Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this afternoon to debate Bill C-265. I am pleased to say the New Democratic Party will be supporting the bill. I would like to commend the member for Essex for his diligent work on this file.
I would also like to extend my congratulations to him and his wife Sarah and the rest of his family on the birth of their son David. It is difficult to commute between Ottawa and Windsor. It is stressful on a young family. However, there is better representation in the House when there are members here are at different life stages. I am glad he is doing that with his family here.
I want to tackle another important element of this file. There have been some eloquent presentations about the history of the treaty and how it has changed over time. The bottom line is that after all is said and done, this is about justice for a group of citizens who at a time when they are most vulnerable have found that the rules have changed.
I cannot understand why the government cannot say it made a mistake. I cannot understand why it cannot admit it had a negotiation problem and failed Canadians. I cannot understand why it cannot change this. The government did that today with respect to the Canadian flag lapel pin being made in China. When the Liberals were answering questions the other day, they knew that was not the actual fact and they came back today and changed it. I give them credit for that.
We should judge our society by the way we treat our most vulnerable individuals and it is those individuals we are talking about today. We are talking about people who have saved for their retirement, have planned for their golden years, and have now had the rules changed out by a deal in Washington and by a government in Ottawa. It affects their ability to live and prosper and to be effective members of our community. This is unacceptable.
It has been pointed out that Canadians across the country are affected by this, which is true. I have heard from people in Winnipeg, Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Quebec. I have heard the same story every time. These people were expecting something to be delivered in terms of their income but suddenly the rules changed and their lives changed dramatically. Some of these people lost their homes. Some of them lost their self-esteem. They lost their ability to contribute to such things as their grandchildren's education or to other family initiatives. They can no longer do this because their income has been lowered. This has affected them in many ways. It is insulting.
The government has said it had to do this because one individual was paying more than another. I have not had a single complaint from anyone anywhere suggesting that seniors are ripping off the tax system. I do not know where that notion came from. I do not know who thought it up. I do not know if members of the Liberal Party are just listening to the bureaucrats.
Where are the throngs of Canadians who are saying our seniors are ripping off the Canadian tax system and that those seniors had better be brought into line? Through all the discourse on this issue, from all the correspondence I have received, and all the new stories about this, I have never heard that. It makes absolutely no sense and it is insulting.
There is a history in the House of Commons of waffling on this issue. This has not come just from the Conservatives, the Bloc, the NDP, or the Liberals. Some of the Liberals have flirted with the idea of fixing this, but for whatever reason they have not found the political courage to tell the civil servants to fix this, that they laid the boots to these people. The Liberals should tell them to stop doing this and fix it.
The member for Windsor--St. Clair, who was speaking in the House of Commons on February 23, 2001, said:
Mr. Speaker, both the finance minister and the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledge the problem yet have chosen to do nothing about it. When will the government take action to address the gross injustice faced by the Canadians asking for social security fairness?
The secretary of state responded:
Mr. Speaker, I assure members this is an issue we have under consideration and we are pressing for changes.
The Liberals were pressing for changes back in 2001. What happened to that political courage? What dissipated at that moment in time that we did not see something fixed by 2005?
The government could do that now. It could fix it now. The Liberals have control over that. They would only be congratulated by members of the opposition who are unified in this. We will drag the government there kicking and screaming. One way or another we are going to fight for this. We are going to make it really painful if the government does not restore the fairness and justice for our seniors.
Back in history it was some of the Liberals' own members who said, “We are pressing for changes”. Where are those members now?
The hon. member for Windsor--St. Clair followed it up with another question in the House of Commons:
Mr. Speaker, when this session of parliament began I called upon the Deputy Prime Minister to explain his government's inaction in addressing the concerns of thousands of Canadians faced with crippling taxes on their U.S. social security benefits. The Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions have all promised that they would take some action. Yet five months later nothing has been done. When will they move on this issue? When can we expect a response from them?
Answering this question was my predecessor, the member for Windsor West, the right hon. Herb Gray:
Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out in a letter to my hon. friend, I believe in February--
That is correct. He had the date correct:
--I have raised this matter with the Minister of Finance. He assures me that he and his officials are looking into it.
They were looking into it. They could have changed it then. It got lost again. I do not know why. It does not make any sense, especially when his colleague at the time said, “We are pressing for changes”.
Where was the direction to the department to say that changes were necessary? We saw that today when the Minister of Public Works went back and said, “Those lapel pins should be made in Canada”. We shut down a Canadian business. It was wrong. He went back and told them because he had the courage to do so. He came to the House of Commons and said, “We were wrong”. Why can that not be done for our seniors as well?
Once again the side by side analysis is insulting because I do not know of any seniors in Canada who are clamouring for support to make sure unfair taxation happens to their neighbours.
I would like to refer to another question, again by the member for Windsor--St. Clair. He said:
Mr. Speaker, the former Deputy Prime Minister and the former Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions assured the House on a number of occasions that action would be taken....There is still no action. When will it be addressed?
The hon. Prime Minister, who was the minister of finance at the time, said:
The fact is that this is part of a treaty with the United States and we are bound by the provisions of that treaty. Canada negotiated that treaty under this government and improved it substantially.
That is wrong. We knew that answer was wrong. There I think we saw the drift of things. We know that there was testimony at the Senate committee. This is a quote from the Senate committee:
It would be possible to provide further exemptions...if that were thought to be appropriate. It would not be necessary to seek agreement with the United States on that.
We know that the testimony contradicts that.
In summary, I would like to once again say to the member for Essex that I am glad he has brought forward Bill C-265. I think the government has a lot of accounting to do for itself with regard to its treatment of seniors, but this is an opportunity for it to correct things.
Once again, how is the government going to be able to validate its argument? Others believe this is unfair to them. What we do know is that it affected a lot of people and everybody wants this corrected. The people who are affected, their neighbours, their friends, their families, none of them object to that, and none of them will object to this bill.