Alex Shepherd

[Canada Labour Code, November 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am unable to answer the member's question directly. I will take it under advisement and get back to her.

[Softwood Lumber, November 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to enter the debate on softwood lumber and to be sharing my time with the eloquent member for Parkdale--High Park.

People are probably wondering why a member from Durham, a riding with not much forest industry but a lot of agriculture, would be interested in the debate but, of course, Liberal members can actually visualize this country from sea to sea to sea.

I was very fortunate to travel to British Columbia back in 1994. I actually sat down in Cranbrook with representatives from Crestbrook Forest Industries, which is now called Tembec, one of those few unfortunate companies that has been hit not only with a countervail duty but with additional duties due to trade restrictions.

I was able to go back to B.C. in 1998 and once again get involved in the issue of trade disputes. At that time it was the harvesting of the old growth forest in the lower mainland of British Columbia. Once again our lumber exports were being restricted not only in the United States but also in Europe, and inappropriately so. As we got involved in that debate we discovered that in fact it was not based on logic. It was based on a lot of emotion and so forth.

The debate today has been going on for well over 20 years. I will elaborate on some of the background history.

Forty per cent of Canada is covered by forests and 10% of the world's forests are in Canada. Softwood lumber accounts for 3.1% of our gross domestic product. Canada exports $23 billion or 15% of its softwood lumber products. The forestry industry accounts for 311,000 direct jobs and 446,000 indirect jobs.

When the opposition members say that the government does not care about those jobs, they are totally wrong. We certainly feel for the people out in British Columbia and in other parts of our country who have lost their jobs, especially with Christmas coming and so forth. Our hearts go out to them tonight. We are trying to resolve this problem. Unfortunately, the opposition has used this as a matter of confrontation when what we should all be doing is getting behind this and trying to solve the problem.

Seventy per cent of our softwood lumber is exported and 75% of that is to the United States. Softwood lumber accounts for half the manufacturing in British Columbia and in New Brunswick.

In Canada 80% of our forests are owned by provincial governments. This is the problem. Only 11% is owned by the federal government. In the United States it is totally the reversed: 70% is owned by private industry and only 20% by the federal government.

Here is where the problem starts to come in. In 1952, Canada exported to the United States three billion board feet or 7% of the U.S. market share. By 1998 it was 18 billion board feet or 33% of the total U.S. market share. I think what we are starting to see is that Canadian companies are able to go down and compete effectively with their American counterparts in the United States and as a consequence have taken a market share.

What is the historical problem? What we are trying to do is stop Canadians from importing lumber from the United States. That is the first desire of those people who have a vested interest in the forestry sector in the United States.

The first allegation is that we are unfairly subsidizing our forestry industry with the use of stumpage fees. We have been through this whole issue a number of times, as I say, over 20 years. It has never been proven that the cost of stumpage fees is an undue subsidy or even a subsidy in fact to the forestry industry. This is pretty much a bogus thing. Once again we have to go back to the World Trade Organization.

Why is it that we have to go through this process? In some ways the process is successful for the Americans for one particular reason: it embargoes trade for a brief period of time, maybe two or three years, before this all gets resolved, people get back to duties and so forth, but the reality is that it has been hurt.

The reality is that Canadians were not been able to access that market during that period of time. In reality, embargoing our trade, while perhaps not legal, is very successful and very profitable for these companies in the United States.

The second issue is export restrictions. This is the concept where the province of British Columbia, for instance, does not allow the export of raw logs from provincially owned lands.Many other provinces have the same legislation. On federal government lands in the United States, it does the same thing. Why is that? Essentially, it wants to create jobs in Canada. In other words, obviously exporting raw logs does not particularly create a lot of jobs in Canada. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Clearly, Canadians do not want to be hewers of wood and carriers of water. They want to have good, solid jobs to live in their area. As I said, half of the economy of British Columbia is dependent on the forestry sector.

It has been mused that somehow these export restrictions cause an undue subsidy by governments, that in some way, by creating these export restrictions, if the logs were sold directly they would cost more money or something. Once again there has been no economic theorist or any other person who has been able to substantiate that the export restriction in fact creates a subsidy.

We should actually start looking at the pure economics of it. Why is that there has been this great market growth in the United States and why is that Canadians have been so able to capture that market? I think we should look at some of the other basics.

From 1952 until now, the Canadian dollar has shrunk in half. Would someone not think that would be more of a competitive issue? The Canadian dollar dropped in half and all of a sudden Canadian imports into the United States are significantly cheaper. I do not know why we are sitting here talking about subsidies and so forth because just the change in the Canadian dollar alone would tell us that Canadian softwood lumber is going be cheaper freight on board the United States than it was back in 1952.

My colleague who spoke before me mentioned that American mills have not kept up with capital improvements and have not kept their operations efficient. This is actually symptomatic of the United States.

We are having the same problem in steel. We all know that Bethlehem Steel went into receivership recently, mainly because it had not kept up with capital improvements. It ran its company on the basis that it was going to fail. When I say running a company on the basis it is going to fail, I mean that a company does not keep adding to its capital stock and making the company inefficient. If that is done over a long period of time, competitors become more efficient, are able to price their product more efficiently and, as a consequence, the company cannot compete.

In the United States it is cheaper to hire lobbyists to stop or impede trade than it is to put new capital equipment in plants. In reality, this is a perverse situation of which the Americans, quite frankly, should be ashamed. The great purporters of free trade and capitalism create a situation where it has inefficient industries and now it is dealing with legislation to impede efficient industries in Canada.

By the way, Weyerhaeuser bought out MacMillan Bloedel. Twenty per cent of the Canadian forestry industry is owned by Americans. Some people might ask whether they are trying to cripple our industry so they can buy more of it. I am not alluding to that as a conspiratorial theory but it certainly is plausible.

As I conclude my remarks, this issue really needs to seen in an American perspective. We seem to be on the receiving end of this constantly. I think it is time the Americans woke up and realized what their own government is doing to them.

[Infrastructure, October 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we have a $6 billion infrastructure program in place now. This is entirely within the provincial determination of what projects the provinces want to set forward. I am sure the province of Newfoundland will be taking advantage of that program in due course.

[Terrorism, September 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, a week ago today we witnessed the horrors and devastation meted out against innocent and unsuspecting peoples, a surreal happening made real by the countless stories of heroism in the face of tyranny.

All the people of Durham, especially those who are the followers of Islam, were shocked and now they are outraged. It is clear that we have to stamp out the insidious cancer that has grown within the midst of the world community.

Some talk about the rule of international law but what rules have the perpetrators used? What respect have they had for the common human condition? We need new rules in our war against this atrocity.

It is clear that some of our petrodollars have been diverted to feed the appetite of this evil. We must be diligent in finding the source of financing and cut its umbilical cord. All nations must work in co-operation to achieve this goal. The future of our democracy depends upon it.

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member for New Westminster--Coquitlam--Burnaby.

I would like to add the voice of the people of Durham regarding this tragedy. They have told me in no uncertain terms about the great loss of what they feel are some of their freedoms that they have taken for granted over the years, the civil liberties that we have all taken for granted. It has been a great tragedy. We hope to support actions that would eradicate terrorism in the future.

The member went on at length about the immigration policy. I would like to indicate that the landed immigrants who live in my riding are all genuinely hardworking good people. They contribute to their neighbours and neighbourhoods.

One of the things that concerns me as a member of parliament is that I am getting calls from people who are concerned about their own civil liberties because they may be from an ethnic group that is identifiable.

The member went on at length. He talked about and seemed to know that there are identifiable terrorist groups working in Canada. Since he has the protection of the House, could he stand and identify who and where those terrorist groups are?

[Supply, June 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of co-operation, I think we are all trying to find answers to the same questions. I raised some of the ones that occurred to me because of my experience in other places. I am sure there are ways to resolve them. That is our great benefit, that we can study what has gone on in other jurisdictions and hopefully can cull the bad parts of those practices.

[Supply, June 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to enter the debate on the excellent motion of the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville. I share the frustration of many members of the House in dealing with private members' bills.

Indeed in the 35th parliament my own private member's bill actually made it not only through first reading but also through second reading and was referred to a committee of the House. Then we adjourned for an election. After that I tried to reintroduce it and it was deemed non-votable. It seemed like a ridiculous procedure to me, so I certainly look forward to changing some of the rules that deal with private members' business.

From listening to the debate I have a couple of questions. The hon. member mentioned that in a sense there would not be a lot of rigorous machinery to make a bill votable. It seems there are two issues involved in that.

I do not know who will be the judge of all this, but what happens if a bill is totally ludicrous? In other words, we are all responsible for the House and for the image that the House portrays to Canadians. If bills that were totally ludicrous or totally unacceptable to the general public were made votable in the House, it would reflect poorly on the institution of parliament.

I understand we now have a rigorous procedure to go through as to whether it qualifies as a private member's bill. The hon. member seems to be talking about loosening up on that kind of jurisdiction, allowing almost all bills proposed by one member in one term to be deemed votable.

I have some concern about that. I am not sitting in judgment of other members' bills. Every member who brings a bill forward certainly thinks that the bill has a great deal of merit, but I wonder on a collective basis whether we need to focus on some kind of filtration system, maybe not one that is overly onerous but one that exists just the same.

There is a second issue I want to question. I visited Westminster, the mother of all parliaments, in London. I discovered that a system has evolved there with private members' bills such that lobbyists or private interest groups, often commercial private interest groups, whether the pharmaceutical industry or whatever the case may be, have discovered that a way to promote their cause has been to select a private member.

I am not saying that the private member is recompensed economically, but it would appear that is true. The private member then becomes an advocate of the particular policy because it is very difficult to influence general government policy. All members of parliament are allowed to have votable private members' bills before the house. For instance, if companies were trying to get their pharmaceutical processes approved in Great Britain, they may well choose a private member who would put forward a bill promoting their philosophies.

It seems to me that what we are talking about today would lead to that kind of process. I know members of parliament want to feel that they are important, but it could be that they are attached to private interest groups that possibly have other agendas. In that case it would actually do the reverse of some of the things the member is talking about. It would not actually enhance the democracy of the institution. It may go in the opposite direction.

We see that all the time in the United States where private sector groups do what they can to influence congressmen and senators to bring forward legislation which is of interest to them in particular. It is a lot easier to influence one person than a whole government. If those agendas can be brought to the House of Commons and therefore to the polity and to the media, it is a great avenue to use.

It would concern me that if we moved too much in this direction abuse could exist. I am sure what the member is suggesting is that we study how we can make it work. The House leader was talking about private members' bills that are looked upon as great successes. I know the Prime Minister is often quoted as talking about his private member's bill to change the name of TransCanada Airlines to Air Canada. I know all members of the House at various times have been involved in the private member process.

Historically, if we go back in time in the country, private members' bills were more common. It seems that as the parliamentary system matured we moved more toward government bills taking the onus of the day than private members' bills. To some extent the member is attempting to enhance the role of individual members of parliament. I applaud that process. We have to move toward more democratization of the House. We have to improve the rights and responsibilities of members of parliament.

I say responsibilities because quite often it is easy to hide behind a party platform and not take responsibility for the thought process. Lifting that veil comes with a cost to individual members who have to think out the process of their individual private members' bills. Ideally they will have to confront the public with them and justify them. I certainly see where the move toward a greater use of private members' bills is a good and positive move for the Chamber.

No one has a monopoly on good ideas. Sometimes we all think, whether we are the opposition or the government, we have a monopoly on good ideas, but there are a lot of good ideas in the country. This process would open up that concept, allow more good ideas to come to the floor of the House of Commons and allow us the opportunity to debate them. The member certainly has brought forward a compelling argument to proceed with greater democratization of the House. I look forward to that debate going forward.

I guess another aspect is that there is a cost to people who want to put multiple bills before the House. We can point to a number of members who have 30, 40 or 50 bills before the House. Obviously they will be at a significant disadvantage because only one of their bills will be votable. There may be a cost benefit relationship there. I do not know. I suppose they put forward that many bills so that they could promote various causes. They will have to find other ways to do it.

Many members decline putting forward private members' bills because of the whole concept that they will not be made votable. They put much work and effort into the process only to discover that it is not votable. It would be great if each member during the term of a parliament would have the right to put forward one votable private member's bill.

I certainly applaud the member for bringing the motion forward and look forward to supporting it.

[Income Tax Act, May 30th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to enter the debate on Bill C-209. I congratulate the member for Jonquière for bringing this very important issue to the floor of the House of Commons.

I live not too far from Toronto and have occasion to go there from time to time. One thing we have in that area, which I am sure Montreal and other urban centres in Canada have, is traffic gridlock. There is an inability to travel down the roads in any kind of meaningful timeframe. More important, as other members have mentioned, is the impact on greenhouse gases and the fact that the family automobile is contributing to our environmental problems.

I am told that the average automobile will inject the amount of C02 emissions into the atmosphere equal to four times the weight of the vehicle every year. We can see that this is a detriment to our health and also to our road safety.

There are many different ways to deal with the whole issue of greenhouse gases. An area I am involved in is what we call ecological tax reform. That is the ability to shift taxes toward polluters and away from people who are undertaking environmentally friendly practices. It is in that vein that I look at this legislation and enjoy the ability to engage in the debate.

I have had the advantage of being on public transit systems all over the world. When I was in Moscow I was amazed that its subway moved about a million people a day. This is really a tremendous feat. It shows what could be accomplished if we could get more people onto the public transit system. It is a very useful piece of legislation.

The problem we have when we deal with these kinds of issues is the question of the choice. In this case it is the choice of different types of policies to achieve the objective of lowering greenhouse gases.

I started to study this legislation and some of the other studies which have been around. For instance, recent studies showed that on average a tax subsidy of this nature would only increase ridership by 15%. This was in view of the fact that ridership was at a very low level in the first place, with only 19% of available people using public transit. People who have studied this issue have said that this kind of incentive would have a very low effect on increasing ridership.

We have to look at it in that vein, because if it only increases ridership by 15%, it means that the other people who are already taking public transit are the ones who will get the lion's share of the benefit. We really have not influenced public policy or the culture of people to be more sensitive to the environment and use public transit as opposed to vehicles. It is that issue which is essential to the whole issue of greenhouse gases. We need to change our culture toward how we handle ourselves in the environment and how we use our automobiles and so forth.

When I look at the legislation, it is unclear to me whether it will have that impact on changing people's choices about how they carry on in the environment.

I will take it one step further. This is an overview of the environmental concerns. When I started to read the legislation I got a little confused because it talked about providing receipts for transportation costs. For instance, from time to time I take OC Transpo. I buy some tickets at the store. I give the bus driver the tickets when I get on the bus but I do not get a receipt. That is the normal course of business on most public transit systems. The reality is, in a majority of cases people do not have receipts. However the legislation requires people to provide receipts for this tax deduction.

It talks about reasonable amounts paid by the individual in the year for the use of public transit. I do not know what reasonable means. However it is clear to me that the income tax system is designed to find people's taxable income, and taxable income is usually considered to be earnings from employment. We do give some a blanket deduction for employment expenses. The bottom line is that we pay tax on the balance.

The legislation would change that to some significant degree in the sense that it would allow people to claim expenses which would be personal in nature. For instance, if somebody went to a hockey game in Montreal, presumably they would use the public transit and this would be allowed as a tax deduction. This seems a very strange way to reward people. I presume we are saying that if somebody else walked or whatever they would not receive a benefit from this. For that reason, these kinds of changes to the Income Tax Act would help one group of people and would be a detriment to another group.

Another issue we are talking about is that of people who live in urban areas where there is public transit available. My riding is fairly large and has about 125,000 people. However we have very little public transit. The only public transit we really have is when Toronto's GO system sends a bus to our area from time to time. In other words, it is basically a rural or semi-rural area. These people have no choice but to use their cars to go to work.

What the legislation says is that people who live and work in urban centres will be given a benefit and those who live or work in rural areas will not. For that reason it is a terribly unfair piece of legislation.

There is no question that we need more people using rapid transit. The question is, how do we do it? It may be effective for rapid transit systems to use more alternative fuels like ethanol as opposed to gasoline driven engines. This might have a more positive effect.

There is a whole gamut of different policy tools that governments could look at in the fuel cell technology. The government has been very supportive of Ballard Power and developing that kind of technology. There are all kinds of other different technologies out there that desperately want our support.

Government to me has always been about choices. We obviously cannot accomplish all the wonderful things we would like to do to reduce greenhouse gases. It is clear that we must start doing more than we are today.

The member has not mentioned it, but I suspect we are talking about millions of tax dollars going into a project of transit passes, only to attain an increased ridership of no more than 15%. We may well ask if we could take the same money and use it more effectively in new types of technology to reduce greenhouse gases.

Vancouver is debating municipal legislation that would require a special driver's licence to drive in the city. That would represent a quota system in which only so many licences would be issued and a person could not drive in downtown Vancouver without one. It is a way of pushing traffic out of the downtown core.

We need to put more emphasis on public transit. One of the things I am trying to do in my riding is get the VIA Rail train to be a commuter train. That would be a positive way to get people off the roads and onto the rail system.

First, giving an incentive for transit passes would not achieve a great deal. Second, it would give benefits to people who already use public transit. Third, it seems unfair because a lot of communities in Canada do not have the advantages of public transit.

In conclusion, I am opposed to the legislation although I thank the member for Jonquière for bringing the issue to the floor of the House of Commons.

[Employment, May 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the geographic determination of the public service is something that has been there since 1992 and actually even before that. It allows the public service to reduce its cost in processing applications.

I think there is a general sense that it may no longer be applicable. I understand that the Public Service Commission is now investigating it and studying it. Hopefully the member could refer his concerns to Mr. Serson, who is the head of that commission.

[Income Tax Act, May 11th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like it known that I voted against the bill the first time round.