Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take part in this Bloc supply day motion although I admit I have a little trouble understanding exactly what the Bloc is asking for.
I see it has tied the issue of child poverty into the whole aspect of globalization and the multilateral agreement on investment and I want to deal with those issues in their own right. But it seems there is a problem right from the very beginning with this motion because I do not believe that they are related.
I believe it is clear the Liberals are mishandling the economy. Poverty still exists in Canada where it should not exist. I also believe that child poverty cannot be disassociated from poverty in families. If we correct that with family members having the opportunity to work and have well paying jobs it will go a long way to correct that problem.
I also believe the Liberal government is mishandling the MAI. Today the minister is over at the OECD in Paris putting the deep six on the MAI at the same time as the Prime Minister is in Cuba talking about signing an investment agreement with Cuba of all places.
Cuba expropriated all Canadian and foreign investment in Cuba and the Prime Minister is now talking about signing an investment agreement with that country and putting a deep freeze on the multilateral agreement on investment which would help a lot of Canadian companies and therefore a lot of Canadian workers and their children because there are a lot of high paying jobs. It seems to me there is a problem.
My colleague from Calgary Centre will be speaking more on the aspect of child poverty and what can be done but I want to raise a couple of things.
The Reform Party believes it is important for all families in Canada to have the opportunity to work in meaningful and well paying jobs. We think that through proper government this can happen. It is absolutely deplorable to still have Canadians paying income tax in Canada when they are making $15,000 a year. That is simply not acceptable. There are 2.6 million Canadians in that category we believe should be taken off the tax rolls altogether and be given an opportunity to keep some of their hard earned money.
I want to raise the question of the role of government. The NDP and the Bloc would have us believe the role of government is interventionist. We have seen that from the Liberal Party in the past. For about the last 30 years we have had a very interventionist government in Canada, social engineering. Some would have us withdraw and form an isolationism in the world. Some would have us put up big tariff barriers again that existed from Sir John A. Macdonald's time. However, I do not believe that would serve Canada very well. I think we can look at the example of Atlantic Canada to point out that it has not worked very well.
Prior to Confederation Canada had several areas of the country that were doing pretty well. Atlantic Canada had a very healthy trade relationship with the New England states. It was in close proximity with an existing natural trade corridor.
Confederation came along and Sir John A. Macdonald instituted his national policy of high tariffs meant to direct the flow of goods and services east and west. What did that do to Atlantic Canada? It became dependent over a period of time on things like unemployment insurance, regional development grants and welfare because the central part of the country was draining it. The barriers meant that it could not trade effectively with New England states any more.
I think it has been demonstrated worldwide that barriers do not work. Any country that has even unilaterally dismantled barriers to trade has benefited. Therefore we need to foster a better environment for our Canadian companies to do well. By doing that, workers in those Canadian companies are going to do well and have high paying jobs.
Our committee did a study on small and medium size enterprises in international trade. We heard testimony that the environment for business in Canada to do well is not good at all. Witnesses said we are not internationally competitive because we are paying very high taxes. Canadians still have the highest tax rates in the G-8. We have a lot of regulation that is hard to overcome. We heard from one company that said it was easier to do business by moving out of its home base in Ontario to Illinois and then ship its product back into Canada. This was easier than shipping across Canadian provincial borders. That simply is not good enough.
I believe because we have had interventionist governments we have $600 billion worth of debt, debt that has made the Canadian taxpayer have to pay one-third of every tax dollar to Ottawa just to pay the interest on the debt. It is just like digging a hole in the ground. These types of governments that have intervened in the economy and in our personal lives have caused this to happen.
We just have to think of all the companies that have been privatized in the last few years that were on the government gravy train needing big subsidies every year to exist. CN Rail is now making a profit. Air Canada is now making a profit. Petro-Canada is now making a profit. All these companies were draining Canadian taxpayers.
Canadian airports are functioning on their own and doing well. A small airport in Peace River, which was turned over to the community in the last two years, is doing very well and is actually making money. Prior to that it took $400,000 of taxpayers' money every year to keep that airport in business.
The interventionist government, which brought us the national energy program and FIRA, the Foreign Investment Review Agency that discouraged investment in Canada, intervened not only in the economy, in our personal lives, but in provincial areas of jurisdiction such as education, housing, tourism and job training, causing duplication in governments.
Why is it that with such a great country we have areas in Canada where there are unemployment rates of 60%? It simply is not acceptable. It is the debt load given to us by interventionist governments which have caused these rates. As I said, 2.65 million people earn less than $15,000 a year and still have to pay taxes to the federal government. It is not acceptable. We have to get our house in order first.
The social engineering of the past has given us employment insurance. Some 25 different regions of the country qualify for employment insurance because of different criteria. For the last 30 years employment insurance has had 5% higher rates than those of the United States year in and year out. We can chart it. We can plot it. They have gone up and down but are 5% higher than those of the United States. Why is that? It is because of interventionist governments doing social engineering.
This brings me to the aspect of the motion today which deals with globalization in the MAI. My party and I believe that Canada needs a liberalized trade and investment regime if it is to prosper.
For the first time in 1998 the amount of Canadian investment outside Canada has exceeded the amount of foreign investment in Canada. It is a trend that has been happening for the last four or five years. This says something about a new found confidence of Canadians seeking the big market out there.
There are 30 million people who think the Canadian market is too small and want to take advantage of the world. We have many things to offer, so if we are to trade with these countries, as we are, in many cases it will require Canadians to make investments.
Which multinational Canadian companies are out there investing? They are companies that are home grown. They have Canadians working for them here at home. There are investments from the pension funds of Canadians in those companies. They are publicly traded. We have mutual funds. We have RRSPs invested in these Canadian companies. It is in our interests that they do well. They need the protection of some base rules of investment and we can do it more than one way.
The MAI should be allowed to die. The trade minister seems to be allowing it to be put into a deep coma at the OECD. We can sign bilateral investment agreements to achieve the same end. We have done quite a bit of that in the past. We also have an investment agreement with the United States and Mexico in NAFTA that governs 70% of investment in Canada already. That will not change whether or not we have the MAI.
We can continue down that road, but there are something like 1,600 investment agreements worldwide. It would be a simpler process to have one that we could all look at and say here are the simple rules for investment in the same way as we have had rules for trade in goods for 50 years. If we do not want to do that we do not have to.
The member for Lac-Saint-Jean in a symbolic act the other day took his seat from the House of Commons and got a little publicity from it. It says a little more than that. It says something about a party that wants to withdraw from Canada and to put borders around Canada, to have an isolation policy. That simply does not work.
A lot of change is happening in Canada. All of us have difficulty with change, but we cannot freeze a certain section of our lives and say we want to stay at 30 years old. Change is something that happens to us all the time. Trade and investment are like riding a bike. If we stop peddling we will fall off and I do not think we will be served very well.
I cannot support the motion although there are certain aspects concerning child poverty that are important to deal with through well paying jobs.