Debates of May 31st, 2000

Canada Labour Code

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter this final stage of debate on Bill C-12, a bill that we have all watched with great interest. There has been great interest from labour, management and government in a truly tripartite way to deal with the issues of the bill and to move it forward within this session. I am very appreciative of that and of having the opportunity to debate the bill today, prior to the House adjourning for the summer.

All Canadians agree that no one should be injured, butchered, maimed or killed in a workplace on behalf of some arbitrary production schedule. It would be crazy to indicate otherwise. Canadians are justifiably shocked and horrified when they hear of people being injured, butchered, killed or poisoned on the job. They feel very passionately about this subject.

We all agree that Canadians get up in the morning and go to work to earn a living, not to be killed. “It is your life and you should not leave work without it” is the motto we use in the labour movement. Yet, given that commonly shared sensibility, in Canada three people per day are killed at work. Almost 1,000 people per year die an avoidable and needless death in the workplace. Beyond that, every year over one million people suffer some form of lost time due to accident injuries which prevent them from doing their job.

Aside from all the moral and ethical reasons for cleaning up the workplace and putting an end to this carnage, there is an economic side to it. There is a very practical side to why Canadian industry, Canadians in general and the Government of Canada should be very concerned about lost time due to accidents and injuries, and that is productivity.

If Canada is so concerned about being competitive internationally and keeping the levels of productivity high, surely we would want to address the issue of lost time due to injuries and accidents in the workplace. We are seeing a shared interest in addressing that concern.

By way of illustration, in my province of Manitoba we lose approximately 50,000 person days per year due to strikes and lockouts, due to labour unrest. During that same period of time we lose 550,000 person days per year due to injuries incurred from accidents on the job. If we are serious about productivity and lost time as an issue, surely we are better to address that concern and clean up the workplace when, clearly, ten times as many days are lost due to injuries than to any kind of labour unrest.

Bill C-12, as has been pointed out by other speakers today, was the result of many years of broad consultation by business, labour and government. The lamentable thing about us dealing with it today is that it should have been dealt with years ago. The tripartite working group that arrived at the recommendations to amend part II of the Canada Labour Code prepared its consensus document years ago and was just waiting for the government to move it forward.

All of these issues were dealt with at the committee, and I believe there was a lot of goodwill at that committee. I know people who sat on that committee for many years. People were very generous in their co-operative approach. Like any negotiations and bargaining sessions, people arrived with firm opinions on each side, but they tempered their demands with reason and, over a period of time, over an exhaustive series of meetings and a huge contribution made by all who took part, they honed down those positions to round out the package which we now see before us.

They were negotiations in the truest sense of the word. I think that serves as a model for creating legislation like this. This kind of legislation should be non-partisan. It should be dealt with in a way that is non-confrontational. What could be more important and what could be more realistic than the safety of Canadian workers in the workplace?

This process certainly should be commented upon and should be applauded. This is how this type of legislation should be crafted in the future. It should stand as a model.

Bill C-12 has many good qualities. I sit as a member of the executive council of the Canadian Labour Congress. All of the affiliate members of the Canadian Labour Congress have had a great deal of input and opportunity to review these amendments. They feel that for the membership they represent this bill has a great deal of merit and it will make Canadian workplaces safer.

Some of the qualities have been pointed out by other speakers. I do not think it is necessary for me to itemize on a clause by clause basis what we like about the bill, but I will say briefly that the bill really emphasizes three things about workers in the Canadian workplace.

First, it emphasizes, establishes and augments a worker's right to know about hazards in the workplace. That is key and fundamental. Workers have a right to know what they are dealing with, what products they are dealing with, and any inherent dangers they may be faced with.

Beyond that, because of the increasingly complex workplaces we are representing, sometimes the compounding of materials influences the different properties they are dealing with. For instance, a person may be working with chemical A which is completely benign and chemical B which is completely benign, but when the two of them are mixed together in the kidneys they blow up into chemical C , making for a very sick person.

Workers have a right to know and that is why, under this legislation, there is a system called WHMIS, the workplace hazardous material information system. Any worker has the right to ask for and be given the exact composition of the materials they are dealing with and any inherent problems that may arise.

The second thing which Bill C-12 will establish in part II of the Canada Labour Code is the right to take part in correcting those hazards. In other words, the right to sit on workplace safety and health committees. It is mandated by the Canada Labour Code that these committees will be formed and that they will be charged with a mandate. Their powers and their authority have been augmented by Bill C-12, which is a very positive step.

The third fundamental employee right that is recognized and institutionalized in part II of the Canada Labour Code is the right to refuse. A person has the right to know what the hazards are, the right to participate in correcting those hazards, and the right to refuse unsafe work. It is one of the most basic, fundamental rights and freedoms that we have to withhold services if we feel strongly enough that something will pose a danger to ourselves and our fellow workers.

Bill C-12 strengthens and emphasizes the worker's right to refuse and the protections for both the employer and the employee.

We sought amendments to Bill C-12. The spirit of co-operation extended beyond the tripartite working group to those of us who came later as critics in this field. We agreed that we would not introduce any amendments which went beyond the tripartite agreement and consensus building process. The only amendments we sought were where we thought the language was unclear or ambiguous, or if in our opinion the article did not accurately reflect the consensus position of the committee, and there were some cases like that, or if the article was brand new and we felt it was arbitrarily put in place by government without ever going by the tripartite process.

We found it necessary to ask for amendments in two or three areas, and I am pleased to report today that we got co-operation from the committee to amend Bill C-12 in three important areas.

We eliminated the definition of health altogether. We felt it was better off to rely on standard definitions of health found elsewhere than it was to have what we thought was poor language in the definition of health within the bill.

We managed to delete a clause which dealt with mandatory medical examinations and testing. We felt this was an infringement of basic human rights and workers' rights, that they do not have to participate in those things unless they are voluntary.

We succeeded in clarifying when an employee would be disciplined for making a right to refuse unsafe work action when it was not warranted. In other words, if it can be demonstrated that the employee acted in a malicious or vexatious way and was pulling a right to refuse, or misusing his or her right to refuse, then we agree that some discipline would be warranted. However, we want it clarified that the burden of proof and the onus has to be on the employer to demonstrate that the employee willingly and willfully abused his or her right and that there was malice and mischief associated with it.

All three of those amendments add to the quality of Bill C-12. We have probably saved ourselves a fortune in arbitrations and court challenges based on the language of those three amendments that we made. All of them would have been challenged extensively had they gone through unamended.

Again, it is an example of how the system works. If we bring things to the attention of people who genuinely care about a bill, they will respond in a reasonable way. We are very pleased that the committee co-operated with us.

Some things still need to be done. Unfortunately we are very critical that we were unable to amend the appeal process. The joint labour-management working tripartite committee all agreed that there should be a two stage appeal process and an arm's length process to distance it from the bureaucracy and the department. We did not achieve that. What went forward in Bill C-12 is an appeal process which we believe is flawed and we hope there will be an opportunity to revisit this process in the very near future.

We hope that Bill C-12 will be passed so that its many good qualities will be implemented, but we look forward to and serve notice that we will be seeking to improve the appeal process at the earliest opportunity.

Another poignant issue comes to mind when we are dealing with the issue of workplace safety and health. It may be beyond the scope of Bill C-12, but our legal opinions have it that it could have been addressed within the purview of Bill C-12; that is, the recommendations of the Westray inquiry as they apply to introducing the concept of corporate accountability.

In other words, if there is gross negligence in a workplace to the point where it kills Canadian workers, if corporate greed leads to corporate murder, then there should be corporate accountability. This was the recommendation of Justice Peter Richard of the Westray inquiry in November 1997. This ruling is almost three years old and we have been calling upon the government to take action to implement the recommendations of the Westray inquiry along those lines.

I should point out that in the next two weeks every member of parliament will be visited by members of the United Steelworkers of America who are on the Hill, to their credit, to represent the families of the 26 Westray miners who met their death at the Westray disaster. They, too, are here to appeal to parliament to do this one thing. Our goal and objective is not to put executives into prison. It is to make them take note that for any enterprise over which they have direction and control, they have an obligation and responsibility to do at least the minimum required by law to ensure that their enterprise is clean, safe, healthy and does not pose a threat to Canadian workers.

We were joined at our press conference with the steelworkers on Monday by Robert Ellis, a businessman from Burlington, Ontario, whose son, 18-year old David Ellis, was killed on his second day at work in a bread mixing machine at a small privately owned bakery. It was a high school job and he would have gone to university the following fall. He was pulled into the mixing machine and killed in a tragic accident.

We believe in that case, where such gross negligence killed a Canadian worker, that it was corporate manslaughter, and we are not afraid to call it that.

I have another example in my own riding where a chop shop or scrap metal yard often hires young summer students. One summer student was hired, given an acetylene torch and told to cut some 45 gallon drums in half. You and I know, Mr. Speaker, if a 45 gallon drum has any fumes left in it then it is not an oil drum anymore, it is a bomb. This kid was killed also on the second or third day on the job. These things do happen in the workplace. I am not raising them to be romantic or to make the argument with any kind of cheap points. I am just saying that three times a day these things happen in Canadian workplaces and sometimes there is negligence that warrants criminal charges, not just charges under the Canada Labour Code but charges under the Criminal Code of Canada.

The analogy we often use is that if we drink a bottle of whisky and jump behind the wheel of our car and kill somebody, we are not just charged under the Motor Vehicle Act, we do not just pay a fine and lose our licence under the Motor Vehicle Act, we will be charged under the Criminal Code of Canada for gross criminal negligence. The same, we argue, should apply in the case of the workplace.

All Canadians were horrified when 26 miners died at the Westray disaster, but I think most of us were even more horrified to learn that under the current criminal code the crown prosecutors in Nova Scotia had no choice but to stay the charges. They could not make the charges stick because under the current criminal code it does not contemplate the idea of corporate manslaughter or corporate killing, and this needs to be done.

Motion No. 79 put forward by the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough clearly articulated this in a very brief and straight to the point manner. His motion called for the House of Commons to implement the recommendations of the Westray inquiry as put forward by Justice Peter Richard. The motion passed in the House by a vote of 216 to 15, all party support. Everyone, except for 15 individuals, agreed that was exactly what the House of Commons should do.

That motion was agreed to months ago and now the Minister of Justice tells us that it is before the justice committee. Between members, myself and the fence post, it is not before the justice committee. I have talked to all members on the justice committee who I could track down and the motion has never been mentioned at the justice committee. It is not on the agenda and there is no plan to put it on the agenda as far as anybody can ascertain.

The United Steelworkers of America are on the Hill today and will be on the Hill for the rest of this week and all of next week. They will be visiting every member of parliament urging us to show the collective will to implement or introduce these changes during this session of the House so that they can bring some closure to that tragedy. Hopefully we can motivate boards of directors and heads of corporations to take more of an interest in workplace safety and health of any enterprise under which they have direction and control to at least go through the basic motions of providing a clean, healthy and safe work environment for the workers they represent.

All Canadians deserve the protective umbrella of workplace safety and health legislation. Parliament Hill has the only group of workers who are specifically denied by legislation the right of access to any workplace safety and health legislation. These workers are covered by the Parliamentary Employment Staff Relations Act. The Mulroney government allowed these employees the right to collective bargaining during their tenure but failed to proclaim part III of the Parliamentary Employment Staff Relations Act. Part I received proclamation, which gave employees industrial bargaining rights. Part II received proclamation. Part III, the chapter dealing with workplace safety and health, was never proclaimed. These employees now have no workplace safety and health protection whatsoever.

I wrote the Minister of Labour asking her to bring to cabinet the idea of giving part III of the Parliamentary Employment Staff Relations Act royal proclamation or recommending it, completing it and making it law. This would provide parliamentary employees, the ones we deal with everyday, the guys who drive the little green buses, access to workplace safety and health legislation as well.

I think it is important for us to do that and I think most members, if they were made aware of the situation, would also agree that it is important. I am only talking about 500 or so individuals but it is 500 people who have been specifically denied any kind of workplace safety and health committee, any avenues of recourse if they are injured on the job, et cetera.

Bill C-12 is a worthwhile piece of legislation. Every industrial sector in the federal jurisdiction welcomes it. We want speedy passage of it, but all of the best legislation in the world is completely useless without enforcement, enforcement, enforcement. It is like real estate: location, location, location. It has to be enforced.

The fact is that workplace inspections are way down. The number of workplace inspectors in the field are way down and therefore prosecutions are down. All of that has been allowed to slide a great deal. We would call for the government to not only pass Bill C-12 but to show a real commitment in the enforcement of Bill C-12 when it enters into the federal sector.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, The Environment; the hon. member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, Employment Insurance.

[Janko Peric, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre mentioned that there should be a two stage bill process. Could the member be a little more specific and describe what the first and second stages of the bill process should be?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the tripartite joint labour-management-government working group recommended that there be a two tier system and that the system should be as follows: the first stage of appeal would be to the RSO, the regional safety officer. In other words, the RSO would make a directive to an employer or an employee. Either of those could then appeal and ask them to review the direction that was given.

If the directive still stands, then the next stage of appeal would be to the CIRB, the Canada Industrial Relations Board, where a three part panel would then review the matter, and hopefully that panel would have expertise in workplace safety and health.

Currently in Bill C-12 that whole process has been tossed to the side. It put in place an appeals officer who works for the department and is in fact an employee of the department. What we really have, in a way, is the fox watching the hen house, because we are filing our appeal in a single stage to the same people who issued the directive that we are appealing with no further outside arm's length appeal option.

Everybody involved, from the FEDCO federal employers, to the Canadian Labour Congress and all the unions affiliated, agree that they want an arm's length appeal heard by a third party like the CIRB not by an appeals officer who actually works for the department.

[Norman E. Doyle, Progressive Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my good friend and colleague from Saint John.

It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the PC Party, to say a few words on Bill C-12, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code.

I have to confess that I have very little new to say about this bill given the fact that this will be the third time, I believe, I have spoken on it. We are generally in support of the bill because the goal of the legislation, as we are all very much aware, is to promote safety consciousness in the workplace and the boardroom, and to establish the rights and responsibilities of workers and management with regard to real and potential hazards in the workplace.

I do not know what could be more important for workers today than for those of us who come to parliament to bring in good, sound laws and regulations for the workers. A few minutes ago my colleague mentioned a few accidents that happened in the workplace. I know he has quite a great deal of experience in the construction industry.

I remember, having worked in that industry for a number of years, the kinds of hazards that workers generally are exposed to today.

It is very important for us to be cognizant of those facts and to make sure that the laws we bring in address the very important area of safety for people who work not only in the business or office environment but in the construction environment as well.

All in all I think the bill is a very good one. One sign of that is that we only had two amendments to vote on yesterday at report stage. Motion No. 1 was put forward by the minister to provide clearer definitions of health and the real and potential dangers to health, which my party supported.

The other amendment was from the Bloc Quebecois to allow a pregnant or nursing mother to avail herself of the provincial health and safety legislation where the legislation is better or more comprehensive. That amendment did not pass. Quite a number of concerns were voiced about it, but I will not go into them at this point.

Key to the bill is an expanded role for health and safety committees in the workplace, which envisions identifying and dealing with potential hazards and related refusals to work quickly and efficiently in the workplace.

The bill seeks a better balance among the roles of government, employers and employees in dealing with workplace problems and more emphasis on establishing rules and procedures to deal with such matters at the local level.

When a bill like this one is vetted through a number of bodies there is more likelihood that the bill will be acceptable to a broad range of people. The bill came about as a result of consultations among government, business and labour in an effort to modernize our health and safety legislation, which incidentally has not undergone an overhaul since 1985. In general the bill has significant support among the groups of people involved. As I mentioned before we support it as well.

The last time the bill came before the House I pointed out a few of our concerns. I know the minister will not be speaking again on the bill. I think there is a part III of the code to come. When the minister comes to the House with part III perhaps she could address some of the concerns we have put on record for her.

One of our concerns is the whole area of ergonomics. It is a bit vague in detail, as we said before. To the layperson ergonomics is a strange and very sophisticated sounding word. As I understand it, it is the art or science of designing or changing the workplace to minimize the risk of injury to an employee in the course of his or her normal duties.

I would assume it is based on the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It is an area we are hearing quite a great bit about today. It is an area in which the minister probably should have been more detailed. Perhaps the government intends to bring in regulations or guidelines on ergonomics, but the press kit we received on Bill C-12 is essentially silent on the issue.

Another area of workplace safety not covered in the bill is the notion of the psychological protection of the worker in the workplace: the right to work in an environment free of harassment or various types of discrimination. Such matters can cause a great deal of grief in the workplace just as easily as physical injury or the threat of physical injury. While there are protections against a worker being unfairly disciplined for reporting a potential workplace hazard, there appears to be no provision in the bill to provide for a safe psychological work environment.

I will not continue too long as the member for Saint John has some concerns with regard to appointments to various boards which the bill addresses. I commend and compliment the minister for bringing in the bill. It is a good one. I compliment her as well on the fact that labour, environment and management have been consulted widely in this regard.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member from St. John's, Newfoundland, for the opportunity to speak to the bill. I also compliment my colleague in the NDP from Winnipeg on his comments.

In today's society not too many people speak out for the men and women who work with their hands. I can relate to that. A number of workers come to see me back home. They are under tremendous stress in the workplace today because of the cutbacks that are taking place. Some of them have to work longer hours because of the cutbacks. They are having most difficult times and it is difficult for their families as well.

I know the Westray mine was referred to. That issue has tugged at the hearts of just about all of us. The wives of those miners have been to see me a number of times. Had there been proper legislation in place, possibly what happened in the Westray mine could have been prevented, and those men would still be with their families and their children.

My colleague spoke about ergonomics. He was absolutely correct. It sounds great when subsection 125(1) states that an employer shall:

—ensure that the machinery, equipment and tools used by the employees in the course of their employment meet prescribed health, safety and ergonomic standards—

It is a bit vague on detail, as was said by my colleague, and we have to look at it. We support the bill, but as my colleague from St. John's, Newfoundland, stated, there is a need to elaborate on different areas of it.

I could talk about stress and what has happened to some workers. I know of a gentleman with a wife and four children who was hurt at work. He is not an old man. He is in his late thirties. His wife brought him into my office because of what had happened to him. He was working on a piece of equipment way up in the air that broke off. He went flying through the air. He was in a wheelchair and all his body shook. His little children were crying about their dad. He could not work any more with his hands. Could he walk to work? Could he do anything? I was happy to have helped him to obtain a disability pension. He is a man in his thirties who was injured because the equipment he was working on to do his job was not safe.

I am concerned that a complaint made under this provision cannot be referred to arbitration or adjudication. Subsection 141(1) states that the minister can appoint an appeals officer to adjudicate a decision made through a local health and safety process. To some extent this is a political appointment. We have no guarantees that all ministers will be as circumspect as our current minister.

Subsection 146(3) says that the appeal officer's decision is final and cannot be reviewed by the court. I have big problems with any bill that consistently denies a citizen full access to due process.

Perhaps the minister could take a second look at it. We need that. The government should take a second look at it because it takes away the democratic process in Canada when people do not have the right to go to the court. The court is there for all Canadians. There is no process that should remove their right to go there for a final decision.

Subsection 135(1) indicates that a workplace with 20 or more employees must have a workplace health and safety committee. That is good. Yet subsection 135(2) exempts ship from being required to have such a committee. Be there 20 sailors or 200 sailors, it does not apply to ships. We have ferries. We have other ships out there. We have our coast guard. We should make sure that it applies to all of them.

Subsection 137(1) calls for the establishment of a coal mining safety commission. This commission is to be appointed by the minister. If the safety of coal miners deserves special attention, I am not sure ministerial appointments is the way to go, especially when their remuneration and expenses are to be set by cabinet.

We should take the politics out of health and safety and do what is right by putting the people in place who have the knowledge and the experience to do the job and do it right. That is what we should do for people. That is why people put us in the House of Commons. They want us to do what is right for all people. I would like to see that kind of respect for our men and women who have to work their hands.

They can make complaints to the board, which I assume means the Canadian Industrial Relations Board or the Public Service Staff Relations Board. I also assume that these boards are filled by order in council and as such are once again political appointments of the government in power. I hope the minister can provide us with the listing of the individuals involved so that we can judge for ourselves if they are appointed on the basis of merit or, heaven forbid, only on the basis of political affiliation.

As I stated before, we should do what is right. It does not matter which party is in power. It does not matter where we sit in the House of Commons. We should put in place the people who can do the job, the people who have the ability and knowledge to do it. We are talking about the lives of people who work in environments where there must be safety in order to protect them.

I thank the House for having the opportunity to say a few words with regard to our concerns. We will support the bill. It is on record how we feel about the bill and the changes we feel very strongly about that should be in place in order to make the bill the one and only bill that will protect men and women in the workplace.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The vote is deferred until the end of Government Orders today.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-32, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in parliament on February 28, 2000, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Budget Implementation Act, 2000

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

First we will do the ruling on the groupings.

There are two motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-32, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in parliament on February 28, 2000.

Motions Nos. 1 and 2 will be grouped together for debate but will be voted on separately.

I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1 and 2 to the House.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-32 be amended by deleting Clause 35.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-32 be amended by deleting Clause 36.

[Bob Kilger, Liberal, Stormont—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions between all the parties concerning the order in which the recorded divisions will be taken today at the end of Government Orders. I believe you will find consent to begin with the recorded division requested on third reading of Bill C-12 followed by the recorded divisions on Motion No. 30.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to proceed in the fashion as presented by the chief government whip?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Motions Nos. 1 and 2 which would effectively delete clauses 35 and 36 in Bill C-32.

The Canadian Alliance is bringing these two motions forward because we are concerned that in approving this, we would simply be handing the government and the people at Revenue Canada another weapon to go out and wring ever more tax dollars out of taxpayers' pockets.

The government is not very efficient at many things. One thing it is exceedingly efficient at and becoming more efficient at every day is using the hammer of Revenue Canada to go out and collect money from people's pockets. These two clauses grant the Minister of National Revenue the power to obtain judicial authorization to assess and collect GST and HST deemed remittable. We argue that it already has sufficient tools to do this.

I know the government will say that it needs symmetry between what there is now in the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act. We agree, but it should be the other way. We think we should be reducing the tools the government has to intrude on people's lives.

I can barely think of a time when there was not someone in my office complaining about unfair treatment from people in the GST department or at Revenue Canada.

Certainly starting in 1995, the year we saw the government bring in an important budget, one of the things it did was to hire more auditors. It hired tons of auditors. I cannot prove this, but anecdotally I think we all know it is so, that starting at that point Revenue Canada and the GST folks got a lot more aggressive. Those auditors are trying to justify their existence.

I cannot count the complaints that have come into my office where people have said that they went to the GST people to ask for a ruling on such and such and they were given a ruling. They submitted their papers. They did it the way they were told to. All of a sudden they found out that they did it wrong. They did it the way the GST people said to do it, but they did it wrong. Someone else at the other end interpreted the whole thing completely differently. Then all of a sudden the GST auditors would descend like locusts, go through the people's books and tie up their businesses sometimes for days on end. In the meantime, people were struggling to keep their businesses afloat. They found that in some cases their accounts had been frozen. All kinds of things occurred that made it impossible for them to do business.

The very last thing we should be doing in this place is to hand more ammunition to the people at Revenue Canada and the people in the GST department. That is the last thing we need to do. That is effectively what these two clauses in Bill C-32 do. We do not want that anymore. We do not want to see that happen.

We do not have a problem in Canada with people paying their fair share of taxes. We have a problem with the government wringing too much money out of people's pockets. We have an Income Tax Act which is 2,000 pages thick and extraordinarily complex GST legislation and all the amendments and circulars that flow from it. With all of that there are a lot of grey areas. People inevitably end up in those grey areas, sometimes unavoidably. When the government produces legislation as complex as this, it ends up causing situations the consequences of which it cannot see.

People who are trying to earn a living fill out all the GST forms they have to fill out every month, and lo and behold, inevitably some of them wander into those grey areas. What happens when that occurs? The GST people come down not only like a swarm of locusts, but with a hammer. Very often people are in a position where they feel they are on the right side of the issue and that the law is with them. Their accountants will tell them that they are on the right side and according to their understanding these people are within the spirit of the law. But they end up fighting the folks at GST and guess who can outlast whom in a situation like that.

Someone who owns a cornerstore or whatever may have a few thousand dollars to fight a legal battle. But on the other side is the Government of Canada with its battalions of lawyers and experts of all kinds and all the resources the government has including deep, deep pockets with all kinds of money. The government basically freezes people out or makes it impossible for them to proceed. As a result, although these people are very often on the right side of the issue, they cave in. They have to cave in because they cannot afford to wage the battle. The government knows this, so it always comes out on top.

It means more revenue for the government, more revenue coming in all the time. We see it when we look at the GST revenues. They have gone through the roof since 1993. They have gone absolutely through the roof.

The government will say it is economic growth. I will concede that some of it is economic growth, but I think my friends across the way have to concede that some of it, a not insubstantial chunk of it, is due to this new unrealistically tough attitude at the GST office. They are crawling all over businesses trying to wring every cent out of hardworking business people across the country.

I do not think the members across the way in an honest moment will deny that they have had probably dozens of cases each in their offices where people have said, “Here is my correspondence. Here is what was sent to me saying I could do it this way or that way”, and then they got pounded. Someone on the other end did not have the same message.

I do not know how many times people have said to me that they phoned the GST office and got an interpretation of what they were supposed to do from someone who very often does not have a last name; it is Mary or Bill or whomever. Getting the last name from someone on the other end of a government telephone line is like pulling hen's teeth; it is virtually impossible. Then finally at the day of reckoning when they try to explain to the GST people why their paperwork is not done right, they say that Bill or Mary told them to do it. The GST office asks for the person's last name and they say, “Well, I do not know. They would not give me their last name”. If I had a dollar for every time I have heard that story, I would be a wealthy, wealthy man.

My point is that it is crazy to arm the government, which already has all those tools, with even more tools to wring more money out of people's pockets.

I want symmetry too. I want symmetry between the Income Tax Act and what we are seeing in the GST, but I want it in a different way. I want fewer powers for Revenue Canada. I do not want it to have the ability to turn people's homes upside down like it currently does.

There are many examples. Probably one of the most egregious ones is in my part of the world, in southern Alberta. A woman finally took her own life because of the harassment from the tax people. This is quite a famous story now, unfortunately. It is part of a trend.

Let us not empower the people in the government to go even further than they already go. Life is miserable enough for a lot of people because of the intrusive behaviour of people who collect taxes. We do not need to give them more tools. They already have all of the resources on their side.

I am proud to say that in the Canadian Alliance my colleagues have moved things like the taxpayers protection act, which would give real rights to people who are facing this sort of outrageous behaviour from the people at Revenue Canada. It would reverse the onus so that Revenue Canada would have to prove that it was in the wrong, instead of putting this chill over things by threatening all kinds of legal action and threatening to drag it through the courts.

People on this side of the aisle, members of the Canadian Alliance, understand the sort of difficulties business people have to go through when they deal with the folks at Revenue Canada, the GST office, the income tax folks, or whomever.

I urge my colleagues across the way to support the motions to get rid of clauses 35 and 36. If they do, they will be sending a powerful and a very good message to taxpayers across Canada.