Debates of June 6th, 2002

Supply

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

That is fine. We have been down that road. I am not even suggesting that we debate that. It is under provincial jurisdiction.

However, let us be fair and honest. Is it not remarkable when he says he was able to balance the budget of the province of Alberta? It has three million people and more gas and oil revenues than Saudi Arabia. Perhaps that is an exaggeration but I want to make a point. It is an extremely well endowed part of the country when it comes to revenues from natural resources. That is not a criticism, that is a celebration of Alberta.

I only suggest to the former leader of the Canadian Alliance and the current critic for foreign affairs for that party that when he wants to stand and celebrate his success as a treasurer in that province that he put all the cards on the table. I am not saying he did a bad job. I am not criticizing the finances of the province of Alberta nor the government of Alberta. I am just saying let us put all the cards on the table.

I remember Premier Ralph Klein saying to keep those welfare bums from the east out of Alberta. Did he not want to give them one way tickets back to Ontario because he did not want any of them?

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

He was talking about you.

[Chuck Cadman, Canadian Alliance, Surrey North, BC]

They all came to B.C.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

I will repeat what I said yesterday. There is such passion in the room but it is very hard for the Chair to hear. I would appreciate it if hon. members would show some respect for our audience and for Canadians who are watching.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am trying to be respectful. I am not being overly harsh or critical of the former leader of the Alliance. As I said, nothing I do or say could possibly hurt that member more than the pain and suffering that he and his family have had to endure over the past year. I will leave that alone.

I was interested in one of the heckles yelled out by one of the members over there when someone was talking about the success of the government. One of the hon. members yelled out “thanks to the Canadian dollar”. That is interesting because just a few moments before I heard criticism of our 62¢, 63¢ or 64¢ dollar. When the comment was made I suggested that the individual stay in Canada because our dollar is worth $1 in British Columbia, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, and right here in Ottawa, Ontario.

I suggest to all Canadians that they should go out and see this land of ours. They should visit the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia. It is an experience of a lifetime. They should visit Banff, Alberta if they have an opportunity to drive out there or take the train. They will only need Canadian dollars. Canada is a marvellous country. However I admit that if people do decide they want to holiday in Florida or somewhere like that then certainly the exchange rate will be somewhat difficult and expensive. I suggest Canadians try northern Ontario. They could go to Parry Sound or Sudbury. People should check out some of our provincial parks in this wonderful province or go to the Muskokas. It is an absolutely brilliant part of the country.

I am simply trying to make a point. Our Canadian dollar is well worth a dollar, 100¢ on the dollar. There are many things to do here and I encourage everyone to do so. With any luck at all that summer break might begin sooner rather than later around this particular institution. However time will tell.

I would like to share an experience I had in the past few months. I received my gas bill in the mail from Enbridge. I just about fell off my chair because it was over $700. I live in a townhouse in Mississauga. I had to wonder how I could spend $700 in gas consumption. I was astounded. So lo and behold I made a phone call and found out that the meter had been broken.

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

You did not pay your last gas bill.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

I am not worried, Madam Speaker, so do not let the heckling bother you. I actually find it helpful when members do that. It keeps me focused and gives me the odd new idea by which I can then launch another missile. They can go ahead and chirp.

When I received this $700 gas bill I phoned the gas company and asked if it was a typing error or if the computer had spit out a bill in error. I was told that my meter had not been functioning for the past six months and the company did not realize it until it went out on a routine inspection. The company calculated my bill based on my normal use in the home.

By the way, my sons do not live there anymore, thank the Lord. I should give the House a wonderful announcement and that is that approximately 30 days from yesterday my son's wife will be delivering my first grandchild which will be a terrific experience.

It is just my wife and I and our good old dog Duke who live at home and Duke does not use the gas. It is just me and Katie sitting there. I was shocked when I received my bill and was told by the company that through no fault of my own my meter was not working and I was hit with a $700 bill.

They said that I was a member of parliament and I could afford it. I said that they did not know that and that was not the point. What if this happened to a single mom who was struggling to survive, who was working two jobs? What if that happened to a family that was just getting by month to month? I am sorry, but that is a reality for a young couple starting out, for my own kids starting out and worrying about bills and everything else. What if they get a $700 gas bill that has nothing to do with anything they did? They did not run an appliance. They did not misuse the gas.

Guess what: the bottom line of all of this is that I had to pay it. I thought it was just outrageous. I said that I would tell them something: my complaint was not that it was happening to me, but that this could happen to any one of my constituents living in a home of similar square footage with similar usage in terms of gas. Then they said not to worry, that they would split it in three. Is that not comforting? We will split it in three. It is like whatever that is, tell me quick, those guys who are the mathematicians. It is still a lot of money, right? We are talking $200 or $300, close enough, that has to be paid over three months. The hon. members are not being helpful to me here.

[An hon. member]

That's what the auditor general says: close enough.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

However, the reality is that at the end of the day we had consumed the product. I knew that if I asked the members over there to divide by three they would be stumped for an answer so I was not under any apprehension that I might get assistance of any kind of a financial nature or mathematical nature or any kind of equation from across the way. I was quite comfortable with my own, unlike my hon. colleague who pronounced here, I think unnecessarily, when he said, I think, that he was challenged in the area of finance. He should never admit that because they of course will admit that to the world on an ongoing basis.

The reality is that we are all responsible for taking a look at these budget documents when they come out and analyzing them. Members do not need to be rocket scientists or accountants. As a matter of fact, I sometimes think that maybe we should not have lawyers on the justice committee and accountants on the finance committee or the public accounts committee, because we want to look at this from the point of view of an average Canadian. What is it that they are concerned about? How do they see the kinds of difficulties that flow around budgeting and around expenditures?

Is there something wrong with the member over there? It is like one of those bobble dolls we get in the store. I would stop that. It is probably not good for her. I am not sure what that is all about.

We have to look at it from that point of view, so what happened with this overpayment? The fact of the matter is, the province of Alberta was overpaid by $4.4 million, British Columbia by $121 million, Manitoba by $408 million, and Ontario, my province, by $2.8 billion. By far the largest impact is here in the province of Ontario. Let us be realistic. I think the province of Alberta will work out an arrangement with the federal government. No one is riding into town repossessing the legislature. We are going to be very flexible. We are going to work out ways through the transfer payments, through the adjustments, where these things can be fixed.

Frankly, I found the response from the provinces to be quite reasonable in suggesting that there has been a mistake, it has been caught and they have been overpaid, but I cannot help but point out the fact that while the province of Ontario, under the politically late Mike Harris, was celebrating the fact that it might have balanced the budget it was doing so with $2.8 million of our money that it should not have had in the first place. That might throw a different light on their attempts at and claims of great fiscal management.

The reality is that we found the problem. Just like I, my wife and my family had to come up with the money to pay the gas bill because we had consumed the product--

[An hon. member]

And Duke.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

And Duke, and so we did. So in this case must the provinces recognize that obligation.

What we have here is an official opposition putting forward a motion to say that somehow the federal government should just close its eyes and go away. This is the same party whose current leader, whose new leader, by the way, was professing to be concerned about transfer payments to health care, never acknowledging and recognizing the transfer of tax points that has occurred for the last many years and the relationship between the federal government and the provinces.

Tax points, as we well know, are simply the authority passed on from the federal government, which will vacate a certain position of taxation authority and transfer that authority it to the provincial governments. They can then turn around, using the tax points and the taxing authority vacated by the federal government, and collect that taxation. People will know when they file their income tax and calculate how much they owe federally, that they also have a formula right in the same document that allows them to calculate how much they owe provincially.

Therefore, provincial governments indeed collect taxation and collect income tax in much of the taxation that they collect. By the way, they are happy to do this. They are not exactly offering it back to us. There are members in our caucus who would say that if the provinces do not recognize that we give them this taxing authority, which in effect should be part of the entire transfer payment calculation, and if they will not acknowledge the fact that the federal government vacated that area to give it over to them, then maybe we should just eliminate tax points, collect all the taxes and transfer the cash.

[An hon. member]

They don't want that.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Of course they do not want that, because they want the flexibility of being able to collect their own.

Some time ago, in 1991, when I ran for the leadership of the provincial Liberal party, one of the points I made in my campaign was that we only really need one taxpayer. We have attempted--

[An hon. member]

You ran?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

I did, not successfully, I am sure you are devastated to find out.

I believed that with one taxpayer we could reduce the costs that were associated with the job of collecting taxes. That has not been successful in Ontario. We have done harmonization in other parts of the country working with the provinces.

Because I only have 30 seconds left, and I am sure all are devastated, there is one bottom line, and I want to ask the opposition, what does it say to the other provinces? There are four provinces, three of which are have provinces under the terms of Confederation, one of which is aware of the problem and willing to deal with it. What does the opposition say to the other provinces and the territories? Because we gave one province an overpayment we will send the other three an overpayment as well and just even things up? It is not even a reasonable position for the opposition to take.

We have an obligation to manage fiscally and be responsible in this parliament, in this government, and it is my view that by working out a reasonable relationship with the provinces we are doing exactly that.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have just witnessed au unimaginably inconsequential speech. This is an issue that is extremely important for the provinces. As for the members opposite, be it the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, or the Secretary of State for Financial Institutions, I do not know what they are doing over there.

I will have to ask the new Minister of Finance. He says “I am examining the situation. I will not be taking a position immediately. I am examining the situation to think about what I will do”. I appeal to him, to his heart and to his reason at the same time and I say to him “If you want to distinguish yourself, if you want to take into account a problem that is extremely important for the provinces, which are currently experiencing such great needs in health and education, then be serious and examine this quickly, but make the right decision”.

It is not to them that I address these remarks, it is to the Minister of Finance. My message to him is to act in the interests of the provinces to ensure that they are all treated equally. Is the Minister of Finance ready to take this into consideration and say that they will not require reimbursements from those who received overpayments and they will ensure that all of the provinces are on a level playing field? It is the minister I am addressing.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry that the member found my speech inconsequential. I was having fun delivering it.

I also want to say that I am a little surprised to see a member of the Bloc, whose sole raison d'être is to lead Quebec off into oblivion and into some kind of nationhood that somehow the people of the province of Quebec have decided they do not want, and I find it interesting to have a member of the Bloc stand in this place and somehow offer a defence of the other provinces, that somehow these other provinces should be able to keep this overpayment. I would have rather expected that member to stand and demand, on behalf of the province of Quebec--

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to know if a member may claim that we have no business here when we were elected by the people. By what right does he—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Order, please. This is a point of debate. It is not a point of order. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be fair. Honestly, save and except for that one policy of separation, I have found most members of the Bloc to be hardworking parliamentarians.

Let me just say that I would have expected that member to stand up and say that Quebec should get its share of this, so send them part of the overpayment, because how can we send an overpayment to Ontario and not give the same amount on a per capita basis to the province of Quebec? It is puzzling to hear this member suggest that we somehow just walk away from this and forget about the overpayment, even when the provinces are willing to work with us to resolve this issue.

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just want to let the hon. member for Mississauga West know that nobody in this place, including his colleagues, are surprised to know that he has a $700 a month bill for hot air. This comes as no surprise to anybody.

I have what is a simple question, I suppose, for the member. He bragged about the legacy of the Liberal Party since 1993 in balancing the budget, cutting taxes and doing all kinds of wonderful things. If the Liberal Party has done such a good job, why did it just fire its finance minister?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is not question period is it? I did not think so. I wish it were, because I would be delighted to receive the questions opposite.

Let me say that we are very proud of both the former finance minister and the current finance minister. We are very proud to be a team putting forward to the Canadian people policies that are based on fiscal responsibility. The Canadian people would have every right to call us up and say “Just a minute, let me understand this: the government sent more of my money than it should have to the provincial treasuries. They taxed, and as a result of the overpayment--

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order: Why was he fired?

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

That is not a point of order.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to go on for much longer. If you want to ask for unanimous consent I would be prepared to talk the clock out with no problem.

Our party did not go through three leaders of the opposition in the past two years. We did not have a party that went across the country eating its young and destroying itself. What we have is a party that is unified, that is providing financial leadership to Canadians, and members opposite know it. Members opposite only need to look at the numbers about how Canadians feel. They have confidence that this government will do the right thing, and we will recover the overpayments from the provinces in a fair way so as not to put undue strain on the provincial treasuries.