Bill C-28 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2003

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 18, 2003

Budget Implementation Act, 2003

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

moved:

Motion No. 14

That Bill C-28 be amended by deleting clause 74.

Motion No. 15

That Bill C-28 be amended by deleting clause 75.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-28 be amended by deleting Clause 64.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

First, I would like to read a ruling on Bill C-28, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 18, 2003.

There are 19 motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-28.

The Chair will not select Motions Nos. 1 to 3 and 5 to 7 because they could have been moved in committee.

The Chair will not select Motions Nos. 4, 8, 12 and 16 because they were defeated in committee.

All remaining motions have been examined and the Chair is satisfied that they meet the guidelines expressed in the note of Standing Order 76.1(5) regarding the selection of motions in amendments at the report stage.

Motions Nos. 13 to 15 and 17 to 19 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 13 to 15 and 17 to 19 to the House.

The Liberal Government

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, in reality, the situation is very different. We are dealing with Bill C-28 concerning the budget, the bills on national security, the national library and archives, human resources development, public safety, as I have said, election financing, first nations governance, and so on. We have a very full legislative agenda. Getting one of these bills passed requires the cooperation of hon. members, particularly the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we had the curious scene of having the weekly business statement made in the lead off question and the lead off question made during business statements this week. Nonetheless, we all have very much confidence in the opposition House leader.

This afternoon we will continue with the opposition motion.

Tomorrow we will resume debate on the third reading of Bill C-13 respecting reproductive technologies. This will be followed by the report stage of Bill C-17, the public safety bill, as I indicated earlier, around 2:15 p.m.

On Monday we will commence report stage of Bill C-28. When this is completed we will return to the business not completed this week, adding Bill C-36, the archives and library bill introduced earlier this day.

On Tuesday evening the House will go into committee of the whole pursuant to Standing Order 81 in order to consider the estimates of the Minister of Health.

Next Thursday shall be an allotted day.

In terms of when we propose to consider the report stage and third reading of Bill C-24, the election financing bill, I understand the committee is doing tremendous progress, thanks in large measure to Liberal MPs on the committee, and we hope to deal with that shortly after the House resumes.

Government Legislation

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is rather unusual to have the House business question being asked as the leadoff in question period as opposed to at 3:00 o'clock. Be that as it may, I am pleased to inform the Leader of the Opposition that the very important Bill C-13 on human reproduction will be dealt with tomorrow. This will be followed by the equally important Bill C-17 on public safety. We will then, thanks to the report tabled in the House earlier today, on Monday deal with Bill C-28, the budget implementation bill. Then we will consider, if not completed, Bill C-13, the human reproduction--

Committees of the House

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-28, the Budget Implementation Act, 2003.

Budget Implementation Act, 2003

[The Speaker]

Order. It being 3:34 p.m., pursuant to order made on Wednesday, April 2, 2003, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the second reading stage of Bill C-28.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[John Duncan, Canadian Alliance, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-28, the budget implementation act.

It occurs to me that only in Canada could we have a former finance minister who owned a company that registered its ships in foreign countries to avoid paying Canadian taxes and wages. Only in Canada could we have a former finance minister who would reflag his ships in tax havens and replace them with Korean or Filipino crews because they were paid much less. Only in Canada do we allow that kind of behaviour and not hold our ministers to account. I cannot explain it, but all I know is it is completely inappropriate.

We had a new budget presented in February by a new minister. Many of us thought we would see a new course set in the new budget. What we continue to see is the same Liberal direction and the same misplaced priorities.

Canada is a trading nation. Our ranking in the world is dependent on trade. We are very dependent on trade, much more so than people in mainland China who are about 10% dependent on trade and people in the United States who are 15% dependent. Canada exports 45% of our GDP and imports 40% of our GDP, and 87% of that trade is with the U.S.

What is our most precious asset when it comes to trade? Obviously our relationship with the U.S.

We have $2 billion a day in two-way trade across the Canada-U.S. border. Given our need to diversify export destinations while at the same time addressing concerns of our southern neighbours who have expressed great security concerns about border issues and points of entry, the budget should have spent a lot of time addressing those issues and it did not. There was $11 million over the next two years and $5.5 million a year to add regional offices and increase consular presence in the U.S. These are insignificant moneys and much less than what was given to a simple PR program for the softwood associations in the U.S. to affect opinion makers in the softwood lumber dispute.

I find this problematic and I want to talk about some of those misplaced priorities. For example, Canadian infrastructure is a large and current but looming problem as well. We have major problems in the air, on land, and in the sea. The budget did not address those priorities.

Everything the government has talked about in terms of improving our land infrastructure border crossing needs is reliant on a $600 million announcement that is not going to cut it. That program was announced in 2002 and is only a start, it is not comprehensive.

The message that Canada has been sending to the U.S. on our domestic security, international security, border issues and military issues through the budget and in other ways, that we are all too familiar with in the House, is imperilling our long term trading relationship in a major way.

For example, the government collects $5 billion in fuel taxes every year and only a slight amount is returned to transportation infrastructure. In fact, 100% of those taxes go into general revenue. Last year only 4% was returned to highways.

There was a recent spike in gas prices at the pumps. If that 10% increase were to sit there for 12 months, it would represent $350 million in windfall revenue to the federal government. That little increment alone would be more than enough to pay for the spending promises for the Olympics and every other highway spending announcement in British Columbia that the government has made this year. In 2000, the federal government actually spent $400,000 on highway infrastructure in British Columbia alone. It was one-twentieth of 1% of fuel tax revenues taken out of that province. This large increase is actually still minuscule.

What is happening is that provinces are putting 92% of provincial fuel tax revenues into transportation related infrastructure. The federal government is putting in 4%. We need a new direction on this. The provinces and municipalities are the main responsible parties for land transportation and highways. We call on the federal authority to vacate its fuel tax room to the provinces and municipalities. This is essential to our well-being as Canadians.

We have another form of land transportation and that is rail. VIA Rail has cost Canadian taxpayers $3 billion in taxpayer subsidies over the last 10 years. That works out to $10 million per federal constituency. If the average constituency were to think about what it could do with $10 million, its wish list would include a lot things before it would include subsidizing the VIA Rail network. VIA Rail has become a self-protective, self-perpetuating organization which, once again, wants to enter into competition with Rocky Mountaineer, the very route that it wanted to abandon and that Rocky Mountaineer turned into a profitable route. VIA Rail now wants to get back in with a subsidy and the Minister of Transport is buying this argument. This is opposed by communities and chambers of commerce from Kamloops to Calgary, the very route that the rail would take.

I will give another example of misplaced priorities. We have a government committed to Kyoto. We have some exciting wind and wave energy projects on the west coast. Because of a lack of commitment by the government, those projects which have been moving along nicely on the promise of federal contribution have been pulled. That is not what I call commitment to Kyoto. That is something very hypocritical.

In the few seconds left I would like to say that there is a spending side and there is a revenue side. On the revenue side, one year ago Canada Customs and Revenue Agency hired 92 auditors for my province alone to go out and get new revenue. They are beating up on all of the wrong people. That is another misplaced priority and one the government should address.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I again have the privilege of standing in our House of Commons representing not only the people of Elk Island but also many Canadians right across this country as we debate Bill C-28, the bungle implementation act.

It was no bungle that I used the word “bungle” instead of budget. Bill C-28 is the bungle implementation act, the Liberal bungling of the finances of Canadian taxpayers.

We have had a little chat in the last couple of months about trust funds and the fact that there should be a blind trust for cabinet ministers when they undertake to become managers of large amounts of money so that there would be a reduction of personal gain by doing that. We had a blind trust suggestion. It is supposed to be in the rules for cabinet ministers. We found out, of course, that the former finance minister had a blind trust that was not blind at all. In fact, it came complete with a Seeing Eye dog, I guess.

The reason I bring this up is that unknown to many taxpayers in this country their money is in a blind trust. They send it to Ottawa and the government here manages to spend it at an astounding rate. It is mostly in a blind trust because no one really can account for where it went afterwards, so it is totally blind. I should not say totally, as we know where some of it went, but a lot of it is very badly mismanaged.

Over the last 10 years that I have been a member of Parliament and even before that, when I remember my dad saying it many years ago, I have had many people say to me they did not mind paying fair taxes. My dad said that he did not mind paying fair taxes, that “It shows that I have an income and I am very happy with that and very grateful to live in a country where I can earn money to provide for my family”. He used to say that he was certainly willing to pay some money for the privilege of living here and to make his contribution to the economic milieu in the country.

However, over and over in the last number of years I have heard people say that they do not mind paying a fair rate of taxation but they have two complaints. One is that the rate is not fair, that it is too high. Second, they tell me that when they send that money they are not content with the way it is mismanaged here. I had someone ask me, “How about these advertising contracts? How is it that somebody can get a contract with the government and not do any work for it but still cash the cheque?”

That is a very good question. The cabinet ministers on the front bench over there should be very concerned about the fact that they are not managing the financial affairs of this country properly and looking after the finances of the country properly. They are really mismanaging money that has been entrusted to them. It was given in trust, but they are not treating it in trust.

I want to mention something about the rate of taxation, and I do not know whether people are aware of it. I like to dabble in mathematics. There was one computation I did, although I do not remember the exact number. If all the money spent by the government of Ottawa, which over the year is around $183 billion, were paid out of Ottawa--and of course it is not, there are huge cheques and large equalization payments and health care transfers--by putting the loonies on a conveyor belt and shipping them out of Ottawa to wherever they go, or within Ottawa, that conveyor belt would have to be going at around 630 kilometres per hour. As I recall the number, that is what it would be. That is the rate at which the loonies are flying out of here.

We know that the loonies are flying in from the taxpayers at an even faster rate because we have been enjoying surpluses. Some of that money has gone to reducing the debt at way too slow a rate, while program spending is going up at the rate of 20% per year. That is not sustainable. That is another area where the government is mismanaging the money that is entrusted to it by Canadian taxpayers.

Certainly, there are programs that need more money. We have been calling for more money for the military. It is atrocious that we send a ship to attend a war that the Prime Minister says we are not in and the helicopter on board cannot fly. First there was the one that crashed on the ship and we had to bring it home. The next one went out, and when it arrived, it got a hole in the firewall and could not fly.

We are asking our servicemen and women to go out there with totally inadequate equipment and no moral or other support from the government, and yet they are putting their lives on the line.

That is an atrocious misuse of taxpayers' money as well because taxpayers are sending the money to Ottawa to, among other things, preserve the national interest. Certainly, as a nation we should be a major player when it comes to looking after the concerns of peace and fighting terrorism around the world. Yes, we would like to have more money there.

We have said since we came here that health care must be improved. I hesitate to use this example, but I will. On the day of my father's funeral just several weeks before Christmas, my mother fell and broke her hip. This happened in Saskatchewan, the province which is the home of medicare. She had to wait for 35 hours before she had attention to it and as a result missed dad's funeral. It was a pretty bad day. I guess that is an understatement.

However, for there not to be appropriate health care in a province like Saskatchewan because of lack of funding is atrocious. We know this because the federal government dried it up in 1993 and 1994 when it first took power. Afterwards the government comes here like a shining white knight saying it will fix medicare. First it gives it the fatal blow and then it tries to blow some breath back into it. Then it wants us to proclaim it a hero for doing it.

I had a phone call or an e-mail, I cannot remember which, from my daughter who lives in Regina. She told of two of her friends who had to travel out of the province in order to get needed health care because the province could not provide it. One was a mother with newborn twins. There was not a reasonable amount of equipment in Regina to look after these babies so they had to airlift this mother and her new twins in a makeshift apparatus to keep them alive until they got to Calgary so they could look after them. That is just not good enough.

We want our government to use taxpayers' money responsibly. I have said a number of times that the government would spend a billion dollars on registering duck hunters. That is a blatant waste of money. There is no proof whatsoever that even if the registry did work successfully that it would save any lives.

I did a little computation. A billion dollars would buy four MRIs for every riding in the country. A city of Edmonton has eight ridings, six in Edmonton and two right outside, one of them being mine. That would be 32 MRIs in the city of Edmonton. Members should ask those people what they would rather have, a registration system for their shotgun, or MRIs so that for serious medical problems they can get a proper diagnosis and receive treatment.

My big complaint with the budget and with Bill C-28, the bungle implementation act, is that the government is bungling the finances of the country and it is time that comes to an end.

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-28, the budget implementation act.

It is interesting to note that every year the government tells Canadians how it is going to spend their hard earned dollars. I think Canadians are getting very concerned that the government seems to think money grows on trees. I think that Canadians have a general concern that the government, instead of reducing its spending and reducing its size, continues to grow beyond all necessity.

One of these interesting things was revealed just this week: that the executive branch of government, through the bilingual program, has grown by 20%. We are not talking about the entire workforce. We are talking about the executive branch or the bureaucracy. It is 20% more than it was two years ago. Canadians are concerned that the government, rather than reducing its spending, keeps increasing it.

The last budget that was tabled in the House calls for $14 billion of new spending. Canadians do not mind that 40% of that spending is for health care, but they are concerned that new money is always being added instead of the money that has already been paid into the pot being redirected. Particularly now, with the war going on in Iraq, Canadians are also concerned that the budget for the Canadian armed forces was not substantially increased.

It is not a question of new money going into necessary programs, but a question of the government's priorities and of the government reducing spending rather than always increasing it. Both can happen at the same time.

There is one other issue I would like to bring up and that is the issue of the national debt. The government seems to think that the debt will go away on its own, but it will not. Last year in the budget, the government predicted surpluses of $6.4 billion this year and up to $10.7 billion in 2005. To give the government credit, it has paid down the debt by $17 billion over the last six years, but the interest payment this year on the existing debt is $37 billion. That money could go somewhere else.

This is really of question of where we think our responsibility lies. Is it our responsibility to ensure that our children and our grandchildren are not going to continually fight this huge debt? Or should this money go into new pet projects that the federal Liberal government has on the table?

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I also want to take a few minutes to say that we are in no hurry to pass Bill C-28 on implementing the budget measures. Many questions raised by all the parties remain.

The Bloc Quebecois, for its part, has said before and is saying again today that, when this budget was announced, the minister chose to focus on the wrong priorities. In particular, he focused on areas of provincial jurisdiction. Respecting provincial jurisdiction has always been sacred for Quebec. Furthermore, yet again, this budget is hiding an enormous surplus.

For each of the past five budgets, the Bloc Quebecois has always accurately forecast the next surplus. Whether it is deliberate, unconscious or the result of incompetence, the Minister of Finance has always been off in his forecasts, resulting in much larger than anticipated surpluses. This gives him the discretion to create last-minute programs, pay down the debt with the unexpected windfall, and infringe, mainly in areas outside his jurisdiction.

Worse still is this refusal to acknowledge the fiscal imbalance. Yet, an independent commission, the Séguin commission, was created; important experts were consulted; the amounts going to Ottawa and no longer to the provinces due to federal cuts were tallied; an undeniable conclusion was reached. The numbers all add up, and the report was unanimously accepted by the three political parties in Quebec. And here, the government dares to tell us that this fiscal imbalance does not exist and refuses to discuss it.

Yet, during the first ministers' conference, Quebec presented this report to all the Canadian provinces, and all the provinces reached the same conclusion, that this fiscal imbalance is clearly laid out in the Séguin report, and that it is hurting the provinces, particularly in terms of health care and education.

Hon. members will recall that the federal government put in 50¢ of every dollar spent in the provinces. Now it is barely 13¢ or 14¢, which is unacceptable, yet the federal government continues to collect the same taxes.

If it wants to pull out of health, no problem, but let it transfer the tax points, the GST, the taxation field, to the provinces. The provinces will then have the funds required to deliver the necessary care to their populations. But no, the government has dug in its heels on this. It is putting money into a multitude of things that are inappropriate or into areas that fall under provincial jurisdiction and are off limits.

It has always been said, and particularly since 1995, that this government has set itself a single mission: to establish national standards for everything. This is seen in health, and in education, yet it is a known fact that every time the federal government goes charging into provincial jurisdictions, it creates nothing but a huge mess by most accounts. It should stick to its jurisdiction and let the provinces stick to theirs. And it should never forget that the provinces created the federal government, and not vice versa.

With these national standards, the federal government has but a single intent, particularly in Quebec: to make it into a province like the others. The hidden agenda ever since the referendum has been to provincialize Quebec, to reduce French to a mere element of folklore, as happened in Louisiana. That is the goal of the federal government.

We have national standards in education, health and even agriculture. The Minister for International Trade now wants to be able to go to the WTO negotiating table and say “At last I no longer have those shackles around my legs, that ball and chain of the provinces with their flexibility in certain areas such as agriculture for the west, for Quebec, or the east.

No, as part of this strategic framework, the government wants to establish national standards. With these standards, it can go to the negotiating table, put supply management on the table, in part if necessary, and do whatever it likes in international negotiations, without having to consult the provinces. That is what it has in mind. That is the danger for the provinces. That is the danger when it comes to education, agriculture and health.

The government does not want to admit it, but this is the hidden trump card. We see it in every area. “National standards” is the new watchword. In the name of national standards, all provincial jurisdictions are being eliminated and the provinces turned into nothing more than villages with little village councils. That is the plan.

We see it as well in the creation of the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment; in the allocation of additional funding to the Canada Student Loan Program; in the creation of the Canadian Learning Institute. What it is is interference in provincial jurisdictions, especially in Quebec in the field of education, and it is extremely serious. Back as far as Duplessis, no prime minister, no matter what his political allegiance, has ever allowed intrusion into this sector. It is sacred and off limits. Still today, even though they are in the middle of an election campaign, Quebec's three political parties condemn this state of affairs. They recognize the fiscal imbalance and are asking Ottawa to act accordingly, and not to infringe on provincial jurisdictions, especially in education.

I could go on. Speaking of fiscal imbalance, there is the issue of tax on capital. This budget also fails to create an independent employment insurance fund. In addition to interfering in areas of provincial jurisdiction, the government is collecting an indirect tax from workers and small businesses. The EI surplus should be given back to those who pay the premiums: businesses and employees. However, the government has shrewdly siphoned this money away into the consolidated revenue fund. As a result, workers and small businesses are paying an indirect tax. This money should be accounted for separately. When EI runs a surplus, the premiums should be lowered, or the benefits period should be extended, or else programs should be set up to help unemployed people who are having problems. When the fund has less money, the premiums should be increased.

An inverse relationship should be applied to the EI fund, and it should have a separate account. But no, the government is robbing the money from the EI fund, and employers are being taxed twice. This is an indirect tax and it is not acceptable.

I could also raise the issue of infrastructure programs. Quebec and the provinces have been calling for these programs, but the budget contains nothing but a few scraps. Why did the government not respond to the provinces' request in this area? Jobs could have been created and the economies of many regions experiencing hard times could have been jump started. But no, the government did not.

There is also the issue of the Kyoto protocol. The budget mentions Kyoto, mentions reinvestments and allocations, but Bill C-28, the Budget Implementation Act, goes against what Quebec and the provinces wanted. The government would have been more successful if it had listened to the provinces, if it had understood that it can look after federal jurisdictions, but that it has to respect areas of provincial jurisdiction, particularly education, health and agriculture. Quebeckers and Canadians would be much better off.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are now back to the main motion on Bill C-28. I have had an opportunity to speak to the bill so I do not intend to use my full time. However there is an aspect of the budget that I am very anxious to make mention of simply because budgets often contain numerous provisions which do not get the attention that they deserve.

About 20% of the constituents in my riding are aged Canadians. They require a great deal of care, not only by their families but by our health care system. The budget included a very important new provision, a new assist for families under the caption of compassionate care. I wanted to share this with the members because I am not sure how many members knew this item was there. I think it is important.

One of the most difficult times we can face is when a loved one needs palliative care and is dying or is at severe risk of dying. During these times Canadians often have to choose between caring for their loved one or staying at their job and hoping that somehow other arrangements can be made.

This is also a very important issue as it relates to women primarily because daughters are closer to their parents than sons would be.

A poll conducted in September 2002 revealed very strong support, some 81% for the Government of Canada providing some income support for working Canadians to take off work to care for a dying family member; 39% said that they had been in the situation of having to care for a gravely ill or dying family member; and 50% of Canadians who faced the situation said it conflicted with the demands of their job.

The 2003 first ministers' health accord included a commitment to introduce a compassionate care benefit to help support Canadians who required temporary absence from work when a loved one falls gravely ill.

I think this is a very important social initiative. We all will eventually face situations like this or we know someone close to us who is facing a situation like this. I think it is an initiative that is embraced by all members in this place.

Every year thousands of Canadians bear the stress of loss of income or possible job loss when they are forced to make a choice between a job and caring for a family member. We should never be forced to choose between caring for a loved one or our job. That is not the way it should be done. I am pleased the budget incorporated this new provision.

Compassionate care will be a new type of employment insurance benefit. It is estimated that 90% of individuals in paid employment, including those working part time, could potentially be eligible for this new benefit. I think that is significant. It is very important. It is estimated that 270,000 claimants will access the new benefit to care for 160,000 gravely ill family members each year, beginning in the year 2004.

On behalf of my constituents of Mississauga South, I want to acknowledge the budget provision with regard to compassionate care as an important provision for families right across Canada. It is a matter which I believe we should take to heart in terms of assessing all types of assists that we can give to ensure that families can discharge their responsibilities, not only to their employers but to their families, their children and those things that we value.

I believe this is probably a good time to move a motion. I move:

That the question be now put.

[The Speaker]

It being 3:05 p.m., the House will now proceed to the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion for second reading of Bill C-28.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Airline Industry

[John Manley, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member would agree that every time there is an industry issue in any particular industry, we cannot respond by cutting all the taxes. It does not make any sense.

We know that in Bill C-28, which is before the House, we have proposed the reduction of the air transportation security charge by over 40%. The member's party has proposed that this bill not be dealt with for more than six months. Let us get on with things that actually can help people.