Taxation  My question is fundamental. If the government is not interested in a carbon tax, why is a 25 member panel examining a fuel tax?

Quebec Referendum  Mr. Speaker, separatists and traditional federalists say that it will be either black or white with the referendum, that is independence or status quo. By contrast, the Reform Party pledged to renovate the Canadian home. You do not burn down a nice house just to get rid of a few cockroaches.

Canadian Dollar  A year ago, in Portneuf, he asked what point there was in separating if Quebecers were not going to have their own money. In L'Actualité , where it appears in black and white, the Premier of Quebec said that keeping the Canadian dollar was simply a ruse, that he wanted a Quebec dollar. So who is speaking the truth? The Leader of the Opposition today or the Leader of the Opposition last week?

British Columbia Treaty Commission  In South Africa the people are working to break down barriers between different parts of society, between black and white. They have been working at removing the different status that people received in that country based on their racial origins. In Canada we are going in the opposite direction. We are erecting further barriers.

Employment Equity Act  It is education that determines whether or not someone is going to succeed. It is not because they are black or white, or male or female, or handicapped or crippled, or whatever. The point is if they are educated they have a chance to succeed. Last week, a study was released which indicated that of the top 10 per cent of income earners in this country the vast majority attributed education to their success, not who they were, not what they were, not their family background, not whether they came from a rich background.

Manpower Training  Speaker, maybe I will rephrase it to say I think hon. member has strayed substantially from the line of logic and reason. I would simply quote to him clause 6 of the bill. It is in black and white. It reads: "The powers, duties and functions of the minister extend and include matters over which Parliament has jurisdiction". That is the existing act. There is no difference.

Manpower Training  If the minister does not intend to go over the heads of the provinces, why does he use clause 6 and clause 20 of the bill to acquire the means to do so, it is there in black and white?

Employment Equity Act  They fail to see that we are looking for introducing and encouraging businesses to hire the best person for the job but to give the black, the white, the Indian, the yellow or whatever race, equal opportunity to be interviewed for the job. That is the kind of legislation from which we need to protect people. Those are the kinds of regulations that perhaps we could introduce into our system to make sure that everybody has an equal opportunity.

Capital Punishment  This past month notorious murderer Paul Bernardo was sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal slayings of two Ontario ladies. There was no disputing that Paul Bernardo committed the crimes. The evidence was black and white and the jury declared him guilty of first degree murder. The psychologist even showed that he was sane when he performed the murders and he remains sane today. If he is released from prison he will likely murder again.

Recognition Of Same Sex Spouses  However, for a variety of historical reasons the distinctions between classes disappeared and status and influence are now seen to be on a gradual continuum, except perhaps for a few people born lucky like the Royals or maybe the Kennedys. Morality is another example. Things used to be seen in black and white in a moral sense because the laws people lived by were held to be revealed by God. Although these laws seemed arbitrary, the sharply defined moral categories lent a certain stability to life in society.

Royal Canadian Mint Act  The hon. member for Cochrane-Superior may deny it, but on May 31, 1995, the Ottawa Citizen ran as a headline Government calls standards for two dollar coin''. It is written in black and white. Another headline readIndustry seeks help with coin flip''. All the same, the government has already received several bids. We called and were told that the bids must be in by October 31, 1995.

Canadian Dairy Commission Act  Nobody in this House has taken off his or her hat to the Reform to say that we were right. We have it in black and white that we were right. We will say again to this House that the dairy farmer has to be protected and his livelihood has to be guaranteed. If we lose the dairy farmer we lose one of the most precious things this country has.

The Environment  Economic instruments in the area of the environment embrace a broad range of tools, including carbon taxes to which we are opposed. We are opposed to the use of carbon taxes. Let me take a second to explain why. We already use energy in our country for the purposes of taxation. We hear our American neighbours talk about carbon taxes and they compare them to Canada and forget one essential element.

Alternative Fuels Act  I will leave that to them, except I would like to state that as somewhat of an engineer and scientist, I find there is a lot of voodoo science involved in some of the lobby documents I have received backing this bill. This is not a black and white situation. Certainly propane and natural gas do have some environmental advantages over gasoline and diesel, but they also have disadvantages. On balance perhaps they are better.

Firearms Act  I am thinking in particular of the residents of Saint-Médard, in the Rivière-du-Loup area, the community health department official who came to my office to discuss the impact of that legislation, and also those representing shooting clubs and firearms merchants. This is not a black and white issue. In this case, I believe that the approach is very different from the one used with the social program reform, when the government tried to impose a UI reform on the backs of the unemployed and seasonal workers.