Honourable senators, the ghosts of the Reform Party are back to haunt us with the help of the current government.
Yes, honourable senators, a few days ago, Prime Minister Harper appointed one of his good friends, his bagman Gwyn Morgan, to a position that does not yet exist.
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Yes, ghosts from the past are now ghosts of the present and will certainly be ghosts of the future for this government. I do not know Mr. Morgan, but what I know of him is sending very bad vibes to me as a Maritimer and as a senator responsible for regions and minorities. In fact, let me quote excerpts from Mr. Morgan's speech made last December at the Fraser Institute. He said:
Immigration has a social side as well as an economic one. The social side is all too evident with the runaway violence driven mainly by Jamaican immigrants in Toronto, or all too frequent violence between Asian and other ethnic gangs right here in Calgary.
Further, he said:
Immigration groups blame "poverty" or "police discrimination" or "lack of opportunity." Once again, these are symptoms, but not the root cause. Here is the root cause they all know, but don't talk about: the vast majority of violent, lawless immigrants come from countries where the culture is dominated by violence and lawlessness.
Then he said:
It's fair to say that most immigrants who abuse our society have come in as refugee claimants rather than "economic immigrants." This not only means they are more likely to have violent tendencies, but also much less likely to have the skills, training and attitude necessary to contribute to our society.
He went on:
The curse of the Maritimes is perpetual equalization combined with an unemployment insurance system that acts as an unemployment assurance system.
Finally, he stated:
It has been demonstrated time and again that private sector unionization eventually leads to an uncompetitive business.
Honourable senators, how can we accept a person who makes such generalizations and so many character assassinations, as head, eventually, of the Public Appointments Commission? Attacking so many Canadians with such prejudice is unacceptable to me. In fact, if one removes Maritimers, immigrants and members of unions, the pool of "acceptable" Canadians according to this ghost of the Reform Party is, evidently, very restrictive. He probably did not know or did not want to know that in reality there are more seasonal workers in British Columbia alone than in all the Atlantic provinces combined.
For this Reform ghost, receiving oil development tax incentives is not a subsidy and not an assurance system.