Yasmin Ratansi

[December 3rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the people of Ontario are not asking for more seats in the House of Commons at the expense of other provinces. I have noted that Ontario is legally entitled to 21 additional seats according to the Canadian Constitution.

Similarly, a minimum number of seats in the prairie provinces or those in the Atlantic regions are in fact protected by the Constitution. Even the premiers of Manitoba and Quebec have come out in support of Ontario simply because it is the right and fair thing to do.

What is the justification for disenfranchising Ontario? Once again I am compelled to ask the parliamentary secretary why Bill C-22 will contribute to the democratic deficit in the country and deny just representation to the people of Ontario in the House of Commons, to which the province of Ontario is legally entitled under the Constitution Act of 1867. I would like to know why.

[December 3rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents of Don Valley East and on behalf of the province of Ontario, I am pleased to further debate on Bill C-22, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Democratic representation).

These adjournment proceedings follow a question I posed to the government following the announcement that Ontario would receive far fewer seats in the House of Commons than it was legally entitled.

At the outset, the Liberal Party does not view the legislation from a partisan perspective. We view it from a constitutionality and fairness perspective. We are simply upholding the Constitution, which guarantees representation by population in the House of Commons.

Under the proposed legislation, Bill C-22, the number of seats in the House of Commons would rise from 308 to 330. British Columbia would get seven additional seats, Alberta would get five and Ontario would receive ten. However, this turns out be 11 seats short of what Ontario deserves simply due to the increase in population. The people of Ontario are quite right to stand up and question why the Conservatives are shortchanging them in Confederation. This is a typical example of yet another broken promise made by the Conservatives in the last election.

Page 44 of the Conservative election platform clearly states that it will “restore representation by population for Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta”. However, when the Premier of Ontario raised this issue based on the principle of fairness, what was the response from the government? The Minister for Democratic Reform called the Premier of Ontario “the small man of Confederation”. Rather than engage in a meaningful debate, the Conservatives sink down to mudslinging and name calling. This is disrespectful and only belittles Parliament. The Canadian public would be better served if the Conservatives apologized for this inappropriate remark.

I am glad the parliamentary secretary will have an opportunity to explain why the Conservatives are shortchanging Ontario 11 seats in the House of Commons. Would the parliamentary secretary also explain why, if Bill C-22 is adopted in its current form, members of Parliament in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario will continue to represent 10,000 more constituents than MPs in other federal ridings?

[November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, while I thank the parliamentary secretary for participating in this important debate, surely the member opposite must be aware that Canadians consider climate change a significant threat to the environment and they expect the federal government to stand up and show some leadership on the national and international stage. Canadians do not understand the refusal by the Conservative government to embrace binding emission targets or the reason why it will not acknowledge global warming.

I know the member has a neatly prepared speech that touts all the virtues of the government's failed environmental record, but I would like the parliamentary secretary to answer just one simple question.

First, when in opposition, the Conservatives did not even acknowledge the signs of global warming. Second, while in government for the past two years, the Conservatives have done nothing, nada, zero. Kyoto has buy-ins. If the Conservatives are now seeing the light and wish to embrace climate change, why are they refusing to take opposition members of the House to the UN conference on climate change in Bali next week?

[November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents of Don Valley East and in fact on behalf of all Canadians, I am pleased to follow up on my question to the Minister of the Environment on a matter of concern to all of us: the serious challenge of climate change and global warming.

My question to the minister pertained to the refusal of the current government to embrace binding emission reduction targets rather than fall back on vague and ill-defined aspirational targets that by all accounts are quite useless in the fight against climate change.

It merely affirms that the Conservatives are not serious about the environmental agenda, nor are they offering any commitment to the international community to participate in a global strategy to save the planet before it is too late.

Canadians were rather shocked that the Prime Minister abandoned environmental leadership at the Commonwealth summit in Uganda earlier this month when he blocked an agreement that would have set binding emission targets on all 53 members of that organization.

To make matters worse, the Conservative environment minister has now departed from a longstanding parliamentary tradition of allowing opposition members of this House to accompany the government at important international discussions, which in this case would be at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting that will be held in Bali, Indonesia next week.

One has to ask the question, why is the government so afraid to have opposition members participate in this important conference? The simple answer is that the government is not confident of its own environmental strategy. The Conservatives know full well they are vulnerable on the environment and are scared stiff of being isolated by the rest of the international community.

Environment is critical. There is no time to play politics with the environment. A recent international opinion poll found that Canadians are among the most concerned with climate change and are quite willing to adjust their lifestyle in order to save the environment.

It is a fact that Canada is home to 13 of the world's 19 polar bear populations in its three northern territories and provinces, and these polar bears are slowly going to die out. The committee on the status of endangered species has named this national icon a species of special concern and it is becoming recognized that our children may well see the extinction of polar bears as a direct result of global warming.

Without binding emission targets, the Conservatives would proceed with the status quo, all the while paying lip service to aspirational targets that mean absolutely nothing in practical terms.

This is a government that has squandered almost two years with its failed clean air act and now has nothing to show the international community except an evasive Prime Minister who considers the Kyoto accord a socialist plot to suck money from developed countries.

Canadians are asking why the government refuses to acknowledge the reality of global warming and climate change. Why will it not commit to binding emission targets and take solid action on the environment?

Finally, when will the Prime Minister step up to the plate and become an environmental leader rather than an international pariah on the global stage?

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of my constituents of Don Valley East and represent them in this debate of Bill C-28, an omnibus bill that would implement certain portions of budget 2007 and the recent economic statement.

In particular, the bill covers personal income tax rates, corporate tax rates, interest deductibility, and the GST. Therefore, I would like to begin with the so-called personal income tax cuts announced in the October 2007 economic statement.

These cuts are no surprise to my colleagues in the Liberal caucus because they were contained in the last Liberal budget in 2005. The Liberal budget proposed to lower the personal income tax rate for those who earned the least in society from 15.5% to 15%. The effect would be to take 20,000 low income Canadians off the tax rolls and deliver tax relief where it is needed most.

Lo and behold, when the Conservatives assumed office, their first budget eliminated these tax measures. What did the government do instead? It increased the personal income tax rate from 15% to 15.5% and claimed it was reducing income tax.

Canadians are not foolish. They understood this.

Instead of giving a personal income tax cut, the government cut the GST by 1%.

Let us look at what effect this Conservative budget had on average Canadians in 2006.

For a single-income taxpayer earning $35,000 a year, the Conservatives increased his or her personal income tax by $122, so that the same person could then save a penny on a cup of coffee by the GST cut. But the devastating impact is that if the personal tax rate is increased so that a person is paying $122 more, that person would need to earn $12,200 more in order to get the same benefit in a GST cut.

The Conservatives were making no sense. They were not helping the people that we are here to help, the very low income earners.

This GST cut makes absolutely no sense. Most economists at that time agreed that the first Conservative budget suffered from a certain lack of fiscal sense.

Now, after almost two years, the Conservatives still suffer from confused priorities. The October economic statement effectively restores the Liberal tax cuts announced in 2005, yet the finance minister again refused the advice of leading economists and once again implemented a 1% reduction in the GST.

Let us be clear on this. The reason why a personal income tax cut makes more sense than a reduction in GST is quite simple. Canadians would far prefer a larger paycheque over a minuscule cut to the GST.

The GST is a consumption tax. I have already given one example. Another is that a Canadian who earns $300,000 and buys goods valued at that amount would benefit from probably a $3,000 saving. However, a person who does not earn that amount of money and wants to have a $300 benefit from a GST cut actually would have to spend $30,000, and that does not even guarantee anything. This really impacts low income earners.

The Conservatives could have gone a lot further with personal income tax cuts, yet they have chosen to squander another opportunity. Canadians would benefit if the Conservatives reduced personal income taxes.

There have been a lot of deputations by economists, poverty groups, community groups and tax groups. They all state that the consumption tax is not a good economic strategy. As well, the GST rate reduction represents a significant loss of federal tax income, which will have an impact on our fiscal future.

Therefore, the question is very simple: why not reinvest the approximately $12 billion in lost GST revenue in municipal infrastructure?

I recently met with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which is warning us that our crumbling infrastructure, most of it constructed in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, must be addressed now. The FCM estimates that we currently face a $123 billion infrastructure deficit across the whole country.

Without a significant federal investment, we will face a catastrophic loss of critical infrastructure at a significant cost to the taxpayer. As my mother always used to say, a stitch in time saves nine, and this is why it is very important to have a strategy now rather than wait to replace the whole of our capital works.

The FCM recommends that we adopt a national strategy to address this deficit. We in the Liberal Party were in the forefront of the cities and communities agenda and we believe that cities and communities must have stable and predictable long term funding.

The cities and communities agenda put forth by the Liberal government had municipalities at the table with the federal government and the provinces in order to address this problem. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are choosing to ignore this advice at the expense of our future.

Let us now turn to corporate taxes. The previous Liberal government reduced the federal corporate tax rate from 28% to 19%. The Conservatives are now talking about taking a bold step by further reducing the tax rate to 18.5% by 2011.

It is clear that Canadian firms need a corporate advantage on the international stage. That is why the Liberals argue for significantly lower corporate tax rates in order to compete at the global level.

That therefore brings me to another curious misstep by the Conservatives with respect to interest deductibility. Budget 2007, the second Conservative budget, contained what the former chairman of the Canadian Tax Foundation, Allan Lanthier, called “the single most misguided policy” to come “out of Ottawa in 35 years”.

I am not referring to the disaster caused by the Conservatives in the income trust sector in October 2006. Rather, I am referring to the tax measure tucked away on page 242 of budget 2007 regarding interest deductibility and foreign affiliates. It would have essentially thrown a major hurdle in front of Canadian firms that want to make foreign acquisitions by removing the interest deductibility from money borrowed to carry out those transactions.

While the Conservatives may fancy themselves as the party of free enterprise, the fact is that the finance minister is no longer a welcome face on Bay Street, nor is he any longer considered a friend of industry in Canada.

Tom d'Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executive Officers commented that the proposed policy “may seriously undermine the competitiveness of Canada's homegrown champions--the companies that are most active and most successful in building global businesses from head offices” in Canada.

What the finance minister called a tax loophole is actually a competitive edge for Canadian firms to compete globally on an even playing field with firms enjoying similar tax measures in the United States, Japan and Europe.

Therefore, it was beyond belief why the minister was so determined to hobble the Canadian economy. According to tax specialist Neal Armstrong: “it is typical for a Canadian parent company to arrange most of its borrowing in Canada, then use the funds to invest in foreign acquisitions”.

Yet the Conservatives wanted to take this tool away from business. This policy proposal made no sense whatsoever. As Mr. Armstrong pointed out, the result is that “Canadian banks will lose the income from those loans, and the government in turn will lose the tax benefit from that income”.

Mr. Armstrong went on to say “that doesn't do us any good, because the bank in a foreign country isn't paying any [Canadian] tax”.

Tax specialist Karen Atkinson predicted that many companies would have had to “jump through hoops” to create financing structures, calling the finance minister's proposal a “make-work project” for lawyers and accountants.

Fortunately, thanks to a determined effort by the Liberal caucus, and especially the work done by my colleague, the hon. member for Markham—Unionville, the finance minister was forced to flip-flop on this issue and order a full retreat last May.

The finance minister was compelled to announce that interest deductibility would be preserved for Canadian companies investing abroad and that the policy would now target so-called double-dippers, or those companies that claim the same deduction in multiple jurisdictions.

Again, this confused leadership at the Department of Finance is not appreciated by the business community in this country. This is the same minister that brought on the income trust debacle and Canadians have had enough.

In conclusion, one has to wonder why the Conservatives so desperately lack an economic vision for the country.

[Committees of the House, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in relation to trafficking of women and children during the 2010 Olympics.

The Standing Committee on the Status of Women has done an extensive study on the human trafficking issue. It is an important issue that has world attention. Human trafficking is a heinous crime and that is why the previous minister of justice in the Liberal government made it a criminal offence.

I hope that the government will provide the House with a plan of what specifically is being done in advance of the Olympic games.

[Federal-Provincial Relations, November 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, what part of representation by population does the minister not understand? This is about fairness. I am astonished that all Conservative MPs from Ontario are missing in action on this file and the NDP has gone into hiding right along with them.

Ontario soundly rejected the Conservative vision in the last provincial election and Ontarians continue to reject the mean-spirited attitude of the federal neo-Conservatives.

Is the government trying to disenfranchise Ontario voters as revenge for their electoral choices?

[Federal-Provincial Relations, November 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Premier of Ontario just wants Ontario to be treated fairly, with respect to representation in the House of Commons. Nothing more; nothing less. Yet the only responses he gets from this government are small-minded insults.

Does the Minister for Democratic Reform have any argument based on fact to explain why Ontario is treated differently from all others? Or does he have nothing to offer but childish gibberish?

[Tackling Violent Crime Act, November 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if the truth can be stretched, the Conservatives stretch it as much as possible.

Why was there a need to combine all of the bills? Those bills themselves were complex in nature. If the member wants to blame the Senate, in almost every case the Senate dealt with the bills faster than this House did. Of the six justice bills that were not passed before the summer break, only four had even reached the Senate. The two bills that were in the Senate were Bill C-27 and Bill C-32. Of the four bills that were in the Senate, they had all only been sent in May or later.

Let us have some fairness and some truth.

[Tackling Violent Crime Act, November 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to hear the Conservatives constantly repeat their mantra “hard on crime”. I think they are hard on people who cannot defend themselves. They are not hard on crime; they are stupid on crime. U.S. crime policy is what they want. Tough measures, similar to what is in the Tories' omnibus bill, are costly and pointless. That is what the report found. Nobody has disappeared.

Our party's amendments added value to Bill C-9 and Bill C-10. We are respectful of people. We are respectful of understanding a holistic approach. Nobody in our party is soft on crime and the member should understand that.