Garth Turner

[Income Trusts, May 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Ottawa—Orléans for his intervention. He is an honourable gentleman and those of us who have worked with him certainly know he is sincere in what he has just said to the House.

Turning to the topic at hand, it has been six months since, out of the blue, the administration imposed a 31% tax on investors and caused their retirement savings to tumble. Some people ask why we, on this side of the House, keep fighting this move. Why do we tell average taxpayers not to give up? Obviously, we could and that would be the easy path but the easy path is not what we are choosing in this particular instance.

I will give five reasons why we think the income tax trust must be stopped, delayed or at least modified.

First, there, but for the grace of the Minister of Finance, go all the rest of us as taxpayers. If the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister can impose a crushing new tax on personal investments and wipe away $25 billion in private savings and not care and get away with it, then it will probably happen again. One must ask what the next target will be of the finance department to minimize tax expenditures and to maximize revenues. Will it be to eliminate, to cap or start to tax RRSPs? Will it be to impose a capital gains tax, maybe even a modest one, on the massive real estate capital gains being enjoyed homeowners these days? Let us think about it. Without political accountability anything can happen.

Second, this is a simple betrayal. Many people invested in income trusts or increased their stake precisely because the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister said that it was okay to do this. They said that they would never tax these investments. The man who is now Prime Minister said that over and again and his very words of course caused an increase in the flow of savings into these vehicles. His very words also encouraged many companies to convert into trust, secure in the knowledge, they thought, that a Conservative government could be counted on to keep its word. Now we know differently.

Third, this shows a profound and deep and troubling lack of respect. Such a draconian move by any government demonstrates that it does not care about individual security and, more worrisome for the government, it does not care about property rights.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance knew well what this move would do to the pool of private savings in Canada: that the tax would depress the market value of all trusts and erase capital. However, they did it anyway. What is worse is that they knew a majority of these income trusts investors were seniors who had no pensions and so pension splitting is of no value to these people whatsoever. There is no offset and many of them are too old to recoup their losses. However, those guys did it anyway. A government that so disrespects seniors is not deserving of our respect.

Fourth, this really hurts the political system. The government was supposed to be different. It promised transparency and it promised consistency with no tricks, not getting elected saying that it would eliminate a tax and then not doing it, just steady Eddie government that we could all count on with a populace streak and a new respect for the common voter. That is what we were told but not so much. In a stroke that changed. It is now politics as usual: say one thing to gain support, get into power and do another, and that sucks.

It proves once again that politicians deserve to have the same standing as used car salesmen, which is what the latest survey shows.

Fifth, this unfairness is overwhelming.

[Income Trusts, May 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday evening, people packed a community hall in my riding, people who lost a huge amount of money in retirement savings. They asked me to ask the Prime Minister a question: Does he not regret having fooled people by telling them he would never tax their income trusts and will he now ask the Minister of Finance to revisit this disaster the way he is scrambling to save his failed policy on investment interest?

My constituents deserve an answer, not another cheap political attack, Peter.

[Income Trusts, April 24th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian investors, many of them seniors, have asked the Minister of Finance repeatedly to reconsider his income trust bombshell and that shattered election promise. The minister is not listening. Instead, the minister decided on his website to run a poll asking Canadians to vote on the budget that contains that tax. The result: 93% said no way.

Will the minister now do what Canadians want and pull that unfair tax the same way he pulled his poll?

[Hearing Impaired, April 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a parent based community organization that has made a difference not only in my riding but in 17 other chapters across Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland.

VOICE for Hearing Impaired Children was established in the 1960s by parents to offer support to families with children who are deaf and hard of hearing. VOICE has made a difference in the lives of hearing impaired children by providing parental support, public education, advocacy and auditory-verbal therapy.

I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Halton chapter of VOICE which, because of volunteerism, was able to raise over $40,000 to ensure that hearing impaired children in my region have the opportunity to develop their ability to listen and to speak.

The website, for more information, is www.voicefordeafkids.com.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Actually, all the people I am quoting right now are seniors. For example, Dave Marshall and his wife in Cornwall, Ontario say--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Dwight from Chatham says:

The blackening-out of the purported rationale by the Finance Department during the FINA hearings was a shock to me. This was then coupled with the hiding of the bill inside the budget so that no discussion was possible. These actions appear to cover up the guilty knowledge that the true facts could not stand up to public scrutiny.

Harold says:

In view of the Prime Minister’s explicit election promise never to impose a tax on income trusts, and the fact that this promise undoubtedly gave existing and potential trust investors a high degree of comfort, why did the Minister of Finance not take one of the many routes available which would still have accomplished his aim without destroying massive amounts of--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Mike from Rodney says, “You personally promised that you would not let other parties get away with taxing income trusts. Silly for us to assume that you condemned other parties for a promise your party was not willing to do”.

Another comment states, “Mr. Harper, Mr. Flaherty and the remaining Conservative MPs: you placed our country in jeopardy with your policy regarding income trusts, changes in interest deductibility and withholding taxes for corporations. Something--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, can I wrap up now?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I withdraw the accusation.

The Prime Minister said one thing and did another. This actually caused investors in this country to lose more than $25 billion in private savings. Most of those people were retired. They could not possibly and will not possibly be able to recoup these losses.

It is the biggest single erosion of private savings ever caused by a single government action.

With that one draconian and, as it turned out, stupid, costly and senseless action, the Conservative leader broke faith with the people. He breached it. He destroyed it. He threw it away.

He is no longer representing the income trust investors whom he asked to vote for him. Now he is ruling them. He is telling them that they must live with the gratuitous pain the government has caused. Now, with this bill, the government seeks to make this breach of faith the law of the land.

That is why I voted against the budget and why I cannot support this enabling legislation. Shame on those who wrote it and seek to impose it upon Canadians.

Today I am not going to add any more of my words to the debate. Instead, I will turn to those of average Canadian investors.

This week on my blog I mentioned that I would have the opportunity to stand here for a few minutes to speak about this issue. I asked individual Canadians if they would send me some messages they would like conveyed to the House. I was overwhelmed with the response.

I would like my hon. colleagues to listen for a couple of minutes to some of the messages.

Mr. Don Bool, of Courtenay, British Columbia, wrote:

For me it's not having the proof of tax leakage. The blacked out pages by the finance department pretty well says it all. I could live with changes to income trusts if it was proven they were not good for the Canadian economy. Just give me good reasons for changing income trust policy and I'll eat the loss. I didn't know much about the particulars of income trusts but when they presented blanked out pages I studied up on trusts and a simple person like me could see the fix was in. I have been taken for a schmuck.

Ron Murray said:

I am a senior citizen that dropped some $30,000 because of the [Minister of Finance's] complete misunderstanding dealing with income trusts. No discussion, no notice, lying to the public--

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I mean to say “saying one thing to the public and doing another”. Mr. Murray continues:

--refusing to give the background of his numbers on the 'tax loss'.

Mr. Murray said that he sent a letter and states:

I sent a copy to my local MP and was called by him. I went to his office and was muzzled with [the] party line...I am not sure he had a clue what an Income Trust was. The main reason according to [the member of Parliament opposite] was that we were the only country in the world that did not tax income trusts.

Mr. Murray says phooey.

Then we have Tom and Ethna Anderson, who said:

The current government broke its promise not to tax income trusts. These actions have seriously lessened our confidence in the government's ability to govern with honesty and integrity.

Donald Metcalfe of Hanover, Ontario, said:

My wife and I are devastated by the damage the decision of the government to tax income trusts has done to our investments and to our monthly income. We are both seniors and rely on this income...we are down more than $1,200 per month. This is robbery and has affected our living in a major way. I talked to our [Conservative member of Parliament] and he told me [the Prime Minister] would allow him and his fellow MPs no say so why do we elect MPs to represent us when [the Prime Minister] is a dictator.

Again, in sympathy, Mr. Speaker, I will not name the member.

Elmer Sather of Surrey, British Columbia, said:

I am speechless, and in shock over how fast these Income Trusts are being taken over by foreigners.

He said it is staggering.

The Martinson family said that the Prime Minister told people something and did something else, although they used a more descriptive term. They wrote:

The government has successfully made it sound like they get no tax money from businesses involved in the Income Trust structure and people seem to be buying this. I feel it is important that it be made clear to the Canadian public that Governments gets lots of tax money due to Income Trusts.

As of March 31, the Martinson family reminds us that the Canada pension plan had 80 individual income trust businesses in its portfolio. If it was such a bad idea for individual citizens to hold income trusts, as the government would suggest, how could our public pension plan have invested in 80 of them?

Bill Fischer says this in regard to the Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity) who had a town hall meeting in his riding the other day on income trusts. He said:

I attended and here's my comment:

“We worked hard to elect a Conservative government, and were rewarded with betrayal. [The Prime Minister] promised one thing and did another. A 35 billion dollar--

I will not use the word--

--action. Calling manure a rose doesn't change the smell”.

[The secretary of state] spoke a lot of “rose” at the meeting, but few were fooled. He and [the Prime Minister] need to listen to Ralph Klein and recant, repent, and reimburse investors and seniors. You can't reward...politicians by voting for them [when they do not tell the truth]. It encourages them to continue the practise.

I have another comment here:

I don't remember reading in the party's platform anywhere that you had decided to decimate the nest egg of hundreds of thousands of senior Canadians. This is despicable behaviour from a government that touts itself as being accountable. To whom?

Art Moss, another senior says,

My RRSP took a 25% haircut in the aftermath of the Halloween massacre. It has since recovered about 10%.

However, the real pain of this legislation will come in 5 years when I convert to a RRIF. If all goes according to plan...I was projecting distribution income of $2,000/month.

He goes on to say, “the Minister of Finance calls this tax fairness. There is nothing fair about it”.

Mr. Speaker, I have probably 400 comments here. Could I have a couple of hours? If I could get unanimous consent from the House to continue to table these comments from individual Canadians, I would be a very happy guy because I would be able to tell these Canadians that I came here and stood here today, and actually got their voices to the floor of the House of Commons. Could you ask for that consent, Mr. Speaker?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, politicians are citizens that other citizens nominate and elect to represent them and their interests. As such, the bond between them is quite simple: it is called trust.

If and when that bond is broken, there can be no greater disconnect or breach or falling out or betrayal between them. The people are no longer represented. Instead, I would say, they are ruled.

Today we are debating the implementation of the 2007 federal budget, a document that affects the lives of millions of Canadians in thousands of different ways. Some are beneficial and some are not.

My remarks concern themselves today with just one aspect of this and that trust I mentioned between politicians and the people. It is at the very heart of what I wish to say.

In the last election campaign, the man who is now Prime Minister of Canada said over and over again from podiums from one end of this country to the next, including in my area, that a Conservative government would not tax income trusts.

He put it in writing in an op-ed article in the National Post. He directed that it be published in the party's platform, called “Stand up for Canada”.

In short, the man who is now Prime Minister could not have been clearer in his messaging to income trust investors, many of whom are seniors. He told them to relax, saying they would be safe if they voted for the Conservatives because, unlike the Liberals and the NDP, the Conservatives would never attack their income trusts.

Now we know that he lied. The government brought in a tax on income trusts on October 31 of last year, which tanked the stock market and erased $25 billion--