Debates of Oct. 24th, 1996

Employment

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, he has plenty to say. The Minister of Human Resources Development Canada has plenty to say. First, he would like to ask young people to stay in school as long as possible, and to get the best training possible, for the statistics the Leader of the Opposition has just cited do not refer to young people with training, whose rate of unemployment is lower than the Canadian average, if you look at your figures properly.

So, what I have to say to young people today is this: Stay in school, get as much training as you can. That is your best chance for a job. I can also tell you that what society needs at this point is economic stability, political stability. Early this week we had an extraordinary speech by the Prime Minister of Canada, to which I shall refer again this afternoon. He went to Montreal to offer his co-operation, his solidarity to all Canadians to rebuild Montreal. And what have we had ever since? The only vision these people are capable of is division, constant division and redivision, like the hon. member for Rosemont tried to do, when he spoke to us this morning of the way Montreal used to be, divided between the English and the French.

Taxation

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Words, words, words, Mr. Speaker. We do not want words, we want action. We want job creation.

In their notorious red book, the Liberals promised more justice, fairness and transparency in the Canadian tax system. But remember the Minister of Finance, when he said he would not eliminate the GST as his government had promised and naively admitted to misinforming the entire population of this country.

My question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Now that her government has offered a bribe of nearly one billion dollars to three maritime provinces so they will harmonize their sales tax with the GST, will the Deputy Prime Minister have the courage to admit that her government did not abide by its campaign promise-and here it comes, in case she forgot-to eliminate the GST, not harmonize it, not hide it in the sale price, not shamefully waste one billion dollars of Canadian taxpayers money?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, we have just set up the process for harmonizing sale taxes in this country. The Atlantic provinces were the first to get on board, after Quebec, because they know it is crucial to job creation.

In fact, I wish to congratulate the former Government of Quebec for having the courage to harmonize its sales tax, and I congratulate the Atlantic provinces, because they want to create jobs and know that by reducing their costs and becoming competitive, they will be able not only to compete with the other provinces but the United States as well. That is how we build a strong economy.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the Government of Quebec, because it is doing its job and gives the people real information. It does not shamefully waste one billion dollars on political compensation for an agreement entered into locally with the maritimes. That is what I have to say. I cannot congratulate the Minister of Finance.

My supplementary is also directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.

In the red book, the Liberal government also promised to make the tax system more equitable. Will the Deputy Prime Minister admit that by refusing for more than three years to initiate a thorough tax reform, as the Bloc Quebecois asked it to do, the government has reneged on its promises in the red book and even perpetuated inequities through its shameful cover-up of the family trust scandal?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, this is ridiculous. The hon. member for the opposition knows perfectly well that we eliminated all the tax benefits for family trusts. I have four pages of tax loopholes here, and I will read them to you. They are too long, and I cannot remember them all.

Eliminate capital gains tax exemptions of $100,000; eliminate tax benefits for limited recourse financing; tighten the rules for debt remission; eliminate the use of butterfly transactions, and I could go on. We have eliminated the loopholes. Thanks to this government, the tax system in Canada is fairer than it has ever been.

Government Policies

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I see that the Prime Minister has unveiled yet another piece of Canadian fiction, a record of achievements. I am sure that Margaret Atwood is just shaking in her pants, as the Prime Minister would say.

We have taken a look at the red book and at the Liberal record. The reality is that the Prime Minister has broken more promises than he has kept. Seventy per cent of the red book promises have gone unfulfilled. The Liberals have broken 136 commitments they made to Canadians in the last election campaign.

I ask the Deputy Prime Minister, how can she imagine that the Liberals have kept 80 to 90 per cent of their promises when fully 70 per cent of the red book promises have gone totally unfulfilled?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the member's arithmetic on this one is about as good as it was on the fresh start platform.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that kind of an answer is exactly the proof that Canadians sitting in the gallery here and right across the country need a fresh start.

The imaginary friends in the Prime Minister's life believe that the Liberals may have kept their promises but real Canadians will not buy it. They remember the Liberal broken promise of jobs, jobs, jobs; renegotiating NAFTA; stable multiyear funding for the CBC; protecting universal day care and medicare; and their promise of course to kill, scrap and abolish the GST. Those are only five of the biggest whoppers in the red book. There are 131 more.

Why has the Prime Minister resorted to this piece of creative opportunism the Liberals have just released today instead of just telling Canadians the truth, the plain simple truth, that the Liberal Party of Canada, this government, is truly the home of the whopper?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the Liberal Party has not done as much as it intended to do in terms of completing the promises in the red book. We have only completed 78 per cent of the promises in the red book.

We hope that the people of Canada will give us the confidence to continue to govern. We are not perfect, but we are going to do our best. Our party is the only party in the history of Canadian politics that has actually put its promises in writing completely in advance of an election so we could let the people be the judge. That is what we intend to do.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there certainly is wisdom in getting a platform out ahead. That is exactly what we did last week.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. Some promise. There are 1.4 million Canadians unemployed. One in four Canadians are worried about the jobs they have.

Protecting medicare? A $7 billion Liberal cut to social programs, with $3 billion of that coming directly out of health care, and the Liberals know that.

Stable funding for the CBC? The Liberals cut its budget by a third.

The list of broken promises goes on and on: free votes, an independent ethics counsellor-remember that one?-day care centres and spaces. "We will restore Canadians' faith in themselves and their government" was a promise in the red book. I can hardly believe it.

Why did the government not provide Canadians with a reality check, that is, that 62 promises have been kept and 136 promises are unfulfilled, instead of this list of imaginary red book achievements?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the sad thing about the Reform Party and probably the reason it is at single digits in the polls is that when the government comes forward with jobs initiatives, all it gets from the Reform Party is criticism.

We made an announcement earlier this week in Montreal to create Canadian jobs in a city which desperately needs them. Reformers said nay. We announced a cultural production fund that will create 30,000 jobs in Canadian television. They said no. We announced projects which put $3 billion into the economy by way of infrastructure. The Reform Party said no.

The fresh start of the Reform Party would send the Canadian job situation into a tailspin. That is why the Canadian public has massively rejected the policies of the Reform Party.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in its red book, the Liberal Party of Canada accused the Tories of having jeopardized Canadian culture with their drastic cuts in cultural funding. The Liberal Party promised stable multiyear financing for national cultural institutions. However, since it came to power, it has cut $350 million in the CBC's budget alone, thus forcing the corporation to lay off close to 4,000 cultural workers.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Now, now.

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

You may laugh, all of you champions in job creation. Does the minister believe that, in making unprecedented cuts such as those inflicted upon CBC by her government, she is fulfilling her electoral promises in the areas of culture and job creation?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, when the Bloc Quebecois talks about culture it is again filibustering since, according to the latest survey conducted by Statistics Canada, of all the governments having to make cuts, Quebec's is the one which has cut the most in the cultural area.

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one does not get taller by stepping on somebody else's head.

[Some hon. members]

Ah, ah.

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

My supplementary is for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Since the Liberals came to power, the CBC French network has eliminated 1,300 jobs, mainly in the Montreal area. They are telling us they are looking after Montreal and always have, and yet most of these 1,300 jobs were lost in the Montreal area.

Is it not outrageous that while she is making these cuts, she is sinking several million in a flag campaign and in an Information Canada type committee?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, it is such a pity that the member is insisting on ridiculing the Quebec government. The fact is, according to statistics widely available, for every $1.16 the federal government spends in Quebec on Canadian culture, the Quebec government only spends 86 cents.

I think he should appeal to his head office to solve the Quebec culture issue, which is undergoing more drastic cuts at the hands of the Quebec government than what Canada is doing.

Taxation

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the Liberals should have called the red book the unread book.

Yesterday's announcement on books was a big zero for students and consumers who will still pay GST on reading materials. This is despite the fact that the Liberals have passed a priority resolution that their government would "remove the goods and services tax on reading materials".

Can the finance minister explain to these same Liberals gathering in Ottawa today for their lovefest why his government has reneged on this promise, as well as the eye popper that they would axe, scrap and abolish the GST entirely?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is referring to a resolution that was passed at a party convention and is not referring to a commitment of the government.

There is no doubt that every single member in this House and every single member in the Liberal Party would like to eliminate the tax on books. The problem very clearly is that we also have to deal with a very difficult financial condition in this country and we are achieving a balance.

The balance is to promote literacy. The way in which we have decided to do it is to be selective. Yes, we are going to support those who are in the front line in the fight to promote literacy. We are going to eliminate the tax on books for schools, libraries, municipalities and charities. This is very important. If the hon. member does not understand how important it is that we take very scarce financial resources and promote literacy, then I wonder what in God's name he is doing in this House.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister takes scarce financial resources and gives them to his well heeled buddies at Bombardier. That is what he does.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

Colleague, please be very judicious in your choice of words.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

How about the red book promise on jobs? The Retail Council of Canada has called the government's billion dollar harmonization deal a declaration of economic separation because it is going to cost $100 million annually in Atlantic Canada. That is what the job creators are saying.

Can the finance minister explain to Canadians why his red book promised jobs, jobs, jobs while he is cutting political deals like these that mean "higher costs, lower quality, less selection, higher prices and fewer jobs"? That is what they are asking in Atlantic Canada.