Raymond Côté

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles for her question. She has actually raised a very important point and that is how incredibly mean-spirited the government is in conducting the business of the House.

It is really unfortunate and I have been able to observe it a number of times at the Standing Committee on International Trade, as well as at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. On many occasions, we have reached out to this government to work together for the well-being of all Canadians and to try to find the best solution in a friendly way.

The hon. member brought up a very important point and that is that, by putting forward this assortment of poison pills, the toxic and corrosive cocktail that is Bill C-38, this government is simply eliminating any good little measures that we could have approved.

Ultimately, the government is simply trying to kill the opposition and to bend any form of opposition to its almighty will. This lack of insight and this disrespect for the majority of the Canadian population are completely unbelievable.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have the great pleasure this evening of taking the floor in the House to debate Bill C-38.

I will honour my colleagues across the way, who truly love superlatives—they thirst for them—and congratulate each other a lot. I must admit that, to my eyes, to my knowledge, Bill C-38 is an important, if not a crucial, part of the greatest plan to dismantle the country ever seen since Confederation. It is a massive and destructive operation that my colleagues opposite are praising and supporting without it weighing on their conscience, despite the millions of victims it will create in Canada.

it is very important to frame it this way because not all of our actions are innocent, on the contrary. Our actions have significant immediate and, of course, future consequences.

One of the very important aspects of Bill C-38 is that it is just one step more after many steps of significant cuts to the Canadian state, to various government operations, be they direct operations involving individuals or operations involving all the provinces of the Canadian confederation.

This reminds me of another sad, dark time in recent history: in the mid-1990s, Chrétien and his finance minister made harsh cuts that hurt everyone in Canada.

Obviously, there are many ways to address certain problems, and the government just needs a little imagination and a little willingness to talk to and co-operate with other partners to seek and find solutions that are the lesser evil—as they say—to problems that seem insurmountable or inescapable. At the very least, the government must avoid subjecting vulnerable members of society to pointless suffering. That is truly inescapable.

As Christ said, “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” He did not want his disciples to collect money for the poor at the risk of forgetting to concentrate on his message.

Here is another parable, an important one, to illustrate just how drastically this government is compromising our heritage and the future of all Canadians of all ages. I will focus on young people, but people of all ages—including seniors—may find themselves paying a heavy price.

It is the parable of the prodigal son, who asks his father for his share of the inheritance immediately. He quickly wastes every last bit of his money on strangers.

That is what is happening here. Instead of taking care of things at home, the Conservatives are slashing taxes, adding counter-productive exemptions, being careless and adopting questionable practices vis-a-vis foreign investors. I know what I am talking about because I can see this in my very own riding. Much to my chagrin the members opposite told me in their responses that I am against investors and against economic growth.

I have a question. When an honest worker or a retiree is deprived of tens of thousands of dollars, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, that he worked hard to put aside in a private pension fund, through the fault of a foreigner who does not care about the fate of those who work for him, and this happens because of loopholes in the Canadian legislation, what type of society are we building for the future?

It will be a society of the poor who will serve the very small, very wealthy minority. Does the government opposite want the New Democrats to be a party to this operation? I am saying no. I am shouting no. We especially do not want to be party to that, absolutely not.

This government has used the absolutely—or probably, I will hold back a little—most simplistic arguments to defend its bill. They are the most simplistic arguments ever presented in this House. It is absolutely incredible to be given a mess of figures without any context, which flies in the face of reality and shows contempt for the truth.

It is truly appalling to see this government, in its operation of massive destruction, clearly targeting all those with the necessary empirical knowledge to understand what will happen now and in future years with Bill C-38. An incredible number of scientists have been fired, attacked, muzzled, and told to shut up. We are talking about people who have spent many years of their lives studying and, furthermore, dedicating themselves to a vocation: to serve the truth and all of society.

How can a government be so mean and contemptuous toward the intellectual elite of our society? It is a true horror to see that. Bill C-38 sanctions it. The government sets itself up as an enemy to science, to intellectuals and to people who have knowledge they can use to the benefit of society. Let us call a spade a spade. That is exactly what is going on here.

When you get down to it, Bill C-38 is a massive attack on millions of Canadians, be they retired or entrepreneurs. When we talk about employment insurance-related measures, it is mainly an attack on entrepreneurs who do seasonal work in logging, agriculture and fishing operations. Even in urban areas, let us think about people who work in construction and road repair. Quebec City is one of Canada's snowiest cities, and every winter in Beauport—Limoilou I have seen hundreds of skilled tradespeople and operators of heavy machinery clearing snow during the night after storms or heavy snowfalls. All these people depend on employment insurance not only to make ends meet, obviously, and to find a way to meet the city's needs, but also to preserve and protect their particular expertise that cannot be applied year-round.

This government is deaf and blind to this reality that affects millions of Canadians. It is absolutely unbelievable to see this kind of thing.

One of the clearest signs—and I will end with this—that the government does not care in the slightest about those millions of Canadians, is that they are constantly boasting about the fact that this is going to bring a lot of prosperity to all Canadians.

But one of the clearest signs that many Canadian households spend every last dollar of their income each week or month is that, currently, there is $500 billion in unused RRSP contributions, unused RRSP tax credits. It means that those millions of Canadian do not even have the means to save and this government does not care. Actually, the only thing that it seems to care about is to force them to save at the expense of the bread and butter that they could be putting on the table.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his speech. I listened quite attentively. Like all his colleagues, he unfortunately hides behind very simplistic reasoning.

I want to come back to the issue of job creation. Unfortunately, this government's track record when it comes to jobs is quite average, if not bad. We can talk in absolute numbers, with the creation of some 700,000 jobs since 2009, but in reality, Canada's population growth is very dynamic. For example, when we look at job creation in relation to population growth, Canada is a fairly average and ordinary achiever compared with Germany which, in relative terms, has created more jobs despite a much less dynamic population.

Why is my colleague, a government apologist, doctoring reality and hiding the not always profitable consequences of his government's policies from the Canadian public?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek for his speech. I really liked his comments about the democratic problem with Bill C-38.

We are basically telling a majority of Canadians, millions and millions of Canadians, that they have exercised their right to vote, but that their representatives do not have the right to represent them; that they cannot represent them. They are being denied their right to speak and their right to vote.

Could the hon. member expand on this democratic deficit?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the hon. member to address another problem with Bill C-38.

It is no secret that one of the very serious problems with this bill is all the economic consequences associated with it. They are almost incalculable. But we are going to identify them nonetheless. The government has, in fact, determined what direct cuts would be made to the public service. The Parliamentary Budget Officer managed to identify broader consequences and, above all, has said, since the start of the cuts, that it was going very far. Can the hon. member expand on those consequences?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his very enlightening speech, which shows the extent to which the government is clearly in error as it manages this country.

The hon. member has pointed out a number of problems associated with the consequences of Bill C-38 that will affect provincial jurisdiction. During the debates on Bill C-25, dealing with pooled registered pension plans, one of the hon. members opposite brought up the fact that it is practically impossible to work with the provinces to find common ground using the Canada pension plan, for example.

This is really incredible because, if you go back a number of years, you will see that the Canada Health Act was a work in progress extending over a number of years that allowed for agreement and co-operation between the federal and provincial governments.

I would like the hon. member to enlighten me on this government's almost pathological inability to negotiate and come to agreements with the provinces. Bill C-38 is an example of that.

[Financial Institutions, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, administration fees charged to clients of Canadian banks for ATM and branch transactions totalled close to $6 billion in 2011.

During that time, large financial institutions vacated Stadacona, Saint-Charles, Giffard and Royale Avenue in the riding of Beauport—Limoilou. The exodus of service points toward “power centres” is a real tragedy for businesses and residents in the affected areas. As a result, local businesses have suffered and closed.

Combined with incredible and shocking transaction fee hikes, this phenomenon is condemning thousands of people in my riding to poverty and exclusion.

The Conservatives are leaving people out in the cold. Even though, in 2007, the Minister of Finance agreed that bank transaction fees were scandalous, he has not said a word to the powerful people in high finance. Shame.

The NDP wants to put an end to unfair bank transaction fees and credit card fees for consumers and small businesses. That is something that needs to happen. In 2015, we will have a government that protects all Canadians: an NDP government.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to consult my colleague on the so-called collective aspect of the pooled registered pension plans.

The only collective aspect I see is a collectivization much like that enforced under Stalin more than 80 years ago, in other words, a general misery shared among those who already have very little means, who have limited wages and who work for small businesses that are not on a very strong footing.

Can my colleague explain the magic formula whereby employees of these small businesses will manage to contribute to this retirement tool the government is proposing without becoming completely impoverished? We know that Canadians currently have $500 billion in unused RRSP contribution room and that this has been the case for a long time. People do not have the means to use these savings vehicles.

Where is the solution? What will this do other than make people poor?

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, in my riding, hundreds of Stadacona plant workers have, for the most part, lost $100,000 or more of their pensions as a result of the losses sustained by their private pension fund. This means that their retirement pensions could be cut in half. It is a real tragedy.

I am amazed by the government's failure to consider the risks arising from the proliferation of registered pension plans, given that a large number of them are already experiencing difficulties. The other thing that is absolutely absurd is the refusal to increase contributions to the Canada pension plan on the pretext that it would be too onerous for our workers, businesses and communities. And yet, we will have to find the money to contribute to the registered pension plans.

I will draw a parallel with the mainly private health insurance system in the United States. Private insurance companies now have such high premiums, because of the supposed competition, that even large businesses are finding it impossible to provide health coverage for their workers.

How can my colleague guarantee that Canadian pension funds will not go down the same slippery slope?

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for having shared what I would call a completely unrealistic interpretation of reality. It was very entertaining, but alas, totally out of touch with reality. Allow me to explain.

The important thing to understand is that this government bill will force millions of Canadians to invest their savings against their will and take on the full risk of that investment in a series of private funds, without necessarily getting any guarantees about the quality of fund management.

In fact, that is already a problem. I would just like to point out to my colleague that, unfortunately, since the beginning of 2012, all stock exchanges have fallen by an average of 10%.

What does my colleague have to offer new retirees and those retiring in a year or two, other than an extremely high stress level that could end up forcing people to retire later than planned or to go back to work?