Mr. Speaker, I shall try to leave a little time for my Reform Party colleague, for questions and comments. Since the debate is to end by 5.15 p.m., I have less than 15 minutes left.
I would like to recap the situation with Bill C-43, giving the Bloc Quebecois view of it in four points.
First, we feel that this bill is a form of abdication of political power. Even if the other side of the floor is telling us that the minister will still be accountable, that is not the impression we get from reading the bill.
The second point in the powerlessness of the Minister of National Revenue. I have always thought of him as a nice guy, but I cannot understand how a minister with 20% of the public service under him would want to find himself, the day after this bill passes, with possibly only his chauffeur still working for him. I wonder how appropriate it is to still have a minister responsible for this.
What I see as equally serious, given the size of the public service, and this is the third point the Bloc Quebecois wishes to bring to the attention of this House, is that establishment of this new agency appears to be anti-union. They are trying to do away with 20% of the Canadian public service. That is not peanuts.
The fourth point is that this bill smacks of centralization. Not only does the government have trouble keeping its hands in its own business, it would like, with the agency, to look after everything to do with taxes. It would like to offer its services to the provinces. It would even like to offer its services to municipalities. If this is not centralization, I would ask the other side of the House to give me another term for it, one that is acceptable, of course.
With the four points I have just raised, if it is true that this is an abdication of political power or if it is not true, in other words if the government will in fact continue to be responsible under the Income Tax Act, and accountable to the House for responding to questions on the Act, what is the point of establishing this agency?
We will always question the fact that with the federal government, primarily when government seats are occupied by Liberal Party members, the word “modernize” often rhymes with “privatize”. Where is the government going with this?
Since the Liberals' election in 1993, they have privatized the railways, tried to privatize the ports and there are even privatization agreements for the airports. Canada Post Corporation, which is no longer a government department as such, was established earlier.
Is the government sending the message that Canada is being put up for sale piece by piece, that there will just be a group of subcontractors from whom Canadian taxpayers will have to get public services and pay for them? The user pay principle is being hammered home with the imposition of new rates by the coast guard.
If the government insists on a user pay system, it should allow all Canadian taxpayers to pool their collective interests and to start calling for bids themselves. They could draft the bids and manage their own affairs. Is this where Canada is headed?
The other thing that concerns us with this way of doing things is that the agency will privatize its operations and will let go 20% of the public servants who are currently working for Revenue Canada. Clauses 15, 22 and 25 of the bill, which deal with the appointment of the directors of that future agency, are of particular concern to me.
It is provided that 15 directors will be appointed, including a chairperson and a commissioner. These people will be appointed by the government, which will have a great opportunity to reward friends that did not get elected, or that have been waiting to be compensated for past services. This is worrisome.
What is also worrisome is that these appointees will have the authority to determine their own salary. Some members opposite may object that this is not true, that I should just read the clauses carefully. I will do just that. Clause 30(1) provides, and I quote:
30.(1) The Agency has authority over all matters relating to
(a) general administrative policy in the Agency;
(b) the organization of the Agency;
(c) Agency real property as defined in Section 73; and
(d) personnel management, including the determination of the terms and conditions of employment of persons employed by the Agency.
Are savings going to be made at the expense of frontline workers, for the benefit of senior managers, who will be appointed by government people? This is very worrisome.
When it says they have the authority to determine their conditions of employment, will the future chair or future senior officers want to compare themselves, in terms of salary or funds for which they are responsible, to bank presidents? Without naming any names, this is several times what members here make.
I have no objection to people in a capitalist system making money, and the structure is such that they are accountable to their shareholders. In this case, however, I fail to see how they can be accountable to these shareholders, the people of Canada.
Usually, it is elected officials who are responsible for how they manage things. But here we have a superminister sharing his management authority with a team of 15 friends of the party. That will be fun. Who will be answerable to Canadians as shareholders?
Even more amusing are clauses 47 and 49, which provide that the agency's business plans must be submitted to the Treasury Board for approval and that the minister must table a summary of the plan in each House of Parliament in the first fifteen days after it is approved.
There will be only 15 days in which to do a post-mortem of the megaprojects and megastructures to which the members across the way have accustomed us. They are very good at cover-ups. As we have seen in recent budgets, they are also very good at making cuts that only kick in somewhere down the line. Is that what we can expect? I have some serious questions about transparency and accountability for actions further down the road.
I will digress, if I may. I come from a seaside riding. While the government wants to part with 20% of its employees—and is willing to give up all related powers—I find it somewhat shocking to see the Minister of Canadian Heritage come to the rescue of rich sports people these past few weeks. She sponsored a bill on the establishment of marine conservation areas. On the one hand, the government wants to take apart a department or get rid of civil servants. On the other hand, through the establishment of marine conservation areas, a field the minister does not know the first thing about, it wants to infringe on an area of provincial jurisdiction. To compound the problem, these marine conservation areas will have to have on-shore facilities. But who lives by the sea? Fishers and plant workers.
Last June, the government opposite sneaked in a final proposal washing its hands of the crisis in the fisheries. The whole mess is no longer its problem. Now I wonder who is going to stand up for fishers and plant workers.
On the one hand, it tries to get rid of 20% of its public servants. On the other, it got rid of 40,000 fishers and plant workers and wants to establish marine conservation areas. I cannot for the life of me understand the government's management style nor its policy thrusts. It blows all over the place. It twists and turns. Nobody will be able to understand it any more. Worse yet, no one across the way will be able to answer our questions.
I wonder about the appropriateness of this bill at a time when, as my colleague from Beauséjour—Petitcodiac said earlier, OECD statistics show that, far from diminishing, the number of poor children is on the rise. The government would have us believe that the elimination of 20% of jobs in the public service will somehow result in fewer poor in this country.
I am quite willing to believe—