Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985  Madam Speaker, Bill S-3 proposes to update the Pension Benefits Standards Act, a law through which the federal government supervises private pension plans. Canada's system of retirement income has three pillars. The first pillar is the basic old age security paid to all seniors

Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985  Madam Speaker, the hon. member would seek to deny Canadians the benefit of the expertise of the Senate on this type of legislation. As a parliamentarian I am quite proud of the spirit of co-operation and the level of expertise that benefited Canadians through the work of the Sena

Banking  Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance said “the decision on the bank mergers will be made by this government, by this Parliament and by the Canadian people”. It seems to the Canadian people that the Liberal lobbyists and the Liberal sheep over there will decide this issue. If the

Banking  Mr. Speaker, the PC caucus believes that all members in this House deserve access, that all Canadians deserve access and that it should not be discussed in the back rooms of the Liberal caucus behind closed doors. Why will the Liberal Minister of Finance not bring this bank merg

Banking  Mr. Speaker, the finance minister feels personally slighted that the banks made a business decision without consulting him first and that is why he is stalling. He is stalling while hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs lie in uncertainty. The minister has the opportunity now to

Lantz Elementary School  Mr. Speaker, the trickle down effect of the finance minister's financial agenda is being felt by students and parents in Hants county in my riding. After making education and the millennium scholarship fund the central issue of this year's budget, the finance minister has cut tra

Taxation  Mr. Speaker, this year's budget announced an increase in the emergency services volunteer tax free allowance. The difficulty is that unless they receive remuneration for their services, volunteers cannot claim any tax deduction. Typically urban volunteer firefighters receive some

Taxation  Mr. Speaker, we need to address this problem. Almost every member of the House has rural communities that are dealing with this issue. It is a problem that crosses party lines. The Liberal government chose to extend benefits to urban firefighters without considering the deductio

Depository Bills And Notes Act  Mr. Speaker, it is very important to recognize that when we are discussing an extremely dry piece of legislation many people in this House are possibly not particularly interested in delving into the intricacies or the details of it. One of the most important or interesting area

Supply  Mr. Speaker, first I would like to commend the member for Lac-Saint-Jean for the intent of this motion. While we may differ on the means, we agree on the end. We would like to eradicate child poverty in Canada. Progressive Conservatives recognize that one of the best levers to er

Supply  The Liberal Party has been consistently inconsistent in its trade policy. Recently the Minister for International Trade said the Liberal Party was on the vanguard of the rising anxieties of the free trade agreement of 1988. In fact the Liberals were the leaders of the anti free t

Supply  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intervention from the hon. member. I have tremendous concern about the gap between the rich and poor. In the U.S. there is the gated community concept. Families and individuals live in gated communities. They pay for their children's private educati

Supply  Mr. Speaker, I would say that although Quebec has been strongly supportive of free trade, I come from a province that was in free trade prior to Confederation. We have some contributions and agree with the member on that. Smaller countries have more to gain from liberalized trad

Hepatitis C  Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are on their way back to town. My question is for the President of the Treasury Board. How much is this vote on a mere motion going to cost Canadian taxpayers? What are the travel costs to fly ministers, members, other sheep and staff back from their jun

Hepatitis C  Mr. Speaker, this government is running out of provinces to hide behind. Canadians were unable to bank their own blood before 1986 and had no control over whether they were infected with tainted blood. But the health minister and the Prime Minister do not care about that. They c