Scott Reid

[Agriculture, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the heroic efforts of the government, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency is approving minor use regulations at 150th the rate in the United States. In 2000-01, a total of 1,200 minor use registrations were approved in the U.S.A. compared to 22 in Canada.

This forces Canadian farmers to rely upon older, less environmentally friendly farm chemicals. Given that the allowable limit for de-listed farm chemicals in the United States is 0%, this means that failure to harmonize with the United States will result in de facto trade barriers against Canadian farm products.

What will the federal government do to end the regulatory mess that it has created?

[Agriculture, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I realize that the concerns of Canadian farmers are rarely top of mind for the Liberals but given that there is a byelection underway in the largely agriculture riding of Perth--Middlesex perhaps they will take them seriously today.

The government and its Pest Management Regulatory Agency are making it harder for Canadian farmers to compete with their American counterparts by denying Canadian farmers the right to use cheaper and more environmentally friendly farm chemicals that have been approved for use in the United States.

Why does the Liberal government deny farmers the right to these safe, environmentally friendly farm chemicals?

[Question No. 158, April 28th, 2003]

With regard to the web application AROSuite, designed by and for aboriginal groups under the aboriginal human resource development agreement to manage grants and contributions relating to training contracts: ( a ) when will AROSuite be deployed to aboriginal organizations; and ( b ) does it have the functional capability to be used to manage grants and contributions being delivered on behalf of Human Resources Development Canada by third party partners such as youth and homelessness agencies?

[Tourist Industry, April 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we are astounded to hear that Canada is supposed to respond to the Americans by remaining silent, by not speaking out and by not opposing what our government has to say.

I have received a letter from an American from Dayton, Ohio, who has written the following:

I know, and like many Canadians...I am saddened for them because your government has so drastically severed all ties of good feeling with millions of Americans, including me.

One cannot...heap abuse and actively work to undermine another, and still lay claim to friendship...

This American says that he has discarded his Stratford tickets.

Does this mean that Canadian jobs--

[Tourist Industry, April 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, anti-American comments by Liberal MPs are hurting the Canadian tourist industry.

The president of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies says that he has received calls from agents informing him that the unrelenting anti-Americanism of the Liberals has affected up to one-third of their business. He says that Americans are phoning and cancelling their trips because they feel that Americans are not wanted here. This is striking particularly hard at Canada's summer festivals in cities like Stratford which depend on U.S. visitors.

How can the government refuse to disown these anti-American slurs of its own MPs when these are hurting Canadian jobs?

[Perth—Middlesex, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has finally called the Perth—Middlesex byelection, six months after John Richardson stepped down as the member of Parliament and four days before the legal deadline.

In the meantime, there have been two Liberal nomination meetings, two Liberal candidates, a botched candidate selection process, an internal Liberal Party investigation into what went wrong and six months during which residents of Perth—Middlesex were deprived of an MP.

In the latest fiasco, the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard cancelled a trip to the riding last Friday, forcing the cancellation with only a few hours' notice of a fundraising dinner. He claimed that weather kept him trapped in Toronto but the sleet and the freezing rain were not enough to keep the Leader of the Opposition from making the very same trip the very same day.

Nor was the weather enough to deter 350 local residents who came out to a dinner in Stratford to hear Canadian Alliance candidate Marian Meinen and the Leader of the Opposition reiterate their support for our American and British allies in their time of need.

Marian Meinen is a proud 30 year resident of the county. She will do it proud as its member of Parliament.

[Bilingualism, March 31st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Commissioner of Official Languages proposed ending the 20 year policy under which unilingual Canadians could become bilingual on the job for bilingual posts. Ending this policy would amount to adopting a policy of systemic discrimination against the 24 million Canadians who do not speak both official languages and who cannot apply for any of the 56,000 public service jobs, including all management positions.

Will the minister today state--and this is an easy one--that she firmly, absolutely, and resolutely rejects that kind of systemic discrimination?

[Bilingualism, March 31st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board is saying that she does not know how many people meet and do not meet the language requirements. She has had lots of time to prepare for this.

She is saying that she does not know what measures they will take to deal with people who are not meeting the language requirements of their posts.

I think it is reasonable to ask that the minister stand and answer these questions. Will they be fired? Will they be demoted? Will they be transferred to different shops? What are the punishments the government has in mind? It had a lot of time to prepare them, why does it not share them with us now?

[Committees of the House, March 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I presented a dissenting report to this report. I agree with the general thrust of the report and I appreciate the cooperation of all the committee members in the preparation of the report. However, there was one element that I thought should have been included in the report, and that was, specifically, a reference to the matter that caused the issue of federal contravention notices, tickets, to come to the attention of the committee.

The fact of the matter is that the RCMP, at the time of the writing of the report and for several months before that, and to this day, continues to issue illegally and in violation of the Official Languages Act unilingual contravention notices within the boundaries of the National Capital Region in Gatineau.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, in response to my hon. colleague's question, I would simply observe that at this point anything that has the effect of stopping money from going to the firearms registry, far from costing the government money, would actually save a great deal of money. Quite frankly, a court challenge that had the effect of demonstrating that this firearms registry is unconstitutional in whole or in part would be of financial benefit to the country, as well as being of benefit in refocusing government attention upon the real criminal law enforcement priorities that exist in the country.

I do want to point out, of course, that it is not just Nunavut. There are many other provinces. In fact, eight other provinces oppose the firearms registry. That includes the Government of Ontario.

Just this weekend I was presented with a petition by Bob Runciman, the minister of public safety for Ontario. It was a 10,000 signature petition from constituents in his riding, in my riding and throughout eastern Ontario who are asking the federal government to abandon the firearms registry because it does not work, because it draws resources away from other priorities that are so much more important, and because it infringes upon our basic rights as Canadians. This is a widespread feeling. It is not just governments that feel this way. Citizens, rural and urban, young and old, of all races and of both genders, feel very strongly about this.