Debates of Oct. 29th, 1999

Taxation

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, why do Reform Party members engage in their questions in acts of wilful blindness?

Their blindness prevents them from seeing that in the last two budgets we have legislated tax cuts for each and every Canadian worth billions and billions of dollars, and we will continue to do so.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is an amazing response. Every year the government takes more taxes from Canadians, up $40 billion since 1993. Canadians are suffering. They cannot make ends meet under this burdensome government tax burden.

Thirty-eight per cent of all income in the country is gobbled up by the government. How can the government stand there and continue to say that it is cutting taxes when all the time it is raising taxes? All the evidence is there. What is wrong with the government? Does it not get it?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party obviously does not get it. I challenge the member to show where in the budgets of the last two years any tax increases have been legislated.

He cannot do that when it comes to individual Canadians because the facts are that taxes have been cut and they will continue to be cut.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is truly amazing. Ask any Canadian taxpayer if they are paying more taxes today than ever before under the Liberal government. Their answer will be yes, they are.

The Liberals are ripping off $40 billion more in taxes from Canadians. If they had one good reason we could understand, but all the time they have cut health care. They have cut money for education, and now they are even refusing to help prairie farmers.

They are pretending to cut taxes but they are raising taxes. Why do they not stop pretending and start cutting taxes for real?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's questions remind me of that old song The Great Pretender . They are pretending to be concerned about ordinary Canadians. In their election platform they say they want to cut health care and they want to cut services to Canadians.

We are maintaining services to Canadians while at the same time we are in fact, in our legislation, implementing our budgets, cutting taxes for each and every Canadian. We are not pretending like the Reform Party. We are doing something solid for Canadians.

Employment Insurance

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the public accounts clearly show that the government is taking $40 billion per year more in income tax than it did in 1983. Besides this, Canadian employers and employees are being bilked to the tune of $21 billion in overpayments through the EI fund.

The finance minister has no legislative authority to take this excessive amount. He should reduce the EI premiums to $2.05 as computed by the chief actuary of the fund. I know it is tough for him, but why does the finance minister not just listen to hard pressed, long suffering, overtaxed Canadians, and stop taking—

[The Speaker]

The hon. Deputy Prime Minister.

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, if they wanted to listen to Canadians, why are they preventing Canadians from taking part in the budgetary process through their obstinate refusal to allow the finance committee to travel to hear Canadians?

We want to listen to Canadians. They want us to stifle Canadians. They are wrong. They are wrong.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, government members keep bragging that they have $4 billion from EI funds. They are saying that we should thank them for taking $21 billion instead of the $25 billion they could have taken. That is like me thanking the robber who stole $21 from my wallet because he did not take $25.

On behalf of thousands of Canadians, small business owners and employees, will they reduce the premium to $2.05 and will they do it today?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, over the past couple of decades the EI fund has gone into deficit 10 times, for a cumulative deficit of $14 billion. Guess who paid for this deficit? All Canadian taxpayers did. Look at who is benefiting today from the surplus we see there. It is all Canadian taxpayers.

We eliminated the $42 billion deficit. We gave $16.5 billion in tax cuts, $11.5 billion extra for health care, and $10 billion extra for innovation, research and development. This is the balanced approach we have adopted.

Air Transportation

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we were convinced that it was in June that the Minister of Transport had set up the conditions that would allow Onex to take over the Canadian airline industry by making an illegal bid.

This morning, we learned that Onex was already worried on May 10 about the stir its bid might cause and suggested that the announcement be made during the parliamentary recess.

Had the government already told Onex in May that its announcement would cause the government embarrassment?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, it is very simple. We began a process to encourage private sector solutions to the problem of our airlines. This process has already resulted in at least two bids, which are now being considered by the airlines' shareholders.

Once they have made their decision, we will do our job of examining the bids and making decisions that will be in the public interest, the interest of all Canadians.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Transport learned to his sorrow when he was the Minister of National Defence, memos are helpful in understanding the decision making process.

Already on February 19, Onex was thinking about buying Air Canada shares and subsequently having the 10% rule suspended.

What sort of links exist between Onex, its president Gerry Schwartz—a contributor to Liberal Party coffers—and the government that Onex would undertake an operation, assuming from the word go that an act of parliament would be very easily amended?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport was very clear when he appeared before the Standing Committee on Transport: we have made no decision to change the 10% rule.

We are prepared to consider the situation in light of the recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Transport. We will not give preference to any of the bids to merge the airlines, but we are prepared to act in the public interest.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday the Minister of Transport said the following in this House “If I had not make a commitment on behalf of the government yesterday to consider raising the 10% limit, that would have favoured one other proposition. I certainly would have been biased in that case”.

Can the Minister of Transport, who stage-managed this incredible sequence of events, indicate which of the two players, Onex or Air Canada, would have been the loser?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member has misquoted the Minister of Transport.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Windsor West, ON]

He did not promise to raise the 10% limit, he merely said that he would consider the situation in light of the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Transport, especially in the public interest.

As the Minister of Transport has said, he has no desire to favour one side over the other in the airline merger. We are prepared to act when the time is right—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Laval Centre.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, despite his political savvy, the Deputy Prime Minister can also make mistakes. I would point out to him that I have quoted Wednesday's Hansard word for word.

Had the minister chosen to respect the law and remain silent, can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us which one of the two would have gained from it, Air Canada or Onex?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that we have not made a decision in favour of either Onex or Air Canada at this time. We are awaiting decisions by the shareholders of the two airlines, and we shall respect the process.

We are going to respect the fact that the Standing Committee on Transport will be sitting again, and I repeat that we are prepared to act when the time is right, in the interests of all Canadians.

Agriculture

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister of Canada ambushed the premiers of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, saying he had new numbers that showed the farm crisis was not as bad as thought on the prairies. Yet he would not reveal those numbers publicly to the premiers or anybody else in the country.

I want the Prime Minister to make a commitment to table those numbers in the House or, better yet, to come out to Saskatchewan and Manitoba and give the numbers to the people. If he does not do that, is he saying that these are phantom numbers which do not exist?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, there has been no ambushing or sandbagging, in the language the NDP likes to use.

As part of the normal activity of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada working in co-operation with provincial agricultural officials in the various provinces, there is a regular updating of all farm income numbers. That work is ongoing as it normally would be, not just every year but particularly in a year like this one where there is a farm income problem of very serious proportions. The work on those numbers, as I understand it, is not fully complete.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want a commitment from the government that when those numbers are complete it will table them in the House.

I would also like to know why, at the same time the Prime Minister says the numbers are improving, the situation is getting better. The Canadian Wheat Board revised its predictions for prices this year and dropped those predictions by 4% or 5%, which means the situation is getting worse, not better?

How could the government be so out of touch when the Prime Minister is saying that things are getting better on one hand and the wheat board on the other hand says things are getting worse?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the work on the statistics is done jointly by the federal government and the provinces, it is obviously a very open and transparent process.

With respect to the advised PRO projection as it is called, from the Canadian Wheat Board, that would apply to the year 2000 taxation year, not to 1999. In fact, in 1999 within the last week the Canadian Wheat Board has been able to announce an interim payment on the 1998-99 crop year and as of this morning, an adjustment payment on the 1999-2000 year.