Debates of Dec. 13th, 2002

Equalization Payments

[John Manley, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I am unaware of whether the minister from Saskatchewan wishes to raise it among other ministers or not.

I know that officials have been reviewing some questions around the data that is being used in order to generate the calculations. That review, I understand, continues.

As he knows, I am sure, the review of the equalization system itself is scheduled for 2004 and that process is now underway.

Justice

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, this Liberal government is a terrible manager of taxpayers' money.

I ask the Minister of Justice to assure Canadians that he will not be cutting the already depleted transfer payments to provinces in the areas of family law, legal aid, youth justice and aboriginal justice. Against Canadians' wishes and their best interests, he says he is going to find $72 million within his department's existing budget to prop up the disastrous failed long gun registry.

If the minister believes there are programs in his department that are already overfunded, could he tell us just which ones he plans to cut? Where is he going to find that $72 million?

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the minister did address the House yesterday, and in that address he clearly stated that there is still money left in the firearms program account. He will be using that money until such time as it is depleted and then he will cash manage until the program is funded through this House.

We believe sincerely in the principles of this program. We are not going to stop going forward with this program.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government believes sincerely in wasting taxpayers' money. They are not good managers of money. Rotten registries, fancy planes, subs, helicopters, HRDC: all of this proves they are not good money managers.

According to an RCMP study, CPIC is already overloaded and inoperable 10% of the time. The present CPIC infrastructure will be strained further with the addition of this category.

If the Liberals can dedicate millions of dollar to a retroactive, ineffective, stand-alone registry, why will the Solicitor General not dedicate the necessary funds to an effective, stand-alone, retroactive program to protect Canadians from sex offenders?

[John Manley, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy hearing a member from the Progressive Conservative Party talk about financial mismanagement. When we arrived here we found the state of management of the finances of the country to be generating a deficit of $42 billion annually. That is real money.

Now we are the only remaining country in the G-7 still running a surplus. I think he ought to take a financial management course and perhaps it will help him.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

Order. Hon. members will want to check my comments of yesterday about Santa Claus arriving, particularly the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough. His question time is finished for the moment. Maybe we will be back to him later. The hon. member for Kelowna has the floor.

Goods and Services Tax

[Werner Schmidt, Canadian Alliance, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the backroom deal between the revenue minister and the Treasury Board was made over seven years ago. Seven years of GST fraud losses have been hidden from Parliament.

The Speaker explained yesterday that it was “disingenuous” of the minister to suggest that the present system of reporting is “adequate”.

Will the revenue minister today now tell the House how much money in GST fraud losses has been hidden from Parliament?

[Elinor Caplan, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

None, Mr. Speaker. In fact, I have been forthcoming here in the House, before public accounts, and my officials, over a number of years, are there to answer all questions.

There is one interesting statistic that I would like to share with the House today, and that is that over the past six years CCRA, and Revenue Canada before it, collected $1.6 trillion. Of that, we had bad debt write-offs of $4.87 billion and that represents 0.3% in bad debts. One of the--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Calgary East.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, reporting procedures practised by this government are questionable at best. The firearms registry was allowed to balloon to $1 billion under the government's watch.

I will give the revenue minister the opportunity to come clean, to practise the transparency that she has been bragging about. Millions and millions have been lost to GST fraud. Canadians want to know: Why?

[Elinor Caplan, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, in fact I will say to the member opposite that fraud is a problem in all countries that have a value added tax. We share best practices with other countries, and I can say from the advice I have from my officials that Canada, like other countries, is very aware of the need to work cooperatively together with other countries to identify best practices so that where we find fraud we get prosecutions and convictions.

We have had great success: 13 out of 13 cases so far have resulted in convictions and over--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Québec.

Amateur Sport

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Jennifer Carroll affair revealed that serious injustices persist at Swimming Canada. It is becoming more and more apparent that Swimming Canada directors behave like monarchs accountable to no one.

Does the Minister of Canadian Heritage not agree that the only way to get to the bottom of all of the injustices that have been revealed involving Swimming Canada is with an inquiry, and that it should be done by the Standing Committee on Heritage, and not departmental officials?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the statements made by the coach and by Swimming Canada are not acceptable. For this reason, we are today requiring that Swimming Canada implement a specific strategy. We feel that the coach's behaviour was not acceptable, given that Swimming Canada receives funding from the Government of Canada.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, will the minister pledge to suspend Swimming Canada's funding if this happens again?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Canada Elections Act

[Darrel Stinson, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals scoffed at the rights of western Canadian farmers who were jailed because of the government's flawed legislation.

They scoff at the rights of law abiding firearms owners who are facing jail time for being unable to apply to register their guns.

The rights of prisoners, however, are of great importance to the Liberals.

An amendment to repeal prisoner voting has been introduced by the Alliance. Will the government commit to restoring the integrity of democracy by supporting the motion?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated to another colleague of the hon. member that I want to work within the existing constitutional framework to have whatever legislation we can have within that, but if he is asking me if I want to amend the Constitution to revoke rights, the answer is no.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague has just mentioned, the rights of ordinary, law abiding Canadians continue to be pushed aside or completely forgotten. It is obvious that the government is now more preoccupied in soliciting the votes of jailed murderers and rapists.

Is this not the reason the government refuses to ask to overturn this ridiculous court decision which grants voting rights to society's worst offenders?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, these are not the questions that this particular member usually asks.

The hon. member I am sure knows that the question he has just asked, suggesting that anyone in the House wants to create any policies to solicit the votes of murderers or some such, is ridiculous, and it is not the policy of even any colleague with whom I would profoundly disagree on the other side of the House, let alone anyone on this side.

Natural Resources

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Natural Resources maintains that the agreement for oil and gas exploration in the St. Lawrence has not yet been signed because Quebec does not accept the federal government's regulatory framework.

Does the minister realize that by delaying the signing of the agreement, he will set back the whole exploration project by at least one year?

[Herb Dhaliwal, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, we are working with the Quebec government just as we are working with the B.C. government or Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick, which have all expressed interest in taking advantage of oil and gas resources, but we will want to make sure that we move forward in a way that respects the sustainable development principles and the environment.

If the hon. member thinks it is not important to protect the environment or make sure we move forward in a socially responsible way, he should stand up and say that, because we think it is important to protect the environment and it is important to have a regulatory framework that does this. That is the way we are going to follow through.

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am most certainly in favour of respecting the environment.

Would the minister be prepared to sign the agreement with Quebec including a proviso to the effect that he was doing so without prejudice to the rights of the federal government, as he did with Newfoundland and Nova Scotia?

[Herb Dhaliwal, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the federal government is always willing to move forward but it was the Quebec government that rejected the federal framework that already existed. If it were truly interested in moving forward a lot more quickly it would have accepted the existing federal regulatory framework. It rejected that. As a result, we could not move forward.

If the Quebec government would have focused more on economic development instead of being focused on its separatist agenda, a lot more jobs would have been created in Quebec.