Debates of Nov. 16th, 1998

Louis Riel

[Louise Hardy, NDP, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, on November 16, 1885 Louis Riel was executed for high treason against the Government of Canada. He died for his convictions, his country and his people.

One hundred years later, we must let Louis Riel take his place among the heroes of this nation. Riel fought and died so his people would have freedom, freedom to determine their lives and their futures. I join my Métis colleague from Churchill River in remembering all the valiant Métis who were killed that day in 1885. It is time to right the wrongs.

Public Finances

[Pierre De Savoye, Bloc, Portneuf, QC]

Mr. Speaker, year after year, the Bloc Quebecois has shown how the government is hiding the reality of public finances from the public.

Once again this year, our prediction of a budget surplus of $12 to $15 billion for 1998-99 is more realistic than the zero surplus announced by the Minister of Finance.

In fact, according to the latest financial review six months into this fiscal year, the surplus accumulated by the federal government has already reached $10.4 billion. The credibility of the Minister of Finance is getting pretty thin.

The government claims to be holding pre-budget consultations, but these are based on inaccurate information. Meanwhile, the Minister of Finance is maintaining his cuts in health and employment insurance, while secretly using the huge surplus just to pay down the debt. The people will be the judge of this.

Quebec Election Campaign

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval West, QC]

Mr. Speaker, is a vote for the PQ on November 30 a vote for a referendum?

The Bloc Quebecois leader was saying very clearly that this was the case.

The member for Rimouski—Mitis had a bit more to say on the subject a few days later, pointing out that the referendum should be held by 2001.

However, the Premier of Quebec took the wind out of the sails of the true sovereignists by saying that the timing of the referendum would depend on the presence of the winning conditions. He thus discouraged all those who had hoped for a referendum in the next mandate, as had initially been the choice of the militant PQ members in a general council vote.

And the truth? On November 30, it is clear: a vote for the PQ is a vote for a referendum.

Right Hon. Joe Clark

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, on November 14 thousands of Canadians came together in a new and historic process to choose the Right Hon. Joe Clark as the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

Mr. Clark is a man of integrity. He has been all things to the Progressive Conservative Party, from youth president to Prime Minister of Canada. He is respected internationally for his work on human rights, free trade and building bridges with developing countries. He is respected here at home as a man who cares passionately about a united Canada. He is a proud Albertan. He has proven himself to be a man of vision. He was a fiscal conservative before it was popular to be a fiscal conservative.

He is a consensus builder. He believes in openness and democracy and he was chosen the leader of our party in the most open and democratic process ever to be held in Canada.

We look forward to Mr. Clark's principled leadership as he lays out his priorities for a brighter and stronger future for Canadians from across this great country.

Mississauga West

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party recently mailed brochures on employment insurance to individuals and businesses in my riding of Mississauga West. I remind the Reform Party of the old adage you gotta fish where the fish are.

In the last election the Reform candidate in my riding got a whopping 18.3% of the vote. That may be slightly better than Reform's current standing in the national polls but it is a far cry from the 61.2% of my constituents who voted Liberal. It does not appear to me that many Mississaugans would be interested in being on Reform's mailing list. The real galling part is that Reform has the audacity to title its brochure “Whose money is it anyway?”

Despite the fact that the brochure warns the government not to misuse taxpayer dollars, the Reform Party used taxpayer dollars to produce it and to mail it out. Whose money is it anyway? It is the taxpayers' money and the citizens of Mississauga West—

[The Speaker]

Oral Questions.

Taxation

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, last month the finance minister said that Canada risked falling back into a deficit so we had to keep taxes ratcheted up high.

Now we learn that the finance minister has actually overtaxed Canadians by $10 billion in just the first six months of 1998. He has set a new record for gouging taxpayers, taking billions from Canadians whom the government itself defines as living in poverty.

How could the finance minister miscalculate the budget surplus by so much? Why is he trying to hide overtaxation?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, there certainly has been no miscalculation of the budget surplus.

If the hon. member wants to talk about taxation, the fact is that last year not only did the government take 400,000 Canadians off the tax rolls, it brought in $7 billion of tax reductions which will take place over the course of the next three years.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, taking an extra $10 billion from taxpayers is not tax relief. It is called gouging. It is called having the highest personal income taxes in the western world. It is called punishing employers and employees with unreasonable payroll taxes.

Personal income taxes are up $2 billion and corporate income taxes are up by almost $1 billion.

Why will the finance minister not admit that his so-called surplus is nothing more than evidence that he is overtaxing, gouging the taxpayers?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that six months does not a year make. What is painfully evident is that the leader of the Reform Party is unable to accept the fact that Canada has a $10 billion surplus going into what is a very uncertain economic climate.

What is really true is that the leader of the Reform Party is unable to accept the fact that Canada is doing well in a world that is in considerable uncertainty.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian taxpayers want a reward. Where is the tax relief?

This month this finance minister is going to try to twist the arm of the Employment Insurance Commission to keep ripping off workers and employers with excessively high payroll tax rates. He has an option to return those dollars to Canadians.

Will the finance minister give workers and employers the tax relief and cuts in employment insurance rates that they deserve, according to the chief actuary himself?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, in the last budget not only did we bring down taxes by $7 billion over three years, but we reduced EI premiums by $1.5 billion last year, which was the largest single reduction in EI premiums.

The real problem is that the leader of the Reform Party does not like it when Canada is doing well. It is doing well and it is going to continue to do well.

Unemployment Insurance

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if the country is going to do well, as Gordon Thiessen said this morning, then perhaps the finance minister should talk himself right around the circle and give tax relief to Canadians.

He has skimmed $10 billion out of the pockets of people—workers and business people—in this country who have paid EI premiums. They have paid billions of dollars into it. He owes them money back.

When is he going to make his announcement that he is going to lower premiums to $1.90 for workers?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, let us understand what members of the Reform Party are advocating.

They are advocating $9 billion worth of tax reductions. They are advocating $9 billion worth of debt reduction, and now they are advocating $6 billion in terms of EI premium cuts. What they are advocating is $24 billion to $25 billion in cuts.

Where is that money going to come out of? It will come out of our health care system. It will come out of transfers to the provinces. It will come out of the things that count for Canadians. That is their real agenda.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, our real agenda is to give tax relief. Our agenda is exactly what the actuary's agenda is, which is for the finance minister to lower premiums to $1.90.

I do not think he is too nervous about what the actuary is saying, he just needs to act on it.

With these billions of dollars in excess payments that people have built up, why is the finance minister not going to just give that money back to them? It is Canadians' money, not his own personal fund. When will he give it back?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform members talk about their agenda. In their program they would take $3.5 billion out of health care. They would take $1 billion out of equalization for Manitoba and Saskatchewan. They would gut the amount of transfers that go to aboriginal Canadians. They would not support research and development.

They would pay for their tax cuts on the backs of the future of this country and we will not do that.

Budget Surplus

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, according to Finance Canada's Finance Monitor, the government has accumulated a $10.4 billion budget surplus in six months.

At this rate, by the end of the year, the surplus will be $15 billion, with half of it coming from the employment insurance fund.

Does this kind of surplus not show that this is government policy and that the reason the finance minister will not improve the plan is that he wants to keep using the employment insurance fund as a cash cow?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, what we want to do is to ensure the fiscal stability of our country.

What the Bloc Quebecois is proposing is chronic deficits, a country that will neglect its responsibility to its own people. That is what the Bloc Quebecois is proposing. But our country is growing and will continue to grow.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unlike the minister, who does not know how to count, the Bloc Quebecois has accurately forecast the financial situation of the country over the past four years. We were also the only ones to put forward anti-deficit legislation. He should speak seriously.

Will he admit that, in using employment insurance contributions to artificially inflate his surplus instead of helping the unemployed, he is in fact destroying the entire Liberal Party's social legacy, that men like his father have helped build since the 1940s? There will be nothing left of this legacy at the rate the minister is going.

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, here is what this government is offering Canadians: shrinking deficits, lower taxes, a national debt that is growing smaller and a national unemployment rate that currently stands at 8.1%, compared to 11.9% when we took office.

Employment Insurance

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a substantial part of the $5.1 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund results from the government's persistent refusal to pay benefits to 57% of the unemployed who contributed to the plan.

Is the Minister of Human Resources Development not ashamed to have helped generate, in just six months, a $5.1 billion government surplus by making people contribute to the fund, even though they do not qualify when they lose their jobs?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am always surprised to see how difficult it is for the Bloc Quebecois here when we are dealing with surpluses, considering that its head office in Quebec City is obsessed with a zero deficit, something which we have achieved and exceeded, to the point where we now enjoy a surplus.

Your comments should reflect the decisions made by your head office.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Papineau—Saint-Denis, QC]

Let me say that, once again, the Bloc Quebecois is trying to confuse Canadians by playing with the figures. The fact is that 78% of those Canadians who lost their jobs during the past year, or who quit for a valid reason, were covered by the employment insurance system.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on page 47 of the minister's own study it is clearly indicated that only 43% of the unemployed who contributed to the program are getting benefits. That is the truth.

After a week-long parliamentary break during which he had an opportunity to meet people from various ridings, has the minister not realized that workers do not want him to take money out of their pockets under false pretences in order to increase the federal government's budget surplus?