federal spending in areas of provincial responsibility.

In 1969 he proposed launching a new program in an area of provincial responsibility only if there was a real consensus among the provinces. As well, no province that wanted to opt out would suffer any financial penalties.

All of the governments of Quebec, since Maurice Duplessis at least, have called for restrictions on federal spending power. This request is always raised at constitutional negotiations.

The Canadian Alliance believes that the rules should be clear for everyone and are therefore suggesting that the federal government adopt the following three rules unilaterally. One, Ottawa could only impose a cost shared program in an area of provincial jurisdiction only if it had the support of seven provinces representing 50% of the population, in other words, a consensus. Two, the provinces that opt out of a program should be under no obligation to implement it to be compensated based on comparability; and three, compensation should be equal to federal spending per capita in the provinces that do take part.

We are also proposing that the federal-provincial cost shared programs be subject to review periodically.

I think that if one were to use these general principles, they would go a long way toward dealing with the fiscal imbalance that exists between the federal government and the provinces in a way that is sensitive to our federal structure and to the diversity that exists between the needs of the various provinces while maintaining a healthy and necessary respect for those programs that unify us all and in which we all seek to have some form of national consensus or national standard, such as health care.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Yukon for his speech. I know he cares a great deal about this issue. I learned a lot from his speech. I had no idea that there was a softwood lumber industry in Yukon.

I have a series of questions out of personal curiosity I would be interested in asking with regard to the industry in Yukon, the size of the industry, the employment, the impact on the industry, and where the market is for the industry.

I do want to correct the member on one point. I think he was wrong about Americans not knowing about Yukon. I was once at a party in Seattle where a group of drunken revellers broke into a recitation of The Shooting of Dan McGrew , so it is more widely known than the hon. member may be aware.

Yukon of course is a territory and not a province and therefore is under a federal jurisdiction. I am not sure if the forestry sector is entirely dealt with through territorial regulations or if there is some form of federal involvement. This might give us some clue because it is handled through a different system than the provinces are.

I am interested in the regulatory system that is used. Is there anything we can learn with regard to how one meets or does not meet with the kinds of concerns the Americans keep on bringing up, whether or not those concerns are legitimate? Is Yukon doing something different or is it simply adopting the same kind of practices that the Americans go on about so much when they speak of some of our other provinces?

[Health Care, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's policy is evidently that if we withhold money from all provinces this would somehow benefit the poorer provinces.

Let me draw the attention of the finance minister to the remarks of Canada's academic authority on fiscal federalism. Thomas Courchene recently observed that by denying adequate health care funding, the Liberal government is engaged in the practice of:

--forcing the provinces to transfer resources away from all other programs into health will lead to a situation where there is a willing and receptive citizenry for Ottawa's spending in areas...which are...under provincial jurisdiction.

Academic authorities and provincial governments agree this is a jurisdiction grab. Why does the minister deny the obvious?