Jim Jones

[National Volunteer Week, April 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, from April 19 to 25 Canada celebrates National Volunteer Week. Far too often people who volunteer in our community are forgotten. These people work tirelessly to help others with no compensation aside from their own feelings of giving back to their neighbours.

It is with pleasure today that I thank all volunteers across the country who devote their time and energy to helping out.

In my riding of Markham alone there are numerous groups and individuals who deserve public mention and recognition for their services to our town.

I would like to show my gratitude to all those who volunteer their time for charities, youth, sports, organizations, coaches and teachers who stay after school to help students.

Many of us in the House owe our being here to all those who volunteered on our campaigns. Dedicating one's time to make our communities better is a most precious gift. All volunteers from coast to coast help make Canada the great country that it is.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, April 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak on Bill C-28. Nothing would make me happier than to stand here today and announce to the House how pleased my PC colleagues and I are with the implementation bill. However, due to the many serious shortfalls in Bill C-28 I am unable to do that.

The Liberal government has shown its true colours with both the budget and Bill C-28. This is not a government concerned with the needs and pains of all Canadians. Instead, this is a government that believes in crisis management, big government intervention politics and damage control.

At times it appears that the government has the delusion of adequacy. What we know for certain is that this is a government without a vision.

I would suggest that all members of this House pick up a copy of Bill C-28 and glance over it. Then they would ask themselves: Is this document from a government with a plan or is this a document of hope? Does this bill provide leadership that Canadians so desperately crave? When we are honest with ourselves the answer is emphatically no.

Instead we have a piecemeal reactionary bill that reflects the desires of the Liberals' favourite collective, the collective of special interest groups that represent only the needs of a fraction of Canadians.

“Four more years”. This used to be the rallying cry of parties seeking re-election, but not this Liberal government. To the Liberals it is the time span between announcements of proposals and their implementation. This clearly contradicts the Liberals' 1993 promise to end the credibility-stretching tradition of not passing tax changes until months after they are announced, which is another broken red book commitment. One is left to believe that the Liberals have had their gag reflexes surgically removed.

When I rose in the House on Monday to speak to Bill C-223 I made a point which pertains equally to Bill C-28. Canada needs a comprehensive national tax relief plan today. If the finance minister will table such a plan with objectives for all Canadians it will have the support of our party.

There is no monopoly on good economic ideas. The GST needed to be implemented and Canada has a balanced budget because of it. The NAFTA remains an integral tool for economic growth. Just as my party has always been willing to share its good ideas, we do so again today. Tax relief is essential to our future prosperity and the PC Party does not mind if the Liberals want to borrow this plank from our platform as well.

The Minister of Finance should know that the model in Bill C-28 would never achieve sustainable growth. Meeting with lobbyists and coming up with their pet initiatives might assist leadership bids, but it certainly does not help the general public.

We have heard a lot about brain drain. It devastates Canada's sustainability as a technology leader. It deprives Canadian industries of the ability to remain competitive. Above all, and what we can never forget, is that brain drain rips the heart and soul out of Canada and its families.

I am well aware that on this issue the industry minister has agreed with me, because his own departmental study entitled “Canada in an Integrated North America” shows this to be the case. This study points to high taxation as the major cause of brain drain. The study goes on to say that a married taxpayer working in Toronto with a salary of $100,000 could add over $20,000 to after tax income, an increase of close to 40%, if he or she were to earn the same income in New York or Chicago. It is no wonder that our best and our brightest are leaving for the U.S.

This same visionary leadership that Canada needs on tax relief is also required on education. This bill has taken the same lackadaisical approach to education that it takes to taxes. There are four targeted education components to Bill C-28. As with tax relief, specific targeting will not be the answer. The approach must be one of fairness for all, greater efficiency toward benchmark goals, and above all else it must be comprehensive in nature.

So much of Canada's future hinges on our national education agenda. It is time to stop paying lip service to our citizens as Canada's greatest natural resources. Instead we must begin backing this up with our actions.

It is very simple. It is just like the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. Stopgap measures might make you popular, but you need the engineer who came up with the permanent solution. Guess what? Where is that engineer? The engineer is in the United States because he is getting a better tax break and, unfortunately, making $10,000 more a year and retaining 40% more of those wages after tax.

By enacting over 15 favourable changes to the tax code for selected groups the Minister of Finance has shown he knows there is a problem. The hon. member for Medicine Hat mentioned that the finance minister has found out what the problem is because he has taken his assets and put them in a blind trust offshore. Why did he do that? Because he pays no taxes or very little taxes.

If the finance minister wants to become Prime Minister of this country he should realize that we have to be competitive on a tax basis with the United Stated or we are going to continue to lose our best and brightest to the United States.

It is time for the finance minister to go all the way by implementing broad based tax relief for all Canadians. For example, an increase in personal income tax exemptions to $10,000 would immediately remove two million low income Canadians from the tax rolls and reward all hard working Canadians. Even though it is a Progressive Conservative idea we do not mind lending it to the minister for the good of our fellow Canadians.

In conclusion, let us undertake a national education plan which ensures that we will produce the highest skilled individuals our industry requires. Once we have the high skilled workforce, let us make sure they choose to remain in Canada by reducing the crushing tax burden. Industry will be supportive of such a move, taxpayers will welcome this and families that do not have to export their children to the United States will be overjoyed. When the PC Party is presented with such an implementation bill we will resoundingly endorse it. That day is not here. Bill C-28 is not such a bill and the PC Party will be voting no.

[Income Tax Act, March 31st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak today to Bill C-223. I begin by commending the member for Portage—Lisgar for introducing the bill. I commend him for providing the House with an opportunity to debate a very important principle, the principle of tax relief.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind and in the minds of my Progressive Conservative colleagues that this nation is overtaxed. Once the House agrees on this then we can seek solutions. However, let me be clear. Tax relief solutions must be for the benefit of all Canadians. Tax relief must be equitable and it must be efficient. Bill C-223 does not meet this requirement.

There is a very simple question to answer here. The question is, if surplus money is available, who will decide how to spend it? Will it be the Liberal government or will it be the Canadian people? We in the PC Party put our trust in the people. By putting money back into the pockets of Canadians we will let them decide how to better their own lives. That is why my party has proposed raising the personal exemption threshold to $10,000 for every Canadian. That is the fair way to approach this issue.

My friends in the Reform Party are suffering from an identity crisis on this issue. The Reform Party trumpets itself as being the promoter of simpler and flatter taxes. This bill is neither. This is a call for a subsidy, a target tax break that benefits a few. When we enact legislation that targets only certain members of our society we are necessarily excluding others. In this case we would be doing nothing for the poorest members of our nation who are unable to even begin thinking of buying a home. Once again equity does not exist.

The message regarding our tax code is a tired, yet appropriate cliché: keep it simple. This bill at the very least adds another line to our already cumbersome income tax form.

Accountants are the overall winners with tax legislation that adds to the present complicated reporting nightmare that many Canadians are enduring as we speak. We need to make a collective decision that simplifying our Income Tax Act is a worthy goal. Then we need to strengthen our resolve to use our tax laws only to raise revenue, not to set public policy.

Fairness is conspicuously absent in this bill. The bill proposes that the interest paid on the first $100,000 of a mortgage loan secured by that first qualifying home acquired by a taxpayer would be allowed as a deduction for tax purposes. The problem is that $100,000 worth of property is not equal across this nation. The same home that sells for $100,000 in one part of the country might easily command twice that in my riding of Markham. Even if we were willing to complicate the Income Tax Act, we certainly could not accept a tax initiative that does not treat all citizens equally.

There is another component here which should give all of us in this Chamber great pause. If we were to allow tax deductions for mortgage interest we would be opening a Pandora's box. It would be good if the bill's sponsor would reflect on how sure he is that the Liberals would not move quickly to subject our homes to capital gains.

With regard to Bill C-223, we do not even have to wonder. We need only reflect on the words of the member for Etobicoke North. He stood in this House and said “If we allow the interest to be deductible, then surely the capital gains on the sale of the principal residence should be taxable”.

The reason a capital gain on a principal residence in not taxable in Canada now is that we do not consider an investment in a principal residence as an investment. It is the ownership of a private home. Then he continued on to say “You can't have your cake and eat it too”. This leaves little doubt in my mind as to the intention of this Liberal government if we were to pass Bill C-223.

There are other dynamics at play here and they need to be explored. At present there exists great acrimony within Liberal ranks. On the one side we have the Minister of Finance and his ever dwindling allies who know all too well that Canada's finances are still a long way from the Utopia he tried to sell in his budget.

Pushing and prodding them are the Minister of Health and his band of 1970 style tax and spend Liberals. They were thought to be extinct until recently when a small colony of 101 of them were discovered in Ontario.

We on this side of the House watch this battle with great concern. We do so because when the palace coup is complete all hopes for tax relief will be finished.

I say that we need greater vision than that which is represented in Bill C-223. We need to put aside all partisanship on the issue of comprehensive tax reform and come up with an acceptable alternative. This alternative must be effective in putting money back into the pockets of Canadians. It must be equitable so as to produce real bottom line benefits for all Canadians. We need to ensure it makes our tax system less cumbersome so that people can spend less time reporting to Revenue Canada. More importantly, we need to just do it.

I reiterate what my colleague from Kings—Hants said on February 4 when I say that a tax break is better than the status quo, but the public will is on side with those who seek comprehensive tax cuts. Let us not miss this opportunity.

[The Late Douglas Alkenbrack, March 31st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to pay tribute to Mr. Alkenbrack.

Douglas Alkenbrack came to the House of Commons to represent the riding of Lennox—Prince Edward in 1962 after many years of public service in municipal government. His parliamentary career was spent in the pursuit of fair play and justice. His constituents returned him to the House in every election until his retirement in 1979. This fact attests to the worth of his work on their behalf.

He once said “Each of us is an ombudsman for the people he represents”. The records of the House bear witness to his vigour in his quest for fair treatment for his constituents.

A true blue Tory, Mr. Alkenbrack also loved his country passionately. He gave a message to all of us in 1970 that still holds true today: “Every Canadian, as had the Fathers of Confederation, has great spiritual resources available to him. Our patriotism emanates from and has its source not only in ourselves and in our relationships with our fellow citizens, but also in the majesty of nature and the physical grandeur and beauty of our great dominion from the misty Grand Banks of Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains, Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands”.

To Mrs. Alkenbrack, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I extend the sympathy of the members of the Progressive Conservative caucus.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1998, March 31st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There does not appear to be a quorum in the House.

[Don Attridge, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to extend my congratulations to a constituent of mine and a resident of Markham. Mr. Don Attridge has received the prestigious Adrien Pouliot award. The award recognizes individuals or teams of individuals who have made significant and sustained contributions to mathematics.

The 1997 award was given to Mr. Attridge as part of a team including Edwin Anderson, Ronald Dunkley and Ronald Scoins. The team was honoured because of its creation and development of the Canadian mathematics competition which began in 1962 with 300 children from 19 schools in rural Ontario participating.

The original mathematics competition was created for students in grades 9, 10 and 11 in order to better prepare them for more senior competitions. Mr. Attridge, in addition to being a major contributor since the first Canadian mathematics competition was launched, taught mathematics for 37 years. Until his retirement in 1992 he was also the mathematics consultant for the York region board of education.

Mr. Attridge's award is just another example of the tremendous contribution that Markham residents and businesses make to Ontario and Canada.

Thanks to Mr. Attridge for making Markham proud.

[Division No. 112, March 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Kelowna for the question. He and I sit on the same committee.

We are starting to realize the very seriousness of the year 2000 problem. It is probably the biggest disaster since the second world war that could affect the world. We are talking about $6 billion just to fix the problem. Who knows what the legal ramifications will be.

Yesterday we had a presentation on the embedded chips. It is not that easy to fix something. They are embedded in instruments, equipment and technology, maybe 300 or 400 chips at a time. It is the cost of replacing them. If critical equipment shuts down in a hospital, the impact on health care could be severe, lives could be lost or the information obtained or the diagnostics given could be wrong. If the problem has not been addressed, it could also cause legal ramifications for hospitals or other agencies.

This is a very critical problem which the government has to get serious about. I notice that with the millennium scholarship fund it is planning for education in the future. It is also planning the millennium party. It is time that it planned for the most important problem, the millennium bug problem.

[Division No. 112, March 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the hon. member that the way the Liberals got to this balanced budget was by one of the initiatives which was brought in by the Conservatives when they were in power, the free trade agreement. The free trade agreement has yielded incremental tax revenues of approximately $25 billion.

The hon. member said that the government helped small business by taking 400,000 Canadians off the tax rolls. How does that help small business? I did not see any tax relief in here, like reducing the employment insurance premium.

Yesterday we heard in the industry committee that as high as 30% of small and medium size businesses could be out of business by the year 2000. I did not see any tax relief to help those businesses move into the next millennium.

When I look at the debt level, now that we have balanced the budget and the Liberals put in a contingency reserve of $3 billion, I would have brought in a balanced budget or debt reduction law. The way they are dealing with the $3 billion, it will take 200 years to pay it back. They could have done a lot more to assure Canadians of the long term stability of this country.

[Division No. 112, March 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, one of the important issues that was not acknowledged in this budget by the federal government was the millennium bug, commonly known as the year 2000 problem.

The year 2000 is less than 20 months away and there was no mention of its repercussions by the Minister of Finance in his budget. No attention was given to the significant cost and consequences this problem will have on Canadian businesses. No mention was made as to the aspirations of this government in combating the huge implications of this issue.

In the report by the Task Force Year 2000 released in February this year, it was recommended that the federal government introduce revenue neutral tax incentives, measures that focus primarily on small and medium size enterprises. It recommended that there be no delay in implementing this. The Minister of Finance ignored this recommendation and did nothing for small business enterprises in his budget respecting the year 2000 problem.

The PC Party feels that we urgently need to immediately implement formal action using the tax incentive levers available. The minister has missed his chance to make this incentive available to businesses at the earliest possible time. Now businesses may struggle on their own to attack this inevitable deadline of the next millennium with no monetary or tax relief from the Liberal government.

In conclusion, the 1998 budget may go down in history for being the first balanced budget in 28 years. However it will not be a budget that is to be remembered by Canadians as the budget that helped Canadians get ahead in life. The 1998 budget should have included initiatives to put money back into the pockets of the taxpayers. The 1998 budget should have introduced policy decisions that would have provided relief to small businesses, tax relief to Canadians, lowered the federal debt level and restored dollars to the provinces for health care, education and social assistance.

As I have indicated, the 1998 federal budget does little in the way of providing for taxpaying Canadians. We are not content to see the government spend away their sacrifices. We want to see more money and more jobs for Canadians. We must keep young Canadians in Canada and give them the opportunity their parents have had. It is crucial that we solve the alarming trend that has come to be known as the Canadian brain drain.

Taxes are still too high in this country. They penalize initiative. Taxes slow investment, investment that creates jobs. The result is that investment is being driven outside Canada. We also know that taxes encourage highly skilled entrepreneurial Canadians to seek their futures in other countries.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1998, March 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, on February 24 this year the finance minister brought in the first deficit free federal budget in 28 years. It is a budget balanced on the backs of taxpayers, the unemployed and the provinces.

The Liberal government has been able to sell itself to Canadians on this balanced budget yet it is due to the efforts of all levels of government and individual Canadians over the last 15 years that this has finally happened.

The finance minister should have sent a message of growth for the economy and hope for Canadians by delivering broad based tax cuts. We know now about his priorities. Broad based tax relief is off the table and massive Liberal spending is back.

The Liberal government has once again broken its promise. During the election it campaigned on the promise that the surplus would be spent in two parts, 50% to new spending and the other 50% to debt and tax relief.

The 1998 budget had no economic plan, no plan for growth, no targets for employment, no targets for job creation, no targets for tax reductions and no targets for debt reductions. The only visible target the government has put forward is that of spending. This is a budget from a government that has lost sight of the real needs of Canadians.

Last month's budget made one thing very obvious. The Liberal government is trying desperately to correct the problems it has created by past policies. An example would be the Minister of Finance's sudden attention to and concern for students. Suddenly the Minister of Finance has a plan to help students, a plan designed to offset the effects of his cuts to the provinces, a plan that causes tuition fees to rise too high in the first place.

The Canadian millennium scholarship fund, the pet project of the Prime Minister, is getting a lot of attention. It sounds wonderful but consider just how wonderful it really is. Here are the specifics. The fund is $2.5 billion. There are 100,000 scholarships. Students can receive an average of $3,000 each year with a cap of $15,000 over four years. The only stipulation is that the students will have to wait for two more years before they will see any of the money.

When will the government realize that the students face debt problems today? Dangling a carrot in front of them and then saying wait until the year 2000 just does not cut it. A student who appeared on the CBC national news in February put it best. This particular student was quoted as saying “Of course they balanced the budget and that is why I have a debt of $30,000”.

The issue of student debt should be one of utmost importance to all Canadians. Student debt does not just affect all students. It is an impediment to sustained economic growth in our country. Canada simply cannot afford to have a sufficient portion of its young people so heavily burdened by debt.

The cuts by the Minister of Finance to transfer payments for post-secondary education have forced provincial governments to cut funding to colleges and universities. In turn these institutions have no alternative but to raise tuition fees on the backs of students. As a consequence student debt has risen dramatically.

In 1993 the average student graduated with a debt load of $9,000. Today a student graduates with a debt of $25,000 to $30,000.

The Liberal government thinks that by involving its millennium scholarship endowment fund it is solving the student debt problem. While it may put some additional funds in the pockets of some students, on the whole it is not the answer to this crisis. Let me explain.

The scholarship only helps a very small limited number of students, approximately 3% to 4% of those going to universities and colleges. The scholarship does not address the structural problems such as cuts to transfers and the cost of obtaining an education. These are the root causes. These are the issues that need to be directly addressed by the federal government.

Young Canadians want to work. They want to work in Canada. The challenge for this government is to create employment opportunities. This is done by giving them a fair start in life. This means making education affordable, implementing responsible fiscal policies, offering a competitive tax system that will allow Canadians to spend and save.

Let me remind the House that transfers to the provinces increased by $6 billion under the previous Progressive Conservative government. Since the Liberal government took power in 1993, the transfers to the provinces have decreased by $6 billion. We now see the repercussions of these decisions.

We have been advocating tax cuts for Canadians as a primary task for government. Recently Canadians were hit with increases to the Canada pension plan with still no substantial offsetting relief in the EI premiums.

The government continues to collect $6 billion annually from excessively high unemployment insurance premiums. May I remind the House that the current EI premiums are at $2.70 and it is recommended that at $2 this program could be sustainable even in a recession.

Sure the budget was balanced. The important part is how. I have answered that. On the backs of each other. Many Canadians have faced higher taxes and have lost their jobs. Businesses are closing due to the economic environment. Canadians have experienced the effects of cuts to our health and education system and have been offered no reasonable relief. Working Canadians have seen their personal disposable income decline by 1.3% since 1993.

Overall we just need to look to our neighbours to the south to see the incredible difference in tax levels, unemployment figures and job opportunities. Brain drain, high taxes, high student debt, high unemployment, lack of job opportunities all go hand in hand. One feeds on the other.

In the budget the basic personal tax credit was raised by only $500 to $6,956. The PC government would have taken advantage of this balanced budget opportunity to give every Canadian a significant tax break by raising this credit to $10,000.

While we are pleased that the government decided to cut the 3% general surtax for low and middle income Canadians, unfortunately the Liberals missed the opportunity to make this tax relief broad based. Again we must keep young Canadians in Canada and give them the opportunity their parents had. It is crucial that we solve the alarming trend that we know as brain drain.

Another important issue the government did not address in this budget is the year 2000. We just heard in the industry committee that as high as 30% of the industries in Canada could go bankrupt or out of business in the year 2000. I have been quoting—