Francis Scarpaleggia

[The Budget, February 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that the hon. member mentioned the Statistics Canada report that came out today.

I would suggest the changes we are seeing are not due to policies of the Conservative government but to demographic factors. For example, people’s net worth was seen to change with where they were in their life cycle. People between 55 and 64 had almost three times the median net worth.

Among the provinces, net worth was highest in B.C., which reflects housing prices. If we look at the economy in B.C., the unemployment rate is not that low. The economy is not doing that much better than elsewhere. I would suggest the rising housing prices might have to do with population growth.

Is the member taking credit for policies that really have not impacted on net worth?

[The Budget, February 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, the government needs to do more to help seniors. I mentioned in my speech one concrete measure the government could have taken, lowering or eliminating or deferring minimum withdrawals from RRIFs.

In terms of youth, if the government used its power and its jurisdictional right to help post-education in this country, that could delay what many see as inevitable increases in tuition fees, as provincial governments are forced to deal with their deficits. The government could have been more creative in these areas.

In terms of fees, the government seemed to be trumpeting that it would do something about credit card fees, but in my opinion, and I believe this is an opinion shared by many analysts, the government has not been specific about what it will do.

[The Budget, February 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the report that came out, which I read about, did mention that net worth has gone up. In many cases, and I would think in the majority of cases probably, this is because of rising house prices. The report did mention that this was happening very much in British Columbia, where we know that the housing market is very hot.

Now, there is one point I would like to make here. It is one thing to have our net worth go up. However, if we are not cashing out our net worth, we will still have to borrow to buy the groceries and to pay for other current expenditures, and as we do, we are of course accumulating interest, which will eat into our net worth.

Yes, the value of people's homes has been going up, often because of population growth, which as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech is not the result of any government policy. There are many factors at play. I do not think the government can take credit for many of the trends that we are seeing in terms of asset growth.

[The Budget, February 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I know why the budget was introduced during the Olympics. It was so that Canadians might not notice that the Conservatives are not making a real effort on their behalf, on behalf of their future and that of their children. This is certainly not an Olympian budget. It does not strive for excellence. No thought, skill, or creativity went into this budget. There is not much to look at here.

One thing is for sure. The minister is no Alex Bilodeau of finance ministers. The budget does not inspire. It does not give hope to our youth, seniors, those looking at retirement on the horizon, or unemployed middle class Canadians. It is not a budget aimed at shoring up Canada's middle class. It is a furtive budget that seeks to slip by unnoticed, lest Canadians see that the emperor has no clothes, that the government has no ideas.

These past few years, members on the other side of the House have engaged in incessant self-promotion, spinning their economic record with a view to gilding the economic reality over which the current Conservative government has presided. We need only look at the performance of some key economic variables since the Conservatives took power to understand that things are not the way the government describes them.

I would first like to bring attention to something known as the natural economic growth rate, which is that portion of the economic growth rate driven by population growth. As weak as the growth of the Canadian economy has been over the past few years, it can be linked in no small measure to an increase in the population of the country that has driven both aggregate demand and employment.

A Statistics Canada report released in the fall of 2012 showed that Canada had the fastest population growth in the G8, owing to immigration. Canada has sustained the highest immigration levels in the world as a percentage of its population. This is important to note. The Conservative government cannot take credit for Canada's population growth.

If we look at key economic variables, we see that the situation is not as rosy as the Conservatives say over and over again. While population growth, and not the Conservative government, has been driving economic growth in Canada, the population has been expanding faster than the rate of job growth. The national unemployment rate in January 2006 was 6.6%. In December 2013, there were 236,200 more unemployed Canadians than in January 2006 and the unemployment rate stood at 7.2%. It is true that there were job gains in January versus December 2013, but these gains included 28,000 people who became self-employed. What is more, these January gains followed job losses in full-time work in December. Moreover, the youth unemployment rate in January 2006 was 12.2%. In December 2013 it was 14%.

All in all, Canada ranked 20th among 34 OECD nations in employment creation for the 2007-2012 period. How the government gets away with saying that it is “first in the OECD” over and over again is beyond me.

Although 7.2% may seem like a hopeful rate in the current context, as the rate was as high as 8.7% in mid-2009, we have to take into account the discouraged job seeker who has given up looking because the labour market is so bleak. This dampens the unemployment rate, which reflects only those actively seeking employment. If one looks at the reduction in the unemployment rate from 2009, the situation looks promising, but that reduction is cold comfort since 80% of it occurred because job prospects were so poor that many Canadians gave up looking for work.

Interestingly, Statistics Canada does quantify the discouraged job seeker effect and publishes a supplementary measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those who are working part time while really wanting full-time work. This unemployment rate, which is referred to as the underutilization rate, sits at over 10%.

Another measure of the labour market situation in Canada is the long-term unemployment rate. Before 2008, 12% of Canadians had been looking for work for six months or more, and 4% for more than a year. Today, about 20% of the unemployed have been without work for more than six months, and 7% for more than one year.

As McGill economics professor Christopher Ragan has said:

A better indication of the economy’s job creation performance is the path of the employment-to-population ratio--and by this measure, our economic recovery is only mediocre.

Just before the crisis, total employment was 63.7% of the population. It fell sharply during the recession...and then struggled to recover even to 62%, where it has flat-lined for more than two years

If our performance in terms of unemployment is not very encouraging, the debt situation facing Canadians individually and collectively is no more so. In 2005, for every dollar of disposable income Canadians earned, they owed $1.30. In 2013, it was $1.64. On a collective basis, the government has added $160 billion to the national debt. One-fifth of the federal debt has been accumulated since 2006, the year the Conservatives became the government.

Still other economic indicators show that over the course of almost a decade the Conservative government failed to lay the groundwork for robust future prosperity. There was a 1.9% drop in productivity in the Canadian economy from 2006 to September 2013. Productivity, of course, is a function of investment in equipment, and also of the rate of innovation. Are we creating and producing the innovative products the world wants?

Another indicator, our chronic merchandise trade deficit, is likely linked at least in part to this poor productivity trend. We have had two years of trade deficits, which have been widening in the past few months, exceeding forecasters' predictions.

Finally, the stock market is often a reflection of generalized optimism or lack thereof about future economic prospects. From 2006 to 2013, the Dow Jones industrial average rose by 55.1%, while the TSX composite index rose by only 16.1%.

What is the government doing to generate growth? In this standstill political budget, it is not much. Moreover, the government's previous strategies and actions have not been enough to produce the growth rates that a country with so many resources, such great human capital, such talent, and such promise should be able to reach.

There are many measures the government could have taken to help middle-class Canadians improve their future standard of living. It could have raised RRSP contribution limits, it could have raised the contribution limits for tax-free savings accounts, and it could have also helped seniors by eliminating the minimum withdrawals required from RRIFs, registered retirement income funds. The markets have not been good, including the TSX composite index I referred to, meaning that the value of these RRIF portfolios has been weak, declining or not rising by very much. Indeed, some seniors have come to me to say that they do not want to withdraw from their RRIFs right now because they want to wait for the value of their RRIF portfolios to rise, but the government is forcing them to withdraw a minimum amount, which is compromising the future value of their assets.

It would have been good if the government had shown some imagination on issues such as this and taken some concrete steps to make the economic situation better for seniors and other Canadians. It did not, however, take the opportunity to do so in the budget, and that is a shame.

[Situation in the Central African Republic, February 12th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, first, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague for spearheading this issue, for instigating this debate this evening, and for providing us with a window into this horrible situation on the ground.

Awareness of course is a pre-condition to galvanizing meaningful action.

Every nation has a history. We have a history. It is important that our history inform our policies, including our foreign policy.

I wonder if the hon. member is aware whether the government is consulting people like retired General Roméo Dallaire, who not only lived through a similar situation but has done and is doing important work to end the scourge of child soldiers. Is the government reaching across the aisle and consulting people like the member for Mount Royal, and members of the party to my right, and members of the government's own caucus who might not be in cabinet?

Is it not important to have this kind of non-partisan effort in this terrible situation?

[The Budget, February 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the member's attention to two statistics. One is 1.9%, which represents the percentage drop in productivity from 2006 to September 2013. The other statistic is that we have had at least 24 consecutive months of merchandise trade deficits.

Would the hon. member not agree that this shows some kind of failure in the Conservatives' industrial policy or economic policies? I would like to know from the member what he believes these numbers tell us about where the future lies economically in Canada.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the hon. member say something to the effect of “now the Liberals want to create a national security committee of parliamentarians”, but is he not aware that this is an idea that was proposed by the former Martin government, I think in 2005?

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I was not in the government in 2005 and am not familiar with that directive and all the associated safeguards.

However, the point that we have to remember is that this is not 2005; this is 2014. Nine years later, things have evolved, and we have seen the possibilities that new technologies offer, technologies that did not exist in 2005.

However, I thank the hon. member for her question. It was obviously a well thought-out question.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there were many interesting points raised by my hon. colleague in that question.

First, how do we know what the culture is inside CSEC? We have no window into that organization. That is what this motion is all about, to get a window into the organization, and then we can judge what the culture is like.

Second, we are not fearmongering. Canadians are very suspicious of these new technologies and their ability to track their activities, not only in terms of what CSEC or CSIS is doing, but in terms of any other entity, or individuals, who could hack into systems and track movements of people because of some function they forgot to shut down on their BlackBerry or whatever. There is a fear out there, within all people, quite frankly, about where this new technology is taking us. It is not all about CSEC, and it is not all about CSIS.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Mount Royal.

Before I begin, I would like to comment on two phrases that have repeatedly emerged from the other side of the House. The first phrase is, “we are told”. The second phrase is, “we should trust”.

This is what the motion is all about. It is to turn “we are told” into “we are satisfied that we know” and “we should trust” into “we can trust because we have the oversight of a body made up of those for whom people in Canada voted and then sent to this House of Commons”.

There are two premises I think we should be debating today.

The first is that Liberals have always been vigilant about the need to protect Canadians' security, and any assertion to the contrary would be, in my view, disingenuous. We are the ones who introduced anti-terrorism legislation after 9-11, and we supported recent amendments to this legislation. These were controversial, of course, but we believed that they were the right thing to do. We supported the amendments and believed that they achieved the appropriate delicate balance between constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties and the need to protect Canadians' physical security from the harm terrorists would cause us.

The second premise we should be debating is that Liberals respect the judicial system. We do not introduce legislation that we know will be negated or nullified later on by the courts. It is not only a waste of time to approach the drafting of legislation in this way, with an eye to ideology rather than to established legal principles, it is counterproductive as well, often setting the putative objective even further back than when the particular legislation was passed.

As an aside, I would like to mention that the committee we are proposing is the committee that was proposed under the Martin government previously, but the legislation was not debated or adopted.

I would like to mention that this committee would also overlook the activities of CSIS and the RCMP. We are not just talking about CSEC. We have been talking a lot about CSEC today, because it has been in the news. However, there are other security establishments in Canada that require that we have some kind of oversight to ensure their accountability to democratic principles. Therefore, there would be not only a double benefit but a triple benefit from this committee.

We know that these agencies are not perfect. We know that people are not perfect. They can wilfully break the law, or if not technically break the law can violate the spirit of the law or even violate the letter and spirit of the law without necessarily knowing that it is what they are doing.

In the United States, for example, there have been many reported cases of private communications being unlawfully intercepted on very flimsy or totally unwarranted grounds, despite safeguards that have been built into the system. The BC Civil Liberties Association and others have provided many examples of these breaches.

We are talking basically about technology. The thing about technology is that it begs to be used. It was created to be used, and it is very seductive in this way. We have to create safeguards to ensure that it is used appropriately and lawfully. However, creating and enforcing safeguards is an ongoing challenge that constantly requires new defences and new legal and institutional tools, like this committee we are proposing.

I would like to look at the incident that took place earlier but that was reported by CBC last weekend. CBC reported that communications were being tracked at Canadian airports by CSEC. I would like to look at this from the point of view of citizens like me who are not part of the organization and who are not in the ministry that is managing this organization. I would like to look at it from that point of view and try to understand what it all means and what is going on in this complex, mysterious, and murky new cyber-reality.

We are told time and time again that CSEC is not allowed to spy on Canadians, so we ask ourselves, what was it doing tracking Canadians in their airports? The response seems to be that CSEC can track Canadians if it is tracking foreigners who happen to be engaged in communications with Canadians.

However, how does CSEC know who is Canadian and who is not at a Canadian airport? Can we not assume that most are Canadians travelling to points within Canada? To that, CSEC might say that it was doing nothing more than conducting a digital traffic survey for model building purposes, just like looking at cars passing through an intersection and observing licence plates without knowing who the cars belong to.

To that we might ask, why are they following those cars for two days after they leave the intersection? CSEC might say there is no law against that, but do we want to live in a society that follows its citizens around, whether on the ground or in cyberspace? This is not the former Soviet Union; this is Canada.

Another question is, why was CSEC doing this on Canadian soil when its mandate does not allow it to operate in Canada and to track Canadians directly? Yesterday the answer that seemed to be offered at the Senate committee was that this was not done on Canadian soil, but by monitoring traffic on servers located outside of Canada. In other words, this traffic, which includes traffic at Canadian airports, is on the open seas, as it were. These are technicalities and loopholes that fuel Canadians' growing distrust. We are in essence being told, sorry we should have read the fine print. That, as in other areas, fuels resentment, bitterness, and distrust.

There is a question that I would like to ask the government. Why is it so opposed to this rather simple proposal? Other countries have mechanisms for oversight of security agencies that are made up of elected representatives. General principles of democratic accountability maintain that no one can act without the authority of the people or some kind of democratic licence being granted by the people, which they will grant in exchange for accountability that prevents abuse and allows them to judge if they wish to withdraw that licence later on.

There is virtually no cost to creating a national security committee of parliamentarians. First of all, it would not meet every week. Second, it would likely not travel. I doubt that it would do site visits in this cyberworld that we are concerned about. A Library of Parliament clerk and researchers could be seconded from other committees, say the Public Safety committee or the National Defence committee. Existing MP staffers would provide support to individual committee members. Members also would be bound by some measure of confidentiality, such that the government would not need to worry about being criticized or embarrassed in question period on any given day.

In other words, what is the downside for the government in creating such a committee, other than having to agree with what was originally a Liberal proposal under the Martin government? If the other side wants to be non-partisan, why not simply agree to an idea that came from a previous government just because it is a good idea? Is the government that prideful and that insecure and defensive that it feels it would be compromising itself, its cherished brand that it supports through taxpayer advertising, by doing what is right in respect of fundamental democratic principles?

Our security depends not only on the abilities and competencies of our national security authorities, but on the co-operation and backing of the Canadian population. We are told this constantly by CSIS and others, that they need the co-operation of the people of Canada. However, how are they going to maintain that co-operation if they cannot win people's trust?