Gerry Ritz

[Charitable Contributions, November 16th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today in support of my colleague's motion. The timing is certainly right. We are in the middle of prebudget consultations. It has been looked at a couple of times already, but this year it may have a little more credibility when it comes to the floor.

For the record the motion is “That, in the opinion of this House, the government should bring in legislation making the tax deduction for contributions to charitable organizations no less”—and I stress no less—“than the tax deduction for contributions to political parties”.

Examples have been stated before. Someone giving a $100 donation to a political party will receive a $75 federal tax credit, while a $100 charitable donation, which is the average donation given to a charity or less than that, only garners $17. There is quite a disparity. Motion No. M-318 sets out to change that and to make it better for everyone.

I would like to make it clear that we are not calling for more more complexity to the tax code or for more government expenditures. Motion No. M-318 urges the government to make the charitable tax credit no less than the political tax credit. The words “no less” give the government flexibility to change the tax credit in any way it likes. It can lower the political donation tax credit, increase the charitable donation tax credit, or have the credit amounts meet somewhere in the middle, as long as the charitable donation tax credit is no less than the political donation tax credit.

This means the costs of implementing Motion No. M-318 could be as little or as extensive as the parliamentary committee decides. The last member spoke to this issue and said that it would cost $125 million to implement this type of system. It is not really a cost but an investment in communities. Charities certainly do pick up the slack when governments at all levels pull back. We have seen tremendous lines at soup kitchens and so on. Charitable organizations are picking up that slack, not governments. Governments are actually helping to create the problem.

If the government looks at the value charities bring to society, it has to admit that giving a huge break for political contributions represents misplaced priorities when compared to the meagre credit it gives to the efforts of Canadians to support the poor and the vulnerable. As the member for Ottawa Centre talked about, despite its efforts the federal government still must do more to help charities.

For instance, the Ottawa Citizen reported last year that Michael Hall, the director of research at the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy doubted “the shortfall left by government cuts is being covered by increased donations. That is a huge gap to fill”, he said.

To counter this negative trend and help charities meet the increased demands on their resources, Motion No. M-318 recommends that the tax deduction for contributions to charitable organizations again be no less than political ones. The government can play with the numbers and make them fit as it sees fit.

Government members have recognized this disparity in the past. In the 1996 prebudget report by the Standing Committee on Finance and again in 1997 it was recommended that the government enhance the charitable tax credit for donations to charities currently funded by governments to make it as generous as the current political tax credit for small donations to political parties. Not for the first time, the Minister of Finance ignored the recommendations. By the rhetoric we are hearing this morning, it seems as though the Liberals have already determined that this prebudget consultation is finished and again there will be no charitable status changes. That prebudget consultation is not yet done so they are a little bit ahead of themselves in that regard.

One can only assume that the federal government ignored the recommendation in the 1996 and subsequent budgets because of, as it says, public financial costs. As Canada moves into this post-deficit world however, levelling the playing field between political parties and charities that leverage more money to do their good works in the community is a very timely idea. It has become more affordable to the government and as such deserves broader public debate and discussion. That is what we are doing here today.

I find it interesting that the report specifies charities currently funded by government. I take that to mean members recognize the taxpayers' dollars doled out by government generosity could be replaced by money doled out by the taxpayers themselves, that big brother knows best. We are saying get that money back to the communities where it came from to begin with.

The report also uses the phrase “to make it as generous as the current political tax credits”. This is one option, but as I mentioned earlier, we are not trying to push the government to commit to more expenditures, only to examine how it has skewed the present tax structure. I am interested in promoting two things here today, simplicity and fairness in the tax system and that this government has an obligation to recognize that contributions to worthy charities should be as valuable as contributions to political parties.

Volunteers are the backbone of charitable donations to the groups that they serve and also form the fabric of the communities they seek to make better. We as legislators must be aware of that and continue to support their efforts.

[Supply, November 3rd, 1998]

I will answer to that at home. I will not answer to it to the member's potato producers in P.E.I.

We have a cheap food policy in this country. We have not seen the cost of a loaf of bread following the price of wheat. If it were we would be buying bread for two bits a loaf, and we are not. Mr. Speaker, you are a baker. You know the price of bread is up there on the quality stuff. You pay for that quality.

We have a quality wheat product in this country which is better than anywhere in the world. But we do not get a premium price for it. Why is that? The wheat board is maximizing our returns. We have high protein. We have the best milling wheat grown in the world. We have the best durum grown in the world. The Italians like it for their pasta, but we cannot get it to them. The Americans love it. Why are we handcuffing our farmers by not letting them have the flexibility to make their own decisions?

[Supply, November 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful the member did not get partisan. I would not know where to start. He speaks about the marketing system of the wheat board maximizing returns. A while ago I heard the movie line “show me the money”. I have not seen it. I am a western Canadian farmer who is under that system. Of course the parliamentary secretary is not because he is in a different part of the country. I have not seen that maximization of returns. Nobody can show me the bottom line.

People are trying to take their products across borders because they are frustrated. They do not have any black ink on their bottom line. Bankers are saying the only way they are going to get out of it is to sell their land. Where do they go? What do they do? I have farmers in my riding who are 55 to 60 years old who are ready to pull the plug because there is no tomorrow for them. They have diversified, they have agriculture, they have done everything government levels have told them to do, and they cannot be there for next spring's seeding. Where are they going to go? At that age what are they going to retrain in or retool to do?

Liberals have killed jobs in this country. What jobs are these farmers going to take on? Their wives are driving school buses, they are driving school buses. They are doing everything they can to put bread on the table and they cannot keep it up. So where do we go?

There is no open accountability in the wheat board. The member says the board maximizes our returns. Look at the continental barley market a couple of years ago. It took barley and drove it right through the ceiling for price. Everybody loved it. It had to shut it down after two months because it was competing against other forces that the wheat board did not want it to be competing against. When we took oats out from under the board, productivity in oats went up by 2000% on the prairies.

Those facts and figures are there to be verified. I could go on all day.

[Supply, November 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the debate on the Canadian farm crisis. Of course we all know that it is Canada wide and that is why we are raising the topic here today.

I am sure all members of this House at some time in their lives were faced with the situation in which they had to scramble to overcome misfortune. Either due to choices they made or ones that were arbitrarily made for them, they awoke one day to discover that they were out of a job or that they had some sort of financial crisis looming over them. I just want members from urban centres to keep that picture in mind so they can appreciate what we are talking about today.

This is not like losing one's job. A Canada wide farm income crisis is like losing the best part of one's life and all that one has worked toward.

The present crisis in farm net incomes is nothing short of a financial earthquake rumbling across Canada toppling lives and livelihoods for years to come. One of the buzzwords we have heard in this House lately is child poverty. Child poverty is erupting and rearing its ugly head out on the prairies where I am from and across Canada due to the rural crisis. Like natural earthquakes, this one was preceded by tremors and will be followed by aftershocks that will reverberate in areas far from the epicentre on Canadian farms.

Unlike natural earthquakes, farmers cannot count on the Canadian forces coming to their assistance. In fact they cannot count on federal authorities to do anything except to keep many of the counterproductive, bureaucratic programs that they have loaded on to the Canadian farmer over the last number of years.

Simply put, the price that anyone can get for their produce minus their input costs and taxes determines whether or not they can succeed and invest for their future. Right now, economic turmoil in Asian markets is reducing demand and prices as well. The resulting oversupply in world markets is reinforcing this downward pressure.

But what about the input costs? In a free market, producers should be able to reduce their costs and adjust to a reduction in demand. That is not happening. That it is not happening is the fault of interference in the marketplace by a variety of players, including governments.

Canada's dollar is down and though the Prime Minister was too busy playing through to notice this summer, the effect has been devastating. For some exporters the low dollar stimulated sales, that is true. But for farmers the lower price for their products offset by massive agriculture subsidies by our neighbours to the south and even more by our so-called friends across the Atlantic have added to that situation. Furthermore, that low dollar cannot buy as much fertilizer, chemical, new machinery and/or parts which tend to be based on American dollars.

Of course the expenses connected to farming are not just the ones that go into the ground. Like every household and business in this country, farmers cannot seed or harvest a stock of grain without answering to a bureaucratic program or shelling out for a mandatory fee which is a tax. Farmers know as well as anyone that there has to be some tax to pay for government services, but we hold the opposite view of government members who display a desire to have constantly rising taxes pay for a constantly expanding government and its programs.

On a regular basis we have to question where these revenues come from, where they go and whether there is not a better way to provide certain services or manage public concerns. We do not see a commitment to re-examine the status quo on a host of issues from taxation to democratic accountability from that side of the House. We do not expect to see any imaginative resolutions to the present agricultural crisis either.

The farmers are doing their best. One of my constituents, Mr. Rene Cadrain, wrote in the Western Producer “They say diversify. I've been diversifying all my life and things are getting worse by the minute”.

The federal government can try to pawn off its responsibility by saying that Asia has depressed prices and there is nothing it can do about that. But what is really happening to the price of grain worldwide? We can see that a loaf of bread still costs the same. As a baker, Mr. Speaker, I am certain you can answer to that.

The Europeans are injecting billions into subsidies to keep farmers growing wheat when the market is already well served in that area. Insulated from the real price they should be getting, European farmers are contributing to a glut that nonetheless leaves millions of starving people around the world. That is obviously something that needs attention all by itself. But this government has done nothing to counteract the mistaken policies of its trading partners.

We scaled back our agriculture safety net from $2.5 billion to $600 million in accordance with the world trade agreement. Good for Canada, but we forgot to hold our allies to that same standard. The Americans are getting into the act now with their own bailouts.

Despite Canadians selling only 1.5 million tonnes into that market that consumes 35 million tonnes, this government does nothing as frustrated Americans stop our trucks. It is certainly ironic when a prairie farmer tries to sell his own wheat in the U.S. and he is arrested by his own government, and when his government tries to truck the wheat down there, it is turned back by state troopers. It gives you a greater appreciation of the comment in the Lethbridge Herald recently that wheat production is 10% grain and 90% politics.

We know that this government will be going to international conferences soon to discuss these issues, but will it just be a replay of Kyoto? No plan until they step from the hotel, no idea of what Canadian farmers need to compete and prosper and no idea of the cost and implications until it is too late.

We should all recognize the difficulty that governments face when they try to satisfy many competing interests. This is a diverse sector. Any policy has unintended consequences and is bound to have as many detractors as it has beneficiaries.

Most of the difficulties experienced by farmers in this time of falling net income relate to the tax burden. Federal income and payroll taxes are bad enough, but due to offloading by senior governments, many rural municipalities are forced to rely on excessive property taxes to maintain their services. This type of tax is not tied to the ability to pay and looms larger as land values fail to reflect the drop in value of the crops grown on them.

Senior levels of government brag about how they have balanced their budgets, but they are bragging to the same taxpayer who is getting squeezed at the local level. It is a shell game that no longer fools many Canadians.

Of course jurisdictions cross at the federal and provincial levels with negative consequences. The federal government is responsible for the railways, but has not come up with a policy to make the system more efficient. It offered a one time payout to eliminate the Crow rate which equalled one year's worth of freight. We are still shipping product. The effect is that now farmers are paying an extra 30 cents a bushel for freight, a major input cost.

What we have now are piecemeal rail abandonments, the destruction of elevators and the towns that support them, and longer hauls to market for crops. The roads take a pounding without any dedication of fuel taxes to compensate the local governments to fix them. The farmers' costs go up and grain ends up sitting in bins.

The feds and the provinces cannot agree on who is responsible for the environment either. We all have a stake in it of course, but policies that impose flat charges on a whole range of goods and services without any recognition of whether a large western farm of 3,000 acres has the same impact as an eastern farm of 70 acres of a diverse crop can wipe out that narrow margin of income.

Taxes and environmental fees on automotive parts and petroleum products can loom larger for a farmer than a high volume urban operation. We are never sure whether that money is going toward an environmental purpose or into general revenues. Farmers are certainly willing to pay their fair share and they have been but the key word here is fair and we just do not see that.

I am calling for the government to stand up for Canadian farmers on the international stage and to re-examine how the agricultural sector is treated within our borders. Farmers as businessmen need flexibility, accountability and efficiency from government policies. They need to see a thorough re-evaluation of the many short term band-aid solutions that have piled up over the years. They do not want handouts. They are very self sufficient. But they could use a playing field that would allow them to compete fairly and efficiently now and when times are good.

I quote my constituent, Mr. Cadrain, again: “Wives have to work to put food on the table and pay utilities. Why should we who feed the world go with less than the people we feed?”

[Supply, November 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today and ask questions of my colleague.

For years and years this country has had a cheap food policy. Through this farm crisis we have not seen the price of a loaf of bread take a dip. My colleague from Cypress Hills—Grasslands talked about six-tenths of one cent worth of barley in a bottle of beer that is worth $1.50 on average. Food costs in Canada are one-quarter to one-third of what consumers pay in Europe. It is no wonder our farmers are going broke. We pay all the costs and subsidize the consumer as well.

I am wondering if the member would care to comment on who is going to feed Canadians when the farmers are gone. We have a 65 cent dollar here which will not buy much produce from offshore.

[Agriculture, October 27th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, there is a growing farm income crisis in the country. The minister must be aware the farmers have to make decisions now that affect the future of Canadian agriculture for next season. They need real action from the government to deal with the whole spectrum of difficulties facing their operations.

We need to keep more money in the hands of producers, not burden them with rising fees, taxes and charges that follow mandatory government programs. We have to make adjustments for international trade distortions and make it clear to our trading partners that we will not tolerate massive subsidies which provide short term illusions of relief. We have to address the shortcomings in the net income stabilization program.

We are asking the government to move now to help Canadian agriculture and its supporting services brace themselves for the rough road ahead.

[Criminal Records Act, September 29th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand here this evening and speak in the final hour of debate on the private member's bill put forward by my colleague from Calgary Centre. It is of profound importance for the health and well-being of our most important resource in Canada, our children.

Governments at all levels often say that they recognize the importance of children's welfare for the future of the country, but they often have a strange way of showing it. Our income tax structure encourages two income families and common law relationships, although there is overwhelming empirical evidence that both these situations are among the least desirable for the healthy development of children.

Many members of this House have probably bought into United Nations documents that are supposed to protect the rights of the child. Because of manipulation by special interest groups, many subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer, these charters actually seem to undermine the ability of and the responsibility for parents to guide and nurture their children.

In a recent news article the Secretary of State for Children and Youth said “We feel our activities are child centred. Our main concern is what happens to children, and the issue of parents is very, very, I would say, controversial”. If the concern really was for the child, then the well-being of parents and their families would be front and centre, not considered an annoyance by this government.

The term “child centred” also appears in education literature that was popular a few years ago. The philosophy that letting kids decide what they wanted to learn, when they felt like learning it, was somehow going to lead to happier, well adjusted students. The result, as we now know, is that a lack in direction and in an appreciation of the responsibilities that adults were supposed to provide them, many children felt no obligation to learn at all. Many jurisdictions across Canada are retreating from the failed experiment of trying to turn innocent children into miniature adults.

I am not claiming that there is a direct connection, but the policy of absolving adults of their responsibilities to behave properly seems to be the other side of the coin. We seem to have forgotten the social impact of giving individuals a free ride when it comes to the consequences of their actions. We often seem so concerned about the rights of the convict that we completely ignore the loss of dignity, privacy and the enjoyment of life that these criminals visit upon their victims and families.

Members on this side of the House recognize that all legislation must be concerned with balance.

The administration of justice requires not only a presumption of innocence for the individual charged with a crime, but that any punishment that results from a rightful conviction must fit the crime.

There is a process in place for dealing with criminal activity that has to include mitigating circumstances. We may stop a lot of thieves by ordering their hands to be cut off, but our society has decided that sort of punishment is too extreme.

We believe in mercy and we believe that people should get a chance to atone for their transgressions at a later date. At one time these were a couple of elements among many in our justice system, but these days many Canadians feel that they have become the driving force.

Many Canadians feel that the balance has been upset and now the justice system assumes that criminals are always remorseful and will automatically respond to things like day parole and psychiatric counselling. Far from it.

Rightly or wrongly, the perception has been created that the justice system has been skewed to give every consideration to the criminal and little is being done to heal the wounds of the victims.

Many Canadians have expressed the desire to see more done on the side of prevention. They want more police officers on the street, more direct and immediate consequences for all criminal acts, more onus being placed on parents for the actions of minors, a greater emphasis on making criminals pay the full price for their crimes and less of a push to get them back on the street.

While opposing sides may argue about the efficiency of incarcerating versus rehabilitating criminals, police are aware that a rash of property crimes, for example, usually points to the recent release of a criminal who favours that sort of action. It is a fact of life.

There is no end of statistics to show the tendency of various criminals to reoffend and these are often used by people to prove their pet theories about justice.

I do not want to get into a numbers game, nor do I want to argue whether criminals need more or less jail or whether one kind of punishment is more effective than another. That is not what Bill C-284 is all about. It is not about tormenting a particular type of criminal for the rest of their life or imposing more jail time on someone who has supposedly served their time and is now trying to make a life for themselves.

It is true that Bill C-284 does target a particular kind of criminal and seeks to put at public disposal an item of personal information that our system has a method of keeping from the public under ordinary circumstances.

Some may interpret this as being unnecessarily intrusive, but this bill seeks to safeguard a particular kind of victim and is an attempt to bring balance to the system on that victim's behalf.

We recognize that criminals have certain rights and that the criminals who have served time for their crimes may have earned a certain relief from further punishment. However, the victims who we are concerned with here, like many victims who survived the violation against them, often serve a lifetime sentence themselves. They carry those emotional scars for life.

The victims who this bill concerns itself with are usually helpless, vulnerable and find it difficult to comprehend or deal with what is done to them. These victims are our children and our families.

The perpetrators of this most hideous crime are known as pedophiles or sex offenders. Despite what our deepest revulsion urges us to do to these people, we try to remember that we must have balance.

The members of this House should understand that Bill C-284 is not about the punishment of that individual based on suspicion or prejudice, it is about directing convicted criminals away from situations in which they have proven they cannot be trusted.

We are not asking that pardoned sex offenders be barred from society, but that people in positions of responsibility over children be given the opportunity to discover the true history of the potential employees they are looking at hiring.

This bill does not call for the public broadcast of anyone's criminal history. It merely allows for responsible parties to find out if an individual had ever been pardoned for a sexual offence, and then only if that individual actually applies for a job working with children.

When we consider the words of Correctional Services Canada that there is evidence of a substantial increase in the risk for sexual re-offending for that group of offenders with a prior history, and when we discover that the National Parole Board does not even keep track of the more than 16,000 pardons it hands out by type of crime, then we can say that there is a very small price to pay in terms of curtailing the freedoms of this group.

I would like to close by saying that the solicitor general already has the legal authority to override a pardon if it is in the interest of the administration of justice.

I believe it is only just that we work to prevent the tragedy of child victimization any way that we can, and this bill gives us one more tool to accomplish that end. I urge everyone in this House to support the bill.

[Dna Identification Act, September 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to rise today to speak on behalf of my constituents of Battlefords—Lloydminster regarding Bill C-3, the DNA data bank.

The Reform Party continues to be firmly committed to restoring confidence in our justice system and providing Canadians with true security in their homes. This means providing the law enforcement agencies with the latest technological tools to detect and apprehend criminals. DNA identification is certainly this type of tool. If used to its full potential, the DNA data bank could be the single most important development in fighting crime since fingerprinting.

Bill C-3, in its present form, denies police the quality tools they need to fight and solve crime. At best Bill C-3 is a half measure aimed to placate Canadians.

DNA data banks are currently in use in the United States, Great Britain and New Zealand. DNA forensic analyses have been instrumental in securing convictions in hundreds of cases in Canada and have helped in the release of wrongly convicted persons.

Bill C-3 in its current form gives law-abiding Canadians a false sense of security. The Reform Party cannot support the bill in its current form because of that. We do support the creation of a DNA data bank, but the current scope of the bill is much too limited. It seems the government would rather protect the interests of criminals over those of law-abiding citizens, not an equitable trade-off I am sure.

The government cites finances as one of the reasons why it is not willing to expand the DNA data bank and allow for samples to be taken at the time of charge rather than conviction. The Reform Party proposed that samples be taken at the time of charge and not analysed until conviction. This would have satisfied the concern of the Canadian Police Association regarding offenders who are released on bail pending trial and constitute a flight risk.

The total cost of the DNA data bank, we are told, would be in the $15 million to $18 million range. We see Bill C-68 implemented at a proposed cost of $85 million on the premise that it may save one life, The costs have now escalated to two, three, four times that. No one is sure. Again in order to save one life we are wondering why the implementation of a DNA data bank, which has proven to save lives and convict criminals in the long run, would not be a good buy.

Unlike Bill C-68 costs can be recouped. The conclusive nature of DNA evidence often results in substantial savings for police in their investigations and the courts since that investigation can be narrowed down and a trial simplified. Therefore in the long term this is a cost effective tool and a great protection to society. By analysing the DNA of all persons charged with violent offences we could have numerous samples in that data bank. We should think of the added security this would mean to Canadians.

There are hundreds of unsolved assaults, rapes and homicides where DNA evidence has been left at the scene. DNA identification now offers us an unparalleled opportunity to solve many of these cases. They have a real opportunity to strengthen our hand-cuffed justice system and they refuse to change.

People's lives are at stake here as well as their quality of life living in safer neighbourhoods. It is interesting to note that the taking of a blood sample in the case of a suspected impaired driver does not raise much concern. In fact society applauds that policy. Why is it different, then, in the case of DNA samples left at the scene of a crime? We take blood samples for purposes of determining impairment. There is no difference.

The invasion of privacy has already taken place. The Criminal Code looks after that. Is there a difference here? I think not. The authority to take samples is already in the Criminal Code and overrules the privacy issue.

The Canadian Police Association prepared and submitted a legal opinion to the justice committee concluding that there would be no constitutional concern about taking samples at the time of charge.

We all want to fight and reduce crime and reduce the time it takes to solve a crime. We have a tremendous backlog in our courts. If the fear is over the data bank and the keeping of blood or fluid samples, we just have to look at the thousands of samples taken by doctors and nurses each day and kept in some sort of bank. These bank files are not being exploited so why would a DNA data bank constitute any more of a risk?

This is certainly a major and very important piece of legislation. The government must justify to the Canadian Police Association and Canadian voters the reasons for invoking time allocation for the seventh time to ram through a work in progress. Canadians deserve better from their elected officials.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, September 28th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to rise today and speak in this debate on Bill C-53. I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Prince George—Bulkley Valley should we have time left.

The title of this bill is a real mouthful in itself. Bill C-53 is an act to increase the availability of financing for the establishment, expansion, modernization and improvement of small businesses. It sounds like we are going to be all things to all people here.

In every area of economic activity we find taxpayer sponsored programs whose objectives claim to be that they will help people work more or expand their businesses or make more money. The problem is this is precisely what people naturally want to do with their businesses in the first place. What we see is that many of these government efforts are actually taking resources away from people in taxes who would otherwise prosper on their own.

Some members of this House may accuse me of preaching some form of economic Darwinism, that the government should disappear and let the strong survive at the expense of the weak. I do not believe this would be a formula for success right across the board. There are many situations in which incentives can be provided to encourage certain outcomes but clearly we cannot be all things to all people and we have to let small businesses make many choices on their own.

As I said, people naturally want to succeed. That is the direction that many small businesses like to see.

There are a variety of things a government can do to encourage business success, just as there are many things it does to defeat that success, and this bill does little to address either side of those conditions.

At the moment we have many questions about government participation in small business financing. The auditor general raised several of them in his spring report. His figures indicated that 46% of loans under the SBLA could have been handled privately through normal financial channels. We have to wonder if a moral hazard is not at work here. By that I mean because the banks have a way to deflect risk on to the taxpayer through this program, are they inclined to get on the SBLA bandwagon because it is there?

We have no hard numbers to say this program is the difference between success or failure at getting that financing. We know that the CFIB places a high priority on access to financing as a major factor for business success, and I do not question those numbers, but do we have in this bill the best or most effective way of doing that?

Recent figures indicate that 80% of small business loan applications are successful but we have no figures to indicate whether that is an optimum level or not. Is 100% a healthy level, for example, or would that expose lenders to extraordinary risk? In other words, should the government step in and drive that loan approval rate up to 100% as a policy objective using taxpayer money to subsidize it?

As a small business owner in a couple of different fields, I have a great deal of sympathy for people who want to go into business and need that first boost of capital to get them going. Of course that does not mean that everybody with the same dream is equally qualified to pursue it, so there are bound to be rejections for a variety of reasons.

If we look at where those applications ended up we see that 68% went to the chartered banks, 27% went to other financial institutions, credit unions and such, and 11% went to the small business loans program. No one on the government side of the House can say that the 11% would go without financing if the SBLA were not there. As we know from the principle of moral hazard, people choose the easy route only if it is available. Without the vast web of bureaucratic programs paid for by an equally vast web of taxation, factors in the financial services sector of this country could behave in a different fashion.

As it is, the number of high risk loans has been increasing along with the default rate and bankruptcies, although Industry Canada has so far kept that report very close.

Speaking of missing documents, we also have to wonder about the cost benefit of this program. This is one argument that pops up to try to legitimize many government programs, particularly when taxpayers see those billion dollar bottom lines starting to add up.

As the finance minister often reminds us, governments have to make tough choices. What we rarely see is this government making a choice to give up on a cherished boondoggle when it is shown that money is not being spent in a way that has a clear, positive return to the taxpayer.

Often we see good money chasing bad in a futile effort to prove that a program is working, not because it was wrong or unnecessary in the first place, but because not enough money has been poured down that sinkhole. This kind of thinking is epidemic in government and never leads to good choices.

We should be looking at innovative new ways of making financial support more available to our small and medium business sector. In many countries around the world, and I understand even in certain regions of this country, there is a system of micro lending. Loans as small as a few hundred dollars show a tremendous return on the dollars placed.

There is a system in the U.S. where lenders are required to commit 6% of their profits to the communities in which they are located. Of course there are hundreds of banks in the U.S. versus a dozen in Canada, so the locality does not have the same relevance. But perhaps there is a way to implement such a requirement in Canada, as long as it does not lead us back to the same situation we have now where the government seeks to force choices on its lenders.

I think more important than inventing new government programs, however, is taking a good look at the environment that exists for business in Canada. Should we be rushing to enact this kind of legislation when this government has yet to digest the Mintz report on business taxation? The professor warned that governments were relying increasingly on profit insensitive taxes; taxes and charges that were not related to whether the business was succeeding or failing, but were demanded of the business owners regardless.

We have seen in recent years an explosion of user fees, which are not by themselves a bad thing. That is, they are not bad if the fee goes to the service being charged in the first place. This government is not alone in preferring to pour all of its revenues into one basket, but it has a lot to answer for in many areas.

Gasoline taxes are outrageously high by themselves, but we see very little of this windfall going toward transportation infrastructure that would assist businesses of all kinds. Worst of all are the payroll taxes that are a direct and undeniable killer of jobs and entrepreneurship in Canada.

Not only does this government insist on imposing ridiculously high rates, it also raises rates such as the CPP under the auspices of what I mentioned earlier. Is the program not working? Pour money down that sinkhole.

The case of employment insurance premiums has already been broached in this House and by no means are we done with that topic. Yes, the premiums have been reduced from the highs under the former government, but this government's own experts are declaring that they must go lower. Under the law they are supposed to go lower, but the finance minister, instead of returning money to employers and employees, threatens to change the law and keep the money for choices that have nothing to do with the original tax.

Canadians should take note that the finance minister has in fact already taken that money to apply against his deficit last year, so it is actually part of the Liberal smoke and mirror budget plan to argue about where else to spend money that is already owed to another program.

My point is that this bill is a questionable necessity and fails to address the real needs of the business constituency that it claims to help. What entrepreneurs in Canada need is the ability to keep more of the profits they generate. Capital gains taxes need to be at least minimized and at best eliminated. Payroll taxes need to be kept low and directed where they were intended.

There has to be a serious study of the burden of paperwork and overlapping regulations that exist in this country.

The GST regime should be overhauled for one thing, but the layers of bureaucracy between federal, provincial and municipal administrations have to be examined as well.

Employers need a flexible, well educated, motivated labour force. Workers obviously need to keep more of their money as well.

Finally, this government has to take a serious look at the flexibility and competitiveness of our whole financial services sector. We have the MacKay task force report to look at. We should take the opportunity, use our combined imagination and innovation in reforming the regulations of this industry to provide real access to reasonable cost financing for business.

It is unfortunate that this government is in such a hurry to push through Bill C-53 without answering some of the problems that have been mentioned here today. What Bill C-53 represents is not a helping hand to business but the hand of a government stuck in the past with no new ideas.

I certainly commend and agree with my colleagues on their motion earlier today to send this bill back to committee for more study.

[Supply, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly enjoyed the presentation by the hon. member for Saskatoon—Humboldt today on Bill C-68.

The one thing he did not touch on and the way the government is selling this is on the proof that there will be tremendous criminal reduction in activity there. There will be fewer suicides. Domestic violence of course will be toned down and so on.

Does he have any thoughts in that regard? Does he know other jurisdictions where this has been tried? What were the results?