Ken Hardie

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, January 26th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the hon. member calls for deregulation and cutting taxes as the way to stimulate business that helps stimulate the economy. We had 10 years of that, and our reward for it was jobs being exported, profits being exported, and over $600 billion in dead money sitting in corporate treasuries that has not been invested because there has not been the confidence in the Canadian economy.

Where was the private sector investments to respond to the overreliance on energy when we saw energy prices coming down and we knew what damage that would do to the Alberta economy and the ripple effect right across the country?

Instead of the ideological approach to this, what does an adequate, useful and effective type of government intervention in the economy look like, given the fact that what we had for 10 years really did not work?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member on his first speech. Prairie people are the best. I grew up in Edmonton and spent many years in western Manitoba, in Brandon, the farming country, and I have a great deal of respect for the folks who go out and work the land.

I am also concerned, though, because I personally have feelings about the sovereignty of our food supply, its quality, and its security. Could the member address what may be some gaps between the provisions of the trans-Pacific partnership that his party supports and those values that keep our rural communities alive and well?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question because it is pertinent. One of the things that distinguished our plan was the fact that there were a number of interlocking pieces to it. In the discussions I had on those doorsteps, where the family itself was perhaps not making up to the threshold of around $45,000 where a tax cut would kick in, more often than not there were children present and those are the people who would benefit very specifically. It has been proven, from independent analysis by MoneySense magazine and others comparing the parties' various tax proposals, that those families with children would benefit more from the Liberal program than the others, particularly the program that had been put in place by the Conservatives and adopted by the NDP. It is the Canada child benefit, income tested as it is, that would actually tilt the benefits toward the people who need it the most.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member very much for the question because that has come up as an issue many times. A national transit strategy relies in some respects on a homogenous environment across the country. I know from my personal experience and from talking to my then colleagues in transit authorities across the country that conditions change from province to province. We have seen this everywhere from health care to any of the other national files that are important.

Our government needs to create an environment where those discussions can come forward, where we create goals, objectives, and a framework for each province and each municipality, which we supported in the past when Paul Martin initiated the transit tax transfer from the fuel tax revenues. We need to come up with a framework that allows every municipality in the country to respond according to its local conditions. The framework and overall goals would be a worthy conversation to have in the House, in terms of discussing what would work in a uniform way across Canada while respecting the regional differences.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to be sharing my time with the hon. member for Beaches—East York.

I hope that I can take a moment to enjoy this moment because it is truly unique. Many of us, 200 plus, are enjoying what I am enjoying right now. I would like to also relay my thanks to the good people of Fleetwood—Port Kells who, with their support, have made this moment for me possible and I hope to serve them with honour.

It has been a long time since I have been considered a rookie at anything.

I hope that one day I will be much better at speaking French.

For me to go any further would be harmful to the ears of my colleagues who are proficient in French. My high school French goes only so far, but even at my age, I intend to work on this, because this place is the place of expansion of ideas, expansion of spirit, an expansion of things getting done.

Of course at home, the languages I could learn would include Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, Tagalog, and many, many others. In fact, Fleetwood—Port Kells was described by a member of the B.C. Legislature as a mini-Canada. We have our industries to the north along the Fraser River. Along the Serpentine River, there are grand areas of agriculture.

We have very diverse neighbourhoods in Fleetwood—Port Kells, robust Muslim, South Asian, and Asian communities that really do build the character of the community. Of course we have the Katzie First Nation on Barnston Island as part of our riding.

Truly, like Canada itself, ours is a community that draws its strength and its character from its diversity, not in spite of it. It is a privilege to be here in the Commons to be its voice.

It is also a privilege to once again collaborate with many present in this House. Of course I have my new colleagues from Surrey who have also been successful in the election, but as I look across the way, there are some who have worked with me in the past. For instance, I recognize the member for Langley—Aldergrove who, with me, worked on initiatives to reduce the number and severity of traffic crashes in British Columbia, and very effectively indeed.

Almost 17 years ago now, the member for Vancouver East, then a cabinet minister in the government of British Columbia, was instrumental in working with me and the Vancouver Police to remove a product called rice alcohol from the streets of Downtown Eastside. The Downtown Eastside is racked by many problems. This very toxic potion was one of them and it was being sold under the counter in convenience stores. With that member's help, we got it regulated and off the street, and out of the misery that contributes to people in that part of Vancouver.

In recent years, the member for South Surrey—White Rock and I worked with many others to advance the cause of light rail rapid transit for Surrey, she as mayor, and I as a senior staff member at metro Vancouver's regional transportation authority.

The people back home will be happy to see all the new Liberal members from Surrey, plus the member for South Surrey—White Rock, and our former mayor, collaborate to bring light rail to reality for the people of Surrey. The election campaign was my first, and it proved to be a real privilege to take a message of real change to so many people in Fleetwood—Port Kells, to so many different doorsteps.

People in Fleetwood—Port Kells, as in the rest of Canada, have high expectations that this Parliament will accomplish many things, not just the people on this side of the House, but people on all sides of the House, as we collaborate and move things forward. If it is a good idea, it does not matter who has it, it should be discussed, debated, and enacted. That was a clear message out of our election campaign.

Fleetwood—Port Kells itself is a relatively prosperous riding. Our Fraser Heights area is beautiful. We have estate homes in beautiful settings. Our Fleetwood and Chimney Hills communities are very solid middle class. It is a place where family, community, and individual initiatives have become the foundations for a very, very strong community and a very prosperous one.

However, during the campaign on the doorsteps in Guildford, it was a different story. It was clear that many families, and many of them newcomers to British Columbia and to Canada, were having a tough time.

It was a serious matter to be able to talk to them about a tax cut on middle incomes and about a non-taxable Canada child benefit that would put more money on the kitchen table for them each and every month. We could see in their eyes what a difference those measures would make. What we saw in their eyes was hope. Because of that, I was very proud of our party, our program, and our leader, because we could offer them the hope that real change would bring.

Beyond that, I was also immensely proud of the way our community responded. People seemed to realize once again something that had been missing from the national dialogue. We got too used to being conditioned to be taxpayers and consumers. During the campaign, we discovered that we are also citizens of a country that, historically, has shared care for the common good.

As the votes were counted from our well-to-do neighbourhoods, I became even more proud of Fleetwood—Port Kells because, let us face it, they were the ones who would see their taxes go up as a result of the Liberal program. However, it was clear when the tallies came in that so many of them had validated our leader's faith that those who have a lot will not mind paying a little more to give a hand up to the people who need it.

Our program to build the nation's foundation through infrastructure investments resonated very strongly with people. We could also see in their eyes that they lived in nice houses and they had families who were doing well, but there was this shadow of an economy that threatened their jobs, and the security of our economy was of critical importance to them. They could see how the investments of an activist government that was just not prepared to sit back and let the private sector carry the load meant something to them.

There were so many others, people who make up a large percentage of our population, who agreed with us that would-be Canadians should be measured by the size of their hope, courage, and spirit, and not just by the size of their wallets. I am an old guy. I grew up in Canada in a time when it earned its reputation as being a refuge for people in distress. I remember the news in 1956 and 1957, when we welcomed 38,000 refugees from Hungary, with a population of just 15 million people. I remember from 1975 to 1980 the Vietnamese boat people. There were 55,000 of them from a war-torn part of the world who came to Canada. I also remember the 6,000 Muslims who were given 90 days to leave Uganda. We took them in.

This is the Canada that I grew up with in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, when I was truly a rookie at almost everything. Now, it is the Canada that we are seeing again. Synagogues, Sikh temples, mosques, and churches have gathered together to welcome the Syrian refugees. Just last Sunday, the BC Muslim Association hosted an event in Surrey that in one night raised $300,000 to welcome these people properly.

I have to say that, on balance, it is a pleasure to be a rookie again and work at restoring and preserving the Canada that we love and that the world loves for myself, my kids, and all of us here.