Debates of March 23rd, 1998

Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Madam Speaker, far be it for me to refocus the Reform Party on its actual motion, but the motion that is before us is with respect to the impact of the proposed 10% tax on municipalities.

The beauty of this motion is that it attempts to focus the activities of a municipality.

A municipality, by definition, occupies a particular geographical area. By definition it is to provide services to its constituents where the constituents are in need of garbage services, education services or services of that nature. Those are public services. Those are services which are supplied at cost and for which people are not expecting the entity that supplies the service to be making a profit.

I understand that all municipalities are in this hunt for revenue. All governments in all countries are in a hunt for revenue. But this is a proposal which attempts to refocus and rebalance that concept. Municipalities should not be hunting for revenue by supplying services where other entities in our society supply those services.

If any motion prevailed with respect to the law of unintended consequences, this is it. May I suggest that there are a number of very significant unintended consequences that will result from the hon. member's motion.

The first unintended consequence is that municipality will be set up against municipality to supply services in order to be able to generate the most revenue. In other words, it will not have to go to its tax base, it will go to other forms of revenue. We will have, for instance, the municipality of Hamilton competing with the municipality of Kingston to supply service x at the cheapest and lowest cost. Therefore, whichever municipality gets to supply that service will not have to go to its tax base to generate revenue. Some of that is happening.

The beauty of the proposal by the government is that it will cut the matter off at 10%. After 10% of its gross revenues the municipality will not have the incentive to seek to augment its income in that manner.

Similarly, it will set up the unintended consequence of a private corporation competing with the municipality to supply a service. That is quite bizarre because the Reform Party's motivation, raison d'être, is to enhance and encourage the private sector. We will have this bizarre experience of a municipality competing with the private sector over the same service. With the huge advantages of a municipality, the private sector will not be able to supply the service.

Second, a municipality, again by definition, has an enormous infrastructure. It has secretaries, it has telephones systems, it has buildings, et cetera. It could in a number of instances undercut the private sector by a means which the hon. member might not have thought his way through.

The third and beautiful unintended consequence is that it provides a huge benefit to my municipality of Toronto. Most Canadians, from my experience in travelling across the country, do not think that Toronto should receive very many benefits at all. It is a national pastime to hate Toronto. There are some members here who would agree with that.

I might point out to the hon. member that Toronto is the seventh largest entity in Canada. It ranks ahead of a number of provinces. If this motion goes through it will provide to Toronto an enormous advantage because there will be an enormous incentive on the part of Mr. Lastman and his staff to create services to augment revenue, to knock the private sector out of the game. I do not know whether the hon. member wants to create a situation such as that, but that is a very real possibility and again follows through with the law of unintended consequences.

If the hon. member wishes to set up conflicts between municipalities, if he wants to set up conflicts between the private sector and municipalities, if he wants to benefit Toronto in particular but large municipalities in general, then we should probably stand aside and let this motion pass. However, I believe that the government's direction is far wiser. It is saying to municipalities generally that they can generate revenue and, yes, they will be allowed a certain amount of activity outside their municipal sphere.

However, once they go beyond 10% of their revenues being generated outside their geographical area or municipal sphere, then they will be taxed like any other entity. As with all governments, that achieves a balance which is a good balance and is healthy for this country.

I hope it also addresses the issue of the balancing of revenues among all three levels of government.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

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

Madam Speaker, are you calling on me to speak to the motion I moved, Motion No. 2?

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

We are debating Motion No. 1.

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

I did not ask to speak to that motion.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

A recorded division on the motion stands deferred.

We will now proceed to Motion No. 2.

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

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-28 be amended by deleting clause 241.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate at report stage on Bill C-28.

There are a number of things wrong with Bill C-28. We could mention the government's measures feigning sensitivity with respect to social programs and the deterioration of health care that it has itself brought about through three years of cuts in transfer payments to the provinces in the health, social services and education sectors.

I listened this morning as a journalist put a question to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. What the journalist asked him was this: “Has the Government heard the public's cry of distress about health care?” The Leader of the Government in the House replied as follows: “Of course it has. In Bill C-28 you will see that we have added $6 billion for health care and social services. If opposition members vote against Bill C-28, it is because they have not heard what the public is saying”.

If that is not the ultimate in demagoguery, I do not know what is. Because what Bill C-28 says about the $6 billion transfer is that, instead of cutting $48 billion between now and 2003, the federal government is going to cut $42 billion. We will never give our support to a bill that would fly in the very face of what people want, which is an end to cuts in social programs and health care.

There is also a serious problem with an apparent conflict of interest involving the bill's sponsor, the Minister of Finance.

Clause 241 of Bill C-28 provides new tax benefits to international shipping corporations, particularly international shipping holdings. Clause 241 amends section 250 of the Income Tax Act to exclusively protect international shipping holdings against any Revenue Canada claims on taxes applying to profits or other revenues.

There is a moral issue relating to this legislation, but there is also another problem: the bill, including clause 241, was introduced by the Minister of Finance, who owns a holding corporation called Canada Steamship Lines.

The Minister of Finance sponsored a bill that provides him with tax benefits, given his involvement in international shipping.

There is at least an apparent conflict of interest in this legislation, and this is contrary to the Prime Minister's code of ethics adopted in June 1994, soon after he took office. Indeed, this code of ethics refers not only to actual or potential conflicts of interest, but also to apparent conflicts of interest.

There is obviously an apparent conflict of interest, given that the Minister of Finance tabled and sponsored a bill with provisions that favour the finance minister's international shipping activities.

When the Bloc Quebecois put the finger on the problem with Bill C-28, after reviewing the 464 pages of this omnibus legislation, which includes only two paragraphs on international shipping, the Minister of Finance left the House with a historic statement. He was speechless. He began to stutter like people who are caught in the act, like people who have something on their conscience and who just got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

The second reaction came from the Prime Minister during oral question period. We had barely finished putting our question when the Prime Minister jumped out of his seat to come to the defence of his finance minister, saying he had done nothing wrong and that this new provision would not in any way benefit Canada Steamship Lines, which the finance minister has owned in full since 1988.

The next day, the Deputy Prime Minister joined the Prime Minister in saying that this measure did not apply to Canada Steamship Lines. That same day, reference was made during Oral Question Period to the Department of Finance press release which also stated that Canada Steamship Lines would not benefit from these measures.

The third reaction, as time went on, was less decisive and less definite. It came from corporate taxation division senior advisor Len Farber, the very person to whom we were referred by the Minister of Finance and who is supposedly his right-hand man in terms of policies and political strategies—likely more political than anything else.

Mr. Farber appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance and was asked a series of questions which led him gradually into an area where he felt cornered. He was forced to admit that “Yes, these provisions could be available to that company”, because reference was being made at that time to companies like Canada Steamship Lines, the company of the Minister of Finance.

When the government found itself backed into a corner on the fact that clause 241 could apply to Canada Steamship Lines, as even its vice-president, Mr. Préfontaine, admitted, saying “Yes, perhaps, but we have no intention of applying it”, it turned to the process itself. By February 12, it was starting, through the Prime Minister, to make statements like: “Yes, but all of the rules were respected in tabling the bill. The Minister of Finance did not see its contents, even if he was the one sponsoring it”.

On February 12, the Prime Minister pointed out that, according to what the ethics counsellor had told him, everything was done according to the rules and the Minister of Finance was not at fault. He put his assets and shares into a blind trust and is therefore protected from any apparent or actual conflict of interest.

Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, five days after his statement in the House, his ethics counsellor appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance and was also obliged to admit—not only verbally, but also in his written report—that there was at least a possibility of a problem, because introduction of Bill C-28 had not followed normal procedure. He stated that, normally, had he been approached by the Minister or the Department of Finance on the procedure for tabling, steering or sponsoring this bill, the Minister of Finance would not have acted in this way.

The ethics counsellor recognized that there had been at the very least an apparent conflict of interest. But he later went back on his position and told the finance committee “Look, even if Canada Steamship Lines stood to potentially benefit from these news provisions and the Minister of Finance stood to save substantial amounts in taxes”—we are looking at millions of dollars in the future—“that is not the problem. The problem is that the process should have been more consistent with the rules established in 1994”.

Mr. Wilson, the ethics counsellor, has many problems. The first one is that he changes his tune every time he is questioned on the subject. He writes one thing and says another or vice versa. He has a credibility problem.

Second, his credibility problem is compounded by the fact that he is paid by the Prime Minister, when he should be an independent counsellor reporting to Parliament. In fact, in the red book in 1993 the Liberals stated, and I quote “A Liberal government will appoint an independent ethics counsellor to advise both public officials and lobbyists in the day to day application of the code of conduct for public officials”.

He is not independent, he is accountable to the Prime Minister. This means the Prime Minister can get him to say just about anything, as he is the boss. That is why the government's ethic counsellor has lost all credibility.

The ethics counsellor should be dismissed and replaced with a real counsellor, who would be independent from the government, to shed light on cases like this one without having to wait for an opposition member to put his or her finger on a problem. As it is, the ethics counsellor has become the one who saves ministers' heads.

The motion basically calls for the deletion of section 241, which gives an unfair advantage to shipping companies like the one owned by the Minister of Finance, Canada Steamship Lines, until this matter and the finance minister's apparent conflict of interest have been clarified.

In fact, on February 12, the four opposition parties got together to write a letter to the government, asking that a special committee be struck to shed light on the whole matter. Last week, I personally made a similar request to the Prime Minister, but have not received any reply.

I make the same request again, but in the meantime section 241 should be deleted because we are convinced that there is, at the very least, an apparent conflict of interest around the introduction of the bill containing section 241.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from the Bloc for his motion. I think it is an important motion and I think colleagues around the House should support it.

The intention of the finance minister and the finance department probably was not to somehow circumvent the rules. Nevertheless, that is the position the government has put itself in. I think fairness and integrity dictate that members support the motion to avoid the appearance at least of a conflict of interest. Pretty clearly, that is what has happened.

My friend from the Bloc has talked about that at length. I want to talk about a variation on the theme. I want to talk about the irony in having Canada's finance minister have to shelter many of his own personal assets offshore to avoid paying the staggering taxes that so many Canadians have to pay. I think that is rather ironic. I think it would be very funny if not for the fact that every other Canadian really does not have the same opportunity to do that.

I say to the finance minister good for him, I am glad that he has found a way to avoid paying the same level of taxes that the rest of us pay. Truly I would like to see the same rules, the same compassion extended to all other taxpayers in this country.

Would it not be wonderful if somebody who runs the donut shop across Wellington Street could put up a Liberian flag so they did not have to pay the same high level of taxes they currently have to pay? Would it not be wonderful if in a garage in Rosetown, Saskatchewan they could put up a Panamanian flag so they did not have to pay the same staggering level of taxes they currently have to pay? It could go on and on.

I think members get the point. The fact is in Canada today people are driven to extraordinary lengths to not pay the level of taxes we currently have to pay.

As I pointed out in an earlier intervention, we have taxes that are among the highest in the world. Income tax is 56% higher than the G-7 average. I do not blame people for going to great lengths to avoid paying those taxes but it is killing this country.

There was an article in the weekend Globe and Mail about British Columbia's recession. Not long ago that province was leading the country in growth and now it is tenth in the country in terms of growth. One of the primary reasons for this is the combination of high taxes between the provincial and federal governments that has made British Columbia uncompetitive. It cannot deal with the competition from the northwest United States and the Pacific rim. Consequently that government and that province are in recession today.

I do not blame people for going to extraordinary lengths to find ways to not pay these high taxes. The sad result is that people are actually leaving the country. That is one way people deal with the problem of high taxes. Not long ago a Nesbitt Burns report was widely circulated in the media. It talked about how young Canadians, in particular university graduates and professionals, are leaving the country in droves to go to the United States in particular and to other jurisdictions where taxes are not through the roof. They want to find work where they will be allowed to keep enough income to live the types of lives they have dreamed about. They obviously feel they can no longer do that in Canada. That is sad.

The Nesbitt Burns report talked about the computer technicians this country is losing. That is terrible. We are losing doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers. Some of our brightest and best are disappearing from this country. It is not only an economic tragedy, it is a personal tragedy too. We are seeing families split up.

My friend, the hon. member for Red Deer, has three children. They have all left Canada to find work. One is in Norway. Another is a Rhodes scholar and is teaching in the U.S. at Harvard. He could not get a job in Canada so he left for greener pastures where the taxes are not so high. I believe this member has another daughter in the Netherlands. My friend, the hon. member for Calgary Southeast, has family spread out around the world as a result of the high taxes.

Who can blame the finance minister? He is only doing what everybody else is doing, trying to find ways to avoid the crushing burden of taxes in this country. The challenge to my friends across the way and to the finance minister is to find ways for people to enjoy their assets in Canada, to find a way for us to live the lives we want to live in Canada without having to pay taxes through the roof. That is a novel concept, is it not?

Instead of focusing on finding new and creative ways to spend $11 billion, which is what they chose to spend in the last budget, why do my friends across the way not find ways to lower the tax burden in this country to help Canadians out? What is wrong with that? Why do we have to drive people out of this country? People are voting with their feet. They are leaving. The brightest and the best are leaving. We cannot tolerate that.

It is time for my friends across the way to wake up and understand that clause 41 is a symptom of a much larger problem, that taxes in this country are too high. They are far too high. We are now in a position where Canadians work half the year just to pay the federal government. If I were to ask members in this House what they would call it if they had to go to work for six months of the year, had every cent taken and worked for no remuneration, they would call that slavery. But that is exactly what we do in Canada today. We spend half the year working for the government.

When is the government going to wake up and understand that this cannot continue? When is it going to do more than the half measures we saw in this budget? The government said that it introduced $7 billion in tax relief in the budget although it forgot to point out that it previously introduced new tax measures that would take $9 billion out of the economy. That would leave Canadians a couple of billion dollars worse off than they were last year. The government calls that tax relief. I call it robbery.

It is ridiculous that the government can get away with that type of thing. I hope that friends across the way will come to realize that bills like Bill C-28 are simply a symptom of the sickness of the government's perverse idea that it has to justify its existence by taxing people ever ever more. I ask them to reflect on the irony of a finance minister who has put his assets offshore so he does not have to pay the staggering level of taxation that we have in this country.

Surely there is a lesson for the House in this example. I would expect that friends in this House would come to appreciate that this is ridiculous. It is time to bring this to an end. I urge my friends to support the Bloc motion to oppose the inclusion of clause 241. We can no longer have taxation levels that are among the highest in the world, ones that not even the finance minister can afford.

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will not take as much time as my hon. colleague from the Reform Party. I would like to return to the matter raised by the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

I believe the motion he has moved is important. It is significant that all opposition parties have joined together in recent months to raise the problematical issue, or potentially problematical issue, relating to the Minister of Finance and have demanded clarifications. I believe this is important.

The Minister of Finance has very great responsibilities. The entire credibility of the Canadian tax system is at stake. He must provide answers to all questions raised by the opposition parties. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot has done an excellent job on this, and we in this corner of the House wish to congratulate him on it.

We are, therefore, going to support this motion, and hope our friends opposite will do likewise. Why? In order to avoid any problematical issues around reputations and credibility. If the Liberals understand their Minister of Finance, and are so fond of him, so much the better. If they are so fond of him, let them go along with the parties in opposition in voting in favour of this motion, in order to settle the question of potential conflict of interest for once and for all, at least in connection with Bill C-28 and the way in which it was introduced, as far as Canada Steamship Lines and foreign holdings are concerned.

If the Liberals understand their Minister of Finance, and are so fond of him, they will support this motion and we will be able to defer any discussions on this issue to a later date.

It is up to the Liberals, today or whenever we vote, to decide whether they support their Minister of Finance or whether they are prepared to delay part of Bill C-28 to ensure that their Minister of Finance will never be in a conflict of interest—real or potential.

It is the responsibility of the opposition to raise this issue, but it is the responsibility of the House as a whole to support the motion of the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

We must remember that Bill C-28 is a great fat volume that Canadians will find muddling. It requires research, and the role of the opposition parties is to ensure that everything is proper and to raise any problems before the House so Canadians will understand what is really happening with their government.

I hope those opposite will join with the members of the opposition in unanimously supporting the motion of the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. I am sure that, basically, all members in this House want the Minister of Finance to be exonerated of all blame. That is what we want as well, because the country's fiscal credibility is at stake.

So they should hold up this part of Bill C-28, and all the members should join together so the Minister of Finance, the government and all Liberals can rest easy with this matter. We will eventually get back to the issue of international shipping companies in this country.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting to speak to this amendment by the Bloc Quebecois. It highlights an area of income tax policy that is a bit of a lark. We have had some fun with it in question period.

The hon. member opposite was feigning a little bit of outrage here a minute ago saying that these are all false accusations about the finance minister. He does not think we should be talking about that and I can see why he does not want us to. However the member for Medicine Hat hit the nail on the head. I have asked this question of the minister during question period. It goes something like this.

The minister has registered some of his vessels offshore. They sail under the Bahamian or Panamanian flags. Why does the minister not offer tax relief for all Canadians, including himself, so that we could all keep our business in Canada instead of offshore? The Liberals get up, beat around the bush, say how indignant they are, say that it is a terrible thing to say and it hurts their feelings. I am sure they will soon sue us for that because they like to sue as soon as they get into a bit of heat. In essence it is a fair question. The question is exactly that. There is nothing wrong with the minister doing what he is doing.

There is a member here who cannot understand what is going on.

[An hon. member]

I have many years in provincial parliament.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley, BC]

I know she is going to sue me in a minute but if she would just let me continue to speak.

Before the member sues, just let me repeat again, there is nothing wrong or illegal with what the minister does. He is a business person. He looks at it and says “Let me see. If I register my vessel here in Canada I have to pay through the nose in taxes, registration fees, hidden taxes” and taxes below the water line no doubt. There are all kinds of taxes in Canada because the vessel is registered here. When he registers a vessel offshore, there is nothing wrong with that. I hope the member does not have an apoplexy on us here, Madam Speaker, but there is nothing wrong and I will say it again for her benefit.

What kind of message does that send to Canadians who are also looking for tax relief and do not have the advantage of an international company where they can parade some of their assets out of the country. What kind of a message does it send? It sends them the message that the finance minister knows the truth, that taxes in Canada are way too high.

The taxes here are a disincentive for investment. The taxes here do not create wealth. They suck the wealth out of the economy. The taxes here in Canada mean that the average family in British Columbia spends $28,000 or more just paying taxes to governments. How are they supposed to plan for their kids' education, put a little money aside for retirement and maybe if they are lucky have a holiday every decade or two?

How are they supposed to get investments going on their own to start a small business, an in home business, or to invest in mutual funds and take advantage of any of those things? They cannot because they are so busy paying taxes to all levels of government.

With this government the Hoover sound can be heard across the land from the minister opposite. There have been 37 tax increases since the Liberals took power. There were many more in the 35th Parliament that we did not even get into. Every single time the inflation rate goes up even a couple of per cent, does the government change the personal exemption amounts, the bracket creep? It just cuts right in and sucks a little more out. You can hear the slurping noise as the economy gets sucked dry and the initiative gets sucked dry and the entrepreneurs head south or east to anywhere where tax relief is possible. Is it any wonder that the finance minister does what he does. He does what he has to to get ahead.

I face this time and again in my own riding. My riding includes the Sumas border crossing which is one of the busier crossings in Canada. Between the United States and Canada there are billions of dollars of trade per day, not all through Sumas, but in total.

People bring a tale of woe to my office that goes something like this. They say “Listen. I was down in the United States and they gave me the following deal. All the other prices are much the same but you know their other taxes are much lower. I do not have to pay the sales tax. I do not have to pay all the hidden taxes along the way. It is cheaper to buy the same product down in Washington state even with the exchange rate as it is, than it is to buy it at my local store because the taxes in Canada are too high”.

What am I supposed to say to a young couple who is trying to get ahead, to feed their kids and do all that stuff? Do I say “Listen here young man, I expect you to pay through the nose. Forget looking after your family. Forget planning for your future. Forget about your children's education. Pay through the nose and pay it here in Canada because that is what makes Canada great”. Because I fear for my own safety, I do not say that. I say “Yes, is it not too bad that in Canada our taxes chase your money out of town and out of the country”.

I tell them to please shop Canadian if they can and all that good stuff. However that couple is struggling and when they come in with their hands held out, what do I say to them? I tell them that they are responsible for their family and they should do what they have to do. That is what the finance minister does when he looks after his business, which is in a blind trust, but it registers vessels offshore. This is not illegal and nothing is technically wrong with this.

Why is it happening? It is happening because taxes in Canada are too high. Registration fees are too high. Regulations are too onerous and too difficult. That is why those things happen.

The government across the way would be well advised to take a look around the world and see how we compare tax wise with the other developed countries. Our income tax rates are 50% higher than the G-7 average. Does that not strike a little bit of fear into the Liberals' little cold economic hearts? Does it not make them think that perhaps they could kill the goose that laid the golden egg if they just taxed it long enough?

Do the Liberals not understand the old parable of the little red hen? We keep beating that little red hen on the head with a tax booklet. The chain drags out for dozens of metres behind the poor person who is trying to get ahead, sucking their energy and distracting them. They finally ask themselves what the point is of even trying because they have all this weight dragging them down in the income tax system, the regulatory system and the bureaucracy that this government seems to promote. They finally realize they cannot cut the chains because the government keeps adding more books on the end of this ever loving thing. It becomes the chain from hell. It just goes on and on off into the distance taking the energy out of the system. They finally wish they too could go to the Bahamas, register there and get ahead.

That is why this amendment in not so nice a way tweaks the nose of the government to point out why this is a problem for Canadians. High taxes kill incentive, kill jobs and kill the future for not only people raising families now but for future generations to come. That is why this government would be well advised to listen up during today's debate, quit adding more taxes to the system and allow Canadians the opportunity to get ahead the way they should, which is without government help but without government hindrance.

I wish the government would listen up and support this amendment during the vote that we will have later this evening.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

It being 2 p.m., the House will now proceed to Statements by Members pursuant to Standing Order 31.

Nowrooz

[Stan Dromisky, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Atikokan, ON]

Madam Speaker, last Saturday, March 21, was the first day of spring. At least 10 nations celebrate nature's rebirth and renewal on this day. This celebration is referred to as Nowrooz and it is commemorated in one way or another in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Khazakistan, Pakistan, Ozbekistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia and Georgia.

This traditional celebration is rooted in the ancient Persian civilization. As nature renews itself and prepares to bloom the people contemplate new efforts for a more promising future.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all nations celebrating Nowrooz, especially all those Canadians commemorating this holiday. May this new time of the year bring productivity, growth and great health to all.

British Columbia

[Gurmant Grewal, Reform, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this following is a list of reasons why British Columbians ignore the Liberals.

The Liberals leave B.C. under-represented in the Senate. They will not let B.C. elect our senators.

The Liberals are killing B.C.'s salmon fishery, mining industry, tourism industry and softwood lumber industry. They are killing jobs in B.C.

The Liberals have cut transfer payments affecting B.C.'s education and health services. They do not give B.C. our fair share of government contracts.

The Liberals will not get tough on crime. They leave B.C.'s streets and homes unsafe.

The Liberals are killing B.C. with high taxes.

They shutdown B.C.'s coast guard. They turned off B.C.'s lighthouses.

The Liberals closed CFB Chilliwack and left us without emergency preparedness.

The Liberals have ignored British Columbia and British Columbia will ignore the Liberals.