Debates of Nov. 2nd, 2006

National Defence

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Once again, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence indicated that the government will accept the report. The treatment of veterans, in this case, was unacceptable to this government and we are going to correct the situation.

Income Trusts

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the income trust betrayal by the government has cost millions of investors billions of dollars.

I would like to know what the Prime Minister says to Mr. Gerry Collard, who wrote to the member for Calgary West: “In appreciation of my vote, you and the Conservatives caused” thousands of dollars “of my life savings to evaporate overnight. In exchange for my” thousands, “you gave me seniors income splitting, I am still looking for the humour in this. I invested my entire life's savings...after you promised me they would not be” taxed. He says “after”.

Will the Prime Minister admit to Mr. Collard that he misled him during the election?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, that intellectually bankrupt party opposite had no idea of how to deal with this issue. As the Globe and Mail said, Canada in becoming an income trust economy “would be less competitive, less productive, and less innovative than it needs to be in the global arena”.

The Globe and Mail gets it. The members opposite do not get it. Not only did they not get it, they do not get it now. They bungled it last year.

We have done what is fair for Canadians. The Liberals think the phone companies should not pay taxes. We do.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the only bankruptcy we are talking about here is that of millions of Canadian investors. It takes some gall to destroy a man's life's savings and then ask for his vote.

Is this what the Prime Minister would also say to Mr. Sykora from Kingston, who lost thousands of dollars yesterday? He is hopping mad and says, “You have stolen” thousands of dollars “from my aged parents in their retirement home, from my wife, and from me...You have lied to us about leaving income trusts alone”.

Is he going to give the same answer or is he going to apologize to Mr. Sykora and his family?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, this is what one would expect from a party that is against reducing the GST, that voted against reducing the GST, that is against allowing pensioners to income split in this country, saving, for example, $2,500 on a single pension household of $40,000, and that is in favour of letting corporations not pay their fair share of taxes. On every tax issue, on every fairness issue for Canadians, that party opposite is wrong.

Minister of Public Works and Government Services

[Jean Lapierre, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, as millions of retirees were watching their life savings go up in smoke because of the Prime Minister’s broken promise, the unelected minister, Senator Fortier, added insult to injury by telling small investors who were worried and betrayed to “take a Valium”.

Will the Prime Minister apologize to Canadians on behalf of his haughty, arrogant and insensitive minister?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the minister was simply referring to the markets and the fact that there was some volatility in the markets yesterday. That was to be expected.

The realistic view which many people on Bay Street and on St. James Street in Montreal expressed is that one should take the time to look at the fact that there is a four year grandparenting of the changes with respect to income trusts, and that people should have perspective with respect to all of the changes that were announced on Tuesday.

[Jean Lapierre, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, how can the Prime Minister accept the fact that his unelected, arrogant millionaire Minister of Public Works and Government Services tells worried Canadians to take a Valium? How can the Prime Minister continue to protect his millionaire buddy?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I dare say, if we are talking about arrogance, how arrogant is it to expect ordinary Canadians to bear a tax burden greater than large corporations bear in this country? How arrogant is it to say to average Canadians and pensioners that they should not be entitled to split incomes for pensions? That is arrogance. That is the position of the Liberal Party opposite.

Crime Prevention

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the Dawson College tragedy, the gunman had announced his intention of committing this carnage on a public blog on the Internet. Section 111 of the Criminal Code would have allowed a judge to order that his weapons be taken away from him, if a police officer had brought the case before the judge.

Can the Minister of Public Safety tell us whether the RCMP's cyberpolice are monitoring this kind of Internet site and checking to see whether the authors of the sites also have permits to possess firearms and have any registered firearms?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, first, that happened within the jurisdiction of the Sûreté du Québec. However, I might also add that the RCMP has the capacity to listen to, look at and review situations that represent a threat, here in Canada. As well, it is important for members of the public across Canada, who have information about a person who represents a threat, to inform the local police.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do believe that we may find something on which we can agree. I understand that the work done by the police who monitor the Internet amounts to looking for a needle in a haystack. That is why they need the public’s help. On the question of child pornography, a site that was set up for surfers who stumble on such sites has proved to be extremely useful in flushing them out.

Can the minister commit himself to creating and funding this kind of site and publicizing it as widely as possible, so that Internet surfers can report these blogs and thus save other human lives?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good idea. I might also add that there is a link on our RCMP centre’s Internet site about child exploitation.

There is something else that can also help us protect children. That would be for the Liberal members to decide to support the bill to raise the age of consent, as a child protection measure, from 14 to 16.

Health

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on July 25, the Prime Minister announced with a great deal of fanfare a settlement for all those infected with hepatitis C from the blood system. Three months later, the victims are still waiting for their first cheque.

Does the Minister of Health realize that three months is a long time to wait when one is sick? Will he immediately undertake to pay interim compensation to the victims while waiting for the finishing touches to be put on the agreement, as called for by the hepatitis C victims coalition.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Health and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister announced a historic compensation package for victims of hepatitis C. There was at the time of that announcement a whole schedule that had to be enjoined. There has to be a final settlement which I understand is in train. Then there has to be a series of court proceedings where that final settlement is approved.

We are on track with the Prime Minister's promise to have the money in the hands of these victims in 2007.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has decided to no longer seize drugs from Canada ordered over the Internet by Americans. According to the Quebec Order of Pharmacists, this could very likely result in higher drug prices in Canada.

Does the Minister of Health intend to explain to his American counterpart that Canada does not wish to serve as a pharmacy for the United States?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Health and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, in Canada the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board regulates the price of drugs.

I would like the hon. member to know that there is a process for reviewing these prices. There is no relationship between these matters and the price of drugs in our country.

Income Trusts

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative election platform made a specific promise to seniors to preserve income trusts by not imposing any new taxes on them, and the Prime Minister went further. When he came to Oakville, he promised my constituents face to face that a Conservative government would not “monkey around with their income trusts”. Now, he is denying those promises. He has cost many Canadians tens of thousands of dollars and put their futures in jeopardy.

Will the Prime Minister now admit he broke his promise?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the commitment of course was to support financial security for seniors in Canada and what we saw this year was an acceleration of the creation of income trusts.

There were more than $70 billion worth of income trusts announced this year alone. Not only did we have this acceleration of income trusts, we also had the reality that income trusts were entering into active areas of business requiring investments in technology, machinery and equipment, particularly in the telecommunications sector. This presented a clear and present danger to the health of the Canadian economy.

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised he would not do this. He cannot seem to apologize for breaking his word. Canadians have learned that this is a government that cannot apologize even when it is wrong. This was a bait and switch scheme on Canadians who invested their hard-earned money based on the Prime Minister's own words.

This is no time for monkey business. Does the Prime Minister still deny that he made a pledge to Canadians that he would not impose a new tax on income trusts?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

The platform, Mr. Speaker, certainly pledged income security for seniors and there is a major tax change that was announced on Tuesday. I know the Liberal Party is opposed to pension splitting for seniors in Canada. I know that is the position of that particular political party.

We recognize that this is a major change in tax policy that is vitally important for seniors and pensioners in Canada who have sought this tax change for many years. This is a tax change that was recommended more than 40 years ago. The government listened to pensioners in Canada and has responded with a major change in tax policy.

Firearms Registry

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Public Safety claimed that he agreed in principle with the comments made by Hayder Kadhim, a student wounded in the Dawson College shooting.

Today this same minister declared his intention to dismantle the gun registry. For the second time, I am asking the Prime Minister to respond to Hayder's question. Why does he want to abolish a gun registry proven to have saved lives and which now costs next to nothing to maintain?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, we have done a couple of things. First of all, we have attempted to contact the gentleman mentioned and I am looking forward to sitting down with him. I believe, having gone through this tragedy, that he has some particular insights which may be helpful to us. His press secretary informed me that he will be busy on Monday when I proposed to go to Montreal, but I can certainly find another time.

I do agree in principle, as all Canadians do, that we want a firearms system that is effective at reducing criminal activity with firearms and we aim to get that.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are also in contact with Hayder and his press secretary. I will keep asking the same question until Hayder Kadhim gets an answer. He is the college shooting victim who challenged the Conservative government to answer a simple question, and here it is for the third time to the Prime Minister.

Why does the government insist on dismantling a gun registry proven to have saved lives and which now costs next to nothing to maintain?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think for a minute that my colleague opposite is intentionally trying to mislead Canadians, but she should be clear. The gun registry is not being dismantled. If individuals want to own or purchase a firearm in this country, they will need a licence for that. If they want to own or acquire a firearm that is restricted in any way, they also need to have an added licence for that. That registry is being maintained.

There is one portion of the registry that has proven to be a waste of money and the Auditor General has said that the data was not good. She was referring to long arms that in 2003 were only responsible for .5% of homicides. We want to go--