Sadia Groguhé

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, November 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her speech and remind the House that the government moved a 29th time allocation motion, and it concerns this bill. The time allocation motion will again muzzle the House and, consequently, first nations, who have continually asked to be consulted. This consultation has never really taken place. However, the duty to consult is entrenched in our Constitution. It is a constitutional duty, but unfortunately something that the first nations have not been entitled to.

We are talking about a lot of issues, including access to water and access to education, which are basic rights of any people. But we have not had any real action on these issues.

I would like to ask my colleague to speak further about the need to ensure that first nations are consulted at least to some extent if not fully.

[Points of Order, November 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with respect to Bill C-377, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (requirements for labour organizations), introduced by the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale.

My hon. colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie has already risen in this House to bring to your attention the fact that this bill requires royal recommendation in order to pass. My colleague's arguments were all very clear and perfectly illustrated the NDP's concerns regarding the implications of this bill. I am raising this issue once again here today because some new information has become available to MPs, and I feel I must bring it to your attention as well.

Indeed, and as my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie already mentioned, the Canada Revenue Agency received an order from the Standing Committee on Finance to answer some questions regarding new and distinct funds that will result from Bill C-377 if it is passed. Those answers were sent to the members of the Standing Committee on Finance yesterday. I will submit the document containing those answers following my speech.

First of all, the Canada Revenue Agency confirmed that the new and distinct funds that will result from Bill C-377 were not included in the most recent supplementary estimates, as is always the case with private members' business.

The Canada Revenue Agency also confirmed that this bill will result in expenditures that are not currently authorized by legislation. In response to the third question, the agency said that Bill C-377 amends the Income Tax Act to give the minister authority over these new expenditures.

My colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie also pointed out that clause 1(4) of the bill, which requires the minister to make the information collected available to the public, will also result in new expenditures. The Canada Revenue Agency confirmed this in the answers forwarded to us.

The answer we received today from the agency is that, “Changes will be made to the CRA website to fulfill the requirements of the bill.”

The agency even provided an estimate of the costs resulting from system changes. For the Canada Revenue Agency, the estimated incremental costs arising from the required system changes, including changes to the Canada Revenue Agency website, are $8.5 million for 70 full-time employees in the first two years and $1 million in subsequent years for nine full-time employees.

These costs represent new expenditures because the Canada Revenue Agency is not currently committed to disclosing the information, as required by the bill. The answers obtained also refute the argument of this bill's sponsor to the effect that the agency is already doing similar work as part of the charities program.

In fact, the agency confirmed that it is not currently committed to disclose such an exhaustive amount of information as required under Bill C-377. This is what the agency had to say in this regard:

The Charities Directorate does not provide partial information to the public. The directorate gathers only the minimum amount of transactional information from registered charities, and not all that information is disclosed.

I would like to close by sharing some information obtained from the agency that says a lot about the new and distinct costs associated with Bill C-377. As it is now worded, the bill requires the implementation of an entire system that includes electronic processing, validations and automatic posting to the Canada Revenue Agency's website. The estimated incremental cost for the Canada Revenue Agency is $10.6 million for the first two years, including 91 full-time employees, and $2.1 million for each consecutive year, including 21 full-time employees. These costs are attributable mainly to information cross-referencing requirements.

It is important to note that these are the estimated costs for 1,000 respondents, but Bill C-377 is written in such a way that it includes all labour organizations and trusts, which represents close to 25,000 tax filers. The costs incurred would therefore be 25 times higher than these estimates.

I believe that it is now clear that Bill C-377 requires a royal recommendation in order to be voted on at third reading since the exorbitant costs that would be incurred by cross-referencing the large amounts of information gathered by the Canada Revenue Agency are new and distinct.

In order to make it easier for you to examine this important issue, Mr. Speaker, I will make the answers obtained from the Canada Revenue Agency available to you. I would like to thank you for the attention you will give to this important matter.

[Citizenship and Immigration, November 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it comes as no surprise that the Conservatives did not show up in Halifax last week.

They did not want to face the provinces' discontent in the wake of cuts to health care for extremely vulnerable people, cuts that were made without any consultation. But that is not all. This morning, we discovered that the minister now wants to privatize refugee sponsorship and cap private applications.

Will the minister commit to working with private sponsors and not just using them to off-load the government's responsibilities?

[Citizenship and Immigration, November 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' incompetence on the issue of refugee health care led to general confusion about the types of health care that are covered. Even refugee claimants who were entitled were denied access because health care providers were completely confused. The rules are not clear. Several provinces have expressed their displeasure. Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan have all complained about this ill-considered decision.

Will the minister listen to the provinces and reconsider his decision?

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, November 22nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, today we are discussing the 29th time allocation motion, more commonly known as a guillotine. That simply means that once again the House is being muzzled and, with this bill, the first nations are also being muzzled.

Given that this bill is asking first nations to take responsibility and be more transparent, I would like to know why the government itself does not start taking its responsibilities seriously and being much more transparent.

[Citizenship and Immigration, November 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked a question about the closure of 19 regional Citizenship and Immigration Canada offices, but all I got in response was a feeble attempt to justify the wasteful spending of taxpayers' money simply to stroke the minister's ego.

So I will ask the question again: considering the minister's lavish spending on his own image, how can he justify the cuts to immigration services? Does the minister think it is acceptable that, because of the cuts, the response rate for the Montreal call centre was only 9%?

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, November 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for his speech.

With regard to Bill C-27 currently before us, as the member said, we absolutely must not impose more restrictive standards on the first nations. The thing that strikes us is the notable lack of collaboration with the first nations when it comes to this bill. What is more, as the member said, this bill does nothing to address the real problem, namely that living conditions for first nations are getting worse.

My question has to do with the findings that the Auditor General released in June 2011. In her findings, she called for major structural reforms in order to improve the federal government's policies and practices.

What does my colleague think? Can he comment on this?

[Citizenship and Immigration, November 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives recently closed 19 regional Citizenship and Immigration Canada offices and laid off 75 employees at the Montreal call centre. As a result, the response rate is barely 9%.

Meanwhile, the minister wasted nearly $1 million of taxpayers' money to find out what ethnocultural communities think of him. Instead of helping people, the minster preferred to stroke his ego with taxpayers' money.

How can he now justify these cuts in services to the public?

[Citizenship and Immigration, November 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative cuts to services and centralized processing of immigration applications are having a terrible impact on wait times for international adoptions.

Our constituency offices are overwhelmed by complaints from Canadians who are fed up with having to wait longer and longer for their international adoptions to go through.

Every additional month spent away from their new Canadian parents is harmful to the physical and psychological development of these children.

Can the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism tell us how he plans to fix this problem, which was created by the Conservatives in the first place?

[Budget Implementation, November 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this fall, the Conservatives promised to drop their notoriously inflexible attitude. They promised that their new budget implementation bill, which goes beyond a strictly budgetary framework, could be examined by various committees of the House. Despite those nice promises, the Conservatives are doing everything in their power to ensure that the hours of study and the number of witnesses are reduced to a bare minimum.

Why are the Conservatives refusing to hear witnesses and prolong the studies in committee, which have been cut as a result of voting?