Debates of March 2nd, 1999

Government Response To Petitions

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to three petitions.

Petitions

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present two petitions today signed by a number of Canadians, including those from my own riding of Mississauga South.

The first petition has to do with human rights. The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that abuse of human rights continues to be rampant around the world in countries such as Indonesia.

They also point out that Canada continues to be recognized as the champion of human rights internationally. Therefore the petitioners call upon Canada to continue to condemn human rights violations and also to seek to bring to justice those responsible for such abuses.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is probably one of my favourite petitions. It has to do with the family.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for pre-school children is an honourable profession which has not been recognized for its value to our society.

They also point out that the Income Tax Act discriminates against families who choose to provide direct parental care to pre-school children, the chronically ill, the aged or the disabled.

The petitioners therefore call upon parliament to eliminate such tax discrimination and to provide incentives and tax breaks for families who choose to provide direct parental care for pre-school children, the chronically ill, the aged or the disabled.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from February 18 consideration of the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government; and of the amendment.

The Budget

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Langley—Abbotsford.

It is certainly a pleasure to talk about the pay-more, get-less budget of this year. I really want to touch on three things. First, I would like to talk about what I found out from my constituents this past week, having a week to talk to so many of them.

Second, I would like to talk about some young people who took out their paycheques, looked at the reductions on them and started to ask some pretty serious questions.

Third, I would like to talk about where Canada really sits in the world and what is happening to our country.

I had the opportunity to talk to four different service clubs, to a high school, to a senior citizens' home, to a couple of town hall meetings and to a chamber of commerce. Pretty well everywhere I went I found a major concern about taxes, about health care and a real disappointment that here it is again: we are paying more, we are getting less, our health care system is in crisis and yet we are being asked to pay more and more taxes year after year.

They also talked about the dollar and how the dollar was not worth what it used to be. They talked about how concerned they were about their jobs, about their initiative and the destruction of that initiative by a budget such as this.

Canadian productivity is suffering and has been on the decline now for some 30 years. That is a message to which certainly the government has failed to react.

There is the loss of brain power. Young people are saying “If it does not get better I will have to leave this country”. I can identify with that, having had three of our family leave this country for that reason.

I have a son who teaches at Princeton. He was a Rhodes scholar who could not get a job in Canada. I have a daughter who is an architect in Norway. She could not get a job in Canada. I have a young daughter who was recruited to Holland. She was offered a scholarship because she could not get one in Canada.

That is what we are finding. That is the kind of thing we heard from the young people in high schools and colleges as we travelled the country.

We talked about paycheques. What are we getting from the deductions on the paycheques? Again it is pay more, get less. We have less health care. We have an EI system that is just not working.

Young people are saying that they cannot even make a claim. They are asking what the EI deduction is for. The average employee is paying $350 per year more than what this system needs. The employer is paying $500. There is a huge surplus which is thrown into general revenue and 40% or less can actually collect EI payments. They know that and they are upset by it.

Canada pension, 9.9%: It has gone up in the last two years and will go up for the next three. That was socialism of the 1960s and the state centred system that was to provide everything to everyone. Young people are saying they do not trust that system will be there for them and that the costs are just too high.

As far as income tax is concerned, it is pay more and get less. With bracket creep 2.5 million more Canadians will be in a higher tax bracket. This mainly affects low and middle income people, and that is most Canadians.

The result is that young people see no hope in the country. Small businesses see no reason why they should grow and provide jobs. There is no incentive because of a budget like the one we have just seen.

I would like to concentrate on our position in the world. Where are we in the world? I have been fortunate to have been travelling for close to 40 years. I have travelled to just about every country in the world. This past year I have been in countries like China, India, Pakistan, Paris, London and and Norway. Everywhere I go I get the feeling that Canada is falling behind. Canada's influence is not what it used to be. We are in trouble, no matter how we look at it from an international perspective.

Last summer I spent two days at the OECD in Paris asking what was wrong with Canada, what was happening to the country we are so proud of and want to see prosper? They said, if they had to summarize it, that there were three issues. One was the debt. No country can have a debt to GDP ratio like Canada has and expect to succeed.

Second, we cannot have taxes like we have. We cannot have corporate and personal taxes at the level we have in Canada and expect people to have initiative and expect productivity to increase.

Third, and most important of all, we do not have a plan. Our government does not know where it is going in three months, in three years, in thirty years. There is no plan. The government goes from pillar to post and we get a budget like the one we are talking about here.

As a result our dollar is dropping. As a result our percentage of the world GDP is now 2.3%. Twenty years ago it was 5% of the world GDP. That is a dramatic decline in Canada's influence in the world.

The Canadian government is in a state of denial. The Liberals love to brag. They want to keep their spirits high. They allege that we are the top country in the world based on the UN human development index, which most experts say is an economic hoax. By dreaming we are number one, they fail to realize the kind of economic decline the country is in.

The World Bank says that our standard of living and prosperity has dropped from third to twelfth place in the past 10 years. We are the only country in the top 13 industrialized countries that has undergone such a decline. That hits home and that hits home hard. Those are hard, cold facts.

Canada has been displaced by nine countries in the last 10 years: Kuwait, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Norway, Belgium, Austria, Denmark and the United Arab Emirates.

Let us look at the real indicators of what is happening to us. We can look at unemployment. Let us compare our unemployment at 8% to 9% to that of our neighbours with whom we compete. They are at 4.3%. This shows a decline in our economic performance. We all know that the level of unemployment is higher if we consider the discouraged unemployed workers who are no longer searching for jobs and the many involuntary part time workers. In a healthy economy there is virtually full employment. There are jobs for everyone and certainly they are full time jobs.

I have mentioned the Canadian dollar. Those who do not realize what has happened can travel anywhere in the world and see what they can buy with the Canadian dollar. On taxes, pay more and get less; $2,020 more in taxes in the last six years. Taxes kill jobs. Taxes kill incentive.

I could talk about the debt and the size of government, but in conclusion basically our productivity is falling. Our standard of living is falling. Our unemployment rate is double that of our U.S. cousins. As well, we have the highest taxes in the industrialized world.

The government has nothing to be proud of in the budget. It is a budget of pay more and get less, and the Canadian public will suffer from it.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the member's speech very much. Would he care to reflect on the difference between the economy of Alberta and the economy of Canada and perhaps draw conclusions about why the economy in Alberta continues to surge ahead while the economy in Canada languishes? Our place in the world has diminished over the last several years.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I come from central Alberta which has seven world scale petrochemical developments. There are 11 quarter sections of land being developed in housing. There has been a huge increase in what is happening.

I meet with the executives of those companies. I welcome them and ask them why they are there. The reasons are low feedstock costs, less government, and the efficiency and productivity opportunities in that community. The advantages are obvious.

They could go to the gulf coast. They could go to Saudi Arabia. However they have chosen Alberta because it is a place where taxes are low, government interference is much less, and people have an incentive to do much better. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Alberta. I am afraid that what we have here does nothing but kill it. That is the big problem.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member make clear to those watching and the few on the other side who are listening today the issue the government keeps bragging about, that it has balanced the books and got rid of the deficit?

[An hon. member]

Yeah.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Already we hear a yeah over there. Would the member for Red Deer tell us what the cost has been to Canadian taxpayers? What is the effect of balancing the books and the bragging that goes on over there?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

A million and a half jobs.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

One member over there says a million and a half jobs. I would like the hon. member to reflect the reality in balancing the books.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the government has played a shell game. There is not a lot of honesty. It is a pretty deceitful thing to brag about.

EI payments have been overcollected. They have taken close to $15 billion and thrown them into general revenues. They have kept their bureaucracy as large as ever. They continue to shuffle money from one portfolio to another. Money moves back and forth under one shell, then under another and back to the other. Basically they have bragged about this and said “Look at the wonderful job we are doing”.

Business knows and the average taxpayer knows that they are not better off today. Balancing the budget had to happen, but let us talk about the $580 billion debt. That debt has not gone away. The servicing of that debt is $42 billion to $43 billion a year. Let us think of what we could have if we were able to deal with that debt effectively. Putting maybe $3 billion a year on that will take forever.

It is like the OECD said. There is no plan. There is nothing here to brag about. Until we get that we will not have a productive country that does not have the figures I talked about.

It is wonderful to get rid of the deficit, but let us talk about the debt. That is the real issue.

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I read a letter from Arthur Friedrich of Calgary in the National Post who says that he and his wife are noticing that increasing taxes are preventing them from getting ahead. As a matter a fact they are going south to the United States.

He says “If I were cynical I would say the attitude of successive Canadian governments was to punish success”. Would you agree with this statement?

[The Deputy Speaker]

Would he agree with this statement.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the real point is that Canadians are getting extremely discouraged because taxes are so high. There is no incentive to let businesses grow and provide more jobs. There is no incentive for our young people to stay here. That is what we have to turn around.

People are discouraged. They are starting to ask what the government can do to fix that. That is the big question.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, something came up in the debate a few minutes ago. One of the few members opposite indicated that about 1.5 million jobs were created in our society as a result of the Liberal's balanced budget.

[An hon. member]

Yeah.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Another member sitting over there is bragging about that.

I want to put a reality test before us. For example, I heard the Prime Minister bragging six to eight months ago about how they had created many jobs. I thought I should check this out.

I checked all the provincial brag sheets, the newspapers and so on, and each province in turn was saying it created x number of jobs and that is why it is doing so well, et cetera. The Prime Minister is claiming that he created all the jobs in Canada. The provincial premiers are bragging that they created all the jobs in the country. On and on it goes. In fact the real job creator in the country is private industry.

I do not understand, for the life of me, why governments make media announcements indicating that they have created jobs. The fact of the matter is that it is private industry.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

As usual they do not like what I am saying. We will go into that in a moment.

An article appeared in the newspaper today which I want to read because it contains some important points that I will address about my situation. Anthony Ostler of Toronto wrote:

I have many beefs about how our country is being run, but having recently graduated with my MBA from Ivey in 1997, I have seen dozens of my friends participate in the “brain drain”.

This is truly a depressing sign, as I see the best talent leaving the country, and much of the mediocre talent remaining. We are rapidly becoming a second rate country.

This is from one of our young people. “Ironically, my work as a consultant takes me south of the border for more than half of the year. However, I am paid in Canada in Canadian dollars and pay taxes at the highest marginal rate. My colleagues at the same pay level in the U.S. take home much more than I do as the highest tax bracket does not kick in for them. So although my brain is being drained in the U.S., my tax dollars are still in Canada. One day this may have to change. My parents immigrated here 35 years ago when Canada was nearing its peak. Maybe I will have to pursue greener tax pastures elsewhere”.

This is a sad but true unsolicited commentary from a Toronto individual. I just picked that out of a newspaper, but we can see that every day in every province.

I remember clearly when I left my home in Nova Scotia 33 years ago. My mother who is watching today will remember. It was because there were no opportunities for jobs in Nova Scotia in 1966. Quite frankly, today the situation has not improved after all those years and successive Liberal governments. In fact, the situation has gotten worse. I can attest to that fully by having some of my young relatives live with me in western Canada because they too, although supported with a higher education from our universities, go west to get jobs. So things have not really changed that much which is very sad.

I just came back from London where I did some work with the opposition and government House leaders, whips, the House of Lords and others. In order to cut some of my costs, I stayed with two young people from Canada. They are both recent graduates of the University of Victoria. They are in England because they could not get jobs in Canada. These two well-educated young men are living not where they want to live but where they have to live. Those who know the cost of living in England can imagine that their situation there is not the best, yet they are trying to fend for themselves and exist.

It is quite appalling that members on the other side would stand and brag about jobs they have created when in fact a lot of this country's young people are going elsewhere for jobs. The tax rate is too high. Some hon. members know this. We have to deal with these issues.

My son is highly qualified as a civil engineer and a digital animator. He makes cartoons for television shows. He is attracted to the United States. They want him down there and are willing to pay him big money. Instead of the taxation rate here of above 50% for this young fellow, he can go down there and make much more money at a lower tax rate. This would give him the ability to pay off his student loans.

It is sad that members on the opposite side would try to present a facade that says Canada is in great shape because they have balanced the budget and have created x number of jobs. They are kidding themselves because this is not the case. I would doubt very much if any one of the members opposite do not know some young person who has left Canada because the cost of living and unbearable tax rate here are driving them south.

When we talk about paying more and getting less, I can only relate it to my own circumstances and the young people whom I care very much for who are paying more in this country. This government has increased the CPP premiums. They are extraordinary increases. What has the government offered these young people in return? Again, my son said to me, “Dad, there is something wrong with this. Today you get about $8,900 for CPP. These guys have just raised the rate around 70-some per cent, and they are promising that I will get about $8,600 30 years from now”. He is an engineer. He gets out his calculators and his slide rules and he says there is something wrong with this picture. And there is something wrong with this picture. It is a facade of this government.

While it is good that we are dealing in surpluses, it is not good that the tax rates were raised to get there. While it is good that there is surplus moneys to pay down the debt and to draw down the tax rates, it is not good that the government is spending it on other programs by and large to get votes and get re-elected.

This Liberal government has got the wrong attitude with this whole issue. It has a lot to do with that. It should not be about getting elected again; it should be about the future of our country. Unfortunately, we have to live with this archaic and traditional idea that we have to get money in the hands of those who can get us elected rather than pay down the debt, pay down the taxes.

There are other things I would have liked to have seen in this budget. I would have liked to have seen some mediocre attempt at the very least to deal with the sad drug problem in our country. I know the government has been talking about a drug strategy, but actually it is an overlay of the Conservative drug strategy of 1987. Very little, if anything, has been done to address that. That is a subject for another discussion because I have less than a minute to tie all this up, but I will be speaking about this shortly in the House.

Suffice it to say that as one father and one son and somebody who has seen a lot of young people leave our country, I am extremely sad to hear government members brag about the jobs the government has created. It has not created jobs unless it has been at the cost of the taxpayer. What creates jobs is private industry with a low tax rate. There are people who want to invest in our future without having to pay down debt because it was accumulated as a result of governments giving away money it could not afford.

I hope in an attempt to continue on with this discussion today the government will at least listen to what I have said.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the member. He made the comment that we should not be here doing things to get re-elected, that we should be doing what we believe is right.

I want to remind the House of the words that came from the opposition during the whole budget preparation period, in October, November and December. All we heard were comments on pepper spray, water spray, gossip on airplanes, et cetera. Not once in the fall did we have a comprehensive debate in the House on tax reform or what we should do in this year's budget. Literally this year's budget was prepared by the government with very little input from the opposition.

My question is very specific. Can we have an undertaking from the opposition, because this budget has been put to bed other than a few votes, that maybe over the next few months finally the Reform Party will get back on to its agenda of comprehensive tax reform, take it seriously, create some meaningful debate in the House and stop criticizing for the sake of criticizing?