Scott Reid

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, this is my maiden speech in this Parliament and this gives me the opportunity, despite the limited time that I have, to take a moment to thank the voters of my riding who returned me with an substantially increased mandate and who turned out in great numbers this election. I am very appreciative to them.

I am appreciative to the fantastic campaign team that worked for me, headed by Mike Firth, my campaign manager. In particular, I am grateful to the folks who work with me in my office at Parliament Hill as well in my offices in the constituency in Carleton Place and Napanee. I thought I might just mention them by name. Shandy, Sonia, Steve and Brad work here on Parliament Hill, all of whom do a fantastic job. Anita and John work at my Napanee office, who do great constituency work. Sam, Andrea and Carol work at the Carleton Place office. Then there is my executive assistant, Mindy Conlin, who has been my pillar of strength and who also served as my memory very often for the last four and a half years, and has just been poached from me by the justice minister. All of them have been fantastic supporters for me and have done a great deal to make me a more successful representative in my riding.

I wanted to talk a bit about the fact that this is the shortest Speech from the Throne in living memory, but it is also the most focused Speech from the Throne in living memory. As everybody knows, there are many fewer words in this Speech from the Throne than there were in the one produced by the former Liberal government in the 38th Parliament, and there is a reason for that. We have an agenda and we can state it briefly and succinctly. It often takes many more words to say that one has nothing to say than it does to simply state what one's priorities are.

By now I suspect that many Canadians are familiar with the five priorities of our government, which we outlined in the election, again in the Speech from the Throne and subsequently, we are starting to demonstrate in our actions.

I am referring, first, to the new ethical standards laid out in the law, the federal accountability act; second, to the reduction in the GST from 7% to 6%, which will be included in our budget; third, to the legislation regarding the security and safety of our streets, our towns and our neighbourhoods, particularly with regard to toughening the offences for the misuse of firearms in the commissions of crime; fourth, to the giving of choice to parents in child care through the $1,200 payment that will be given annually to all parents of children under the age of six; and finally, but definitely not the least important, to the action that we are going to take, which was outlined in the Speech from the Throne, with regard to achieving shorter waiting times in conjunction with the provinces.

In short, if we put things a little differently, the Speech from the Throne is about higher ethical standards, lower taxes, safer streets, better and more accessible child care and faster high-quality public health care.

Is that focused? Absolutely, but it is also, from our other point of view, extraordinarily ambitious, particularly given the small number of words in which it was laid out.

I only have a few minutes and, therefore, I will turn my attention to the one aspect of the Speech from the Throne and of the government's agenda that matters the most to me. I think this is a metaphor for how in a very few words we have summarized a very ambitious agenda. This is the democratic reform agenda. I was the critic for democratic reform in the last Parliament. I now serve as the deputy House leader and, therefore, as an assistant to the Minister for Democratic Reform. On the one hand, what we say in the Speech from the Throne on the subject of democratic reform is very brief. We say this:

Building on the work begun in the last Parliament, this Government will seek to involve parliamentarians and citizens in examining the challenges facing Canada's electoral system and democratic institutions.

However, look at what this means. In terms of that part of the government's agenda that has already been laid in the legislation, and there is more to come, it means we are taking the financial reforms in the federal accountability act which are going to permanently remove the influence of money on federal politics. We are taking this element of our system out of it completely.

We will be removing all corporate and union donations, not merely to federal parties but to candidates, leadership campaigns and for nominations. We will ensure that only individuals can donate. To ensure that no individual can buy influence, we will be reducing the amount that individuals can donate down from $5,000 per individual to $1,000 per individual per annum.

Another important issue arose in the last Parliament from a private member's bill. We will ensure that senior electoral officials in every riding in the country will be people who are appointed based on merit not on partisan considerations. This was an idea brought forward by the Bloc Québécois, supported by the New Democrats and is now incorporated into the legislation. This is a tremendous step forward and will do a great deal to ensure we have a fair electoral system.

We also talked about changes to the Senate. We had many other elements in the Speech from the Throne or elements that were hinted at which will be coming forward in our government's agenda.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to have the opportunity to question at somewhat more length than we were accustomed to having during the periods when I would ask the former minister questions during question period.

I want to ask him a little about some of what he said today in his comments. He made reference to a number of issues that are important. I know he takes them very sincerely.

He is a very sincere advocate of human rights, both domestically and particularly abroad. He deserves to be congratulated for that. I am glad he raised, for example, the issue of Darfur, which is a very serious matter and which I know he is pursuing. I received an e-mail from his office today about it.

I have a question for the member about the Anti-terrorism Act. The member made reference to the Anti-terrorism Act. He mentioned that our government had raised the issue in the throne speech. He pointed out that there had been some reviews underway at the time the last Parliament was dissolved.

It seems a little unfair to me to raise this point and criticize us for it, given we get criticized so often for all the things that were not in the throne speech. One could have turned that around and complained there was no mention of it in the throne speech, if it had not been there.

I get the chance to ask this question now that we are in government and they are in opposition. Back when the Anti-terrorism Act was being debated in the House, in a debate that went on all night long, I stood up around one o'clock in the morning and raised the issue of putting in a sunset clause. Other people also got the idea about the same time. Had a sunset clause been put in place, there would have been, by necessity, a review of the law which would have dealt with the matter. There would have presumably been a two or three year sunset and that matter would have been dealt with by necessity. Parliament would have been under very genuine pressure to deal with the aspects of the law that were rushed through.

There was a crisis at the time and we could not be as thorough or as precise in our protection of rights as we might have wanted to be. We all accepted this at the time. That was the merit of putting in a sunset clause. The idea was promoted at the time by a number of us, including I think some Liberals. In the end it was rejected by the prime minister of day, Mr. Chrétien.

Would the hon. member be able to shed some light on that decision to reject the idea, which I think was a very unwise one? That ultimately was what led me to vote against the law. Would the member agree with me that when future legislation of the same nature arises, should it ever arise, that we ought to consider putting sunset rules into place to ensure that whatever restrictions we have to place on individual rights in our country would be restrictions of short duration?

[Governor General Appointment and Dismissal Act, November 28th, 2005]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-464, An Act to provide for the appointment and dismissal of a Governor General.

Mr. Speaker, many Canadians, myself included, are delighted with the performance of Canada's new Governor General and wish her many years of success. We are not, however, equally delighted with the system by which governors general are appointed and may be dismissed, which is to say entirely at the discretion of the Prime Minister. This is the result of a holdover convention from the 19th century under which the Queen acts entirely on the advice of the prime minister in making these decisions.

This is most important not in regard to the appointment of a governor general but rather with regard to the dismissal of a governor general. It was on this basis in 1975 in Australia, a country in which I lived for some time, that the governor general dismissed the prime minister and the prime minister's first action was to attempt to cause the governor general to be dismissed by speaking directly to the Queen.

Had this occurred and had he been successful, the country would have been thrown into a constitutional crisis. The goal is to prevent this kind of thing from ever occurring in Canada in the future.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Petitions, November 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition refers to the price of gas. The petitioners ask that the federal government exercise some restraint in charging GST on top of other taxes on gasoline at the pump.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to present the third petition because it was not submitted in the proper manner. It is a very long ribbon which would easily stretch to the end of the room and back. It has been signed by women from Smiths Falls and throughout Lanark County. This petition is against child pornography which we know is a very important issue. It was not submitted in the manner that would allow it to normally be accepted, but obviously the petitioners feel very passionate about this issue.

If there is unanimous consent, I would like to table this petition as well.

[Petitions, November 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have petitions on three subjects to present to the House today.

The first petition is with respect to an issue about which I am quite compassionate and that is ensuring there will be proper treatment for children suffering from autism spectrum disorder.

In the preamble the petitioners give a lengthy explanation of how early intervention treatment can assist in ensuring that children will not be trapped permanently in this terrible disease, but only if intervention occurs early enough. That requires that the Canada Health Act be amended in order that autism spectrum disorder early intervention treatment is covered.

[Question No. 219, November 18th, 2005]

With regard to the position and most current appointment process of the Parliamentary Librarian: ( a ) what specific criteria are used to evaluate applications and prepare the final list from which a successful applicant is selected; and ( b ) is there a final list of candidates for the position and, if so, on which specific criteria and for which specific reasons did the unsuccessful candidates fail to make the final list?

(Return tabled)

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, November 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the government certainly was not rushing. The whole summer went by and no action was taken whatsoever.

The parliamentary secretary said that it takes two years. He was part of the process. He sat in my office and negotiated the dates. Complaining about the dates as being unrealistic when he himself designed them is just a little weird.

The Minister Responsible for Democratic Renewal was supposed to go on a million dollar cross-country tour to promote voter participation, particularly with regard to youth voters. Since that relates to the first of the questions I asked last June, I will ask this. This seems to have vanished. Is this tour now cancelled? Is she not going out there, or is it still on in some way?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, November 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my question tonight refers to a question that I asked in the House quite some time ago, back in June of this year. At that time I raised two questions in the House for the ministers of democratic reform and democratic renewal.

For folks out in TV-land who are not familiar with this, there actually are two separate ministers, one for democratic reform and one for democratic renewal. None of us can tell what the difference is between democratic reform and democratic renewal. It is not part of my question, but if the parliamentary secretary chooses to finally explain the answer to that mystery at some point I would love to hear what it is.

At any rate, I asked two questions of these ministers. The first one dealt with a private member's bill which has since been defeated or withdrawn, so therefore there is no need to discuss that.

The second question related to the government's response to the report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which at that time was being written, on the subject of electoral reform. The procedure and House affairs committee had at that time, in response to the response of opposition parties in the House to the Speech from the Throne, been charged with the task of designing a system for reforming Canada's electoral system.

The system recommended by the committee was then to be placed in effect and to have the effect of causing Canada to start down the road toward potentially replacing its current first past the post electoral system with some other electoral system, if it is the judgment of Canadians that it would be better. At that time, I asked the following question:

Let me ask the [minister] responsible for electoral renewal, will he be acting promptly on the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding electoral reform?

A couple of weeks later, the report was indeed tabled, making recommendations. Specifically, it recommended a two-pronged process.

It recommended a public input process, in which the principles behind electoral reform would be brought forward. It would be a process in which members of the public would be selected and led by a facilitator. The second prong of the approach would be to have the parliamentary committee on procedure and House affairs, or a special committee, debate and determine a specific new electoral system.

The process would start on October 1. I initially proposed that it start on September 1 in order to give us more time. It would report early in 2006, and right about this time, maybe a little later than right now, the two groups would be meeting to review their preliminary hearings.

The schedule was to start on October 1. What happened was that the government, as far as I can tell, did not do anything whatsoever in order to act to make this happen. On October 1, it still had not responded as to what we were to be doing.

Finally, several days later, a response was tabled not in the House but rather at the Clerk's office, because the two ministers did not have the nerve to actually stand up and table this non-response. What they said was that they could not meet the deadlines. They said the deadlines were impractical and the committee should have known better.

My questions are the following.

If the schedule was unrealistic, why did the parliamentary secretary to the minister, who will be answering us today, agree to that schedule? Indeed, he helped design the schedule.

Why did he object to my original timeline, which would have started the process on September 1 and which would have allowed more time?

Finally, why did the government wait until after the October 1 deadline to even bother giving a response at all?

[Question No. 183, November 14th, 2005]

With regard to contracted employment, in the years 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, for current and former members of the Press Gallery who are not camera operators, sound technicians or primarily employed to report for a foreign media source or for a media outlet that reports in a non-official language, and for whom any corroborating information as to the person’s identity, such as date of birth or location of birth, current home address or mailing address, telephone number or e-mail address is available; which members and former members were paid by the government, and for each: ( a ) what types of service were provided and to which departments, agencies, and Crown Corporations were they provided; ( b ) for what period did the individuals in question serve in the relevant capacity; and ( c ) what was the cost for the services provided?

[Election Campaign Financing, November 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, last year the Minister of Transport attended a gala where over $40,000 was raised. Since then, the Liberals have lost all trace of these funds.

The assistant campaign manager for the Liberals in that riding stated, “There is no longer anyone who knows where this money went. Our questions go unanswered. I wash my hands of those scumbags in Ottawa”. This person is now a member of the Conservative Party.

How can they lose $40,000?