Debates of May 18th, 2005

Transfer Payments

[John McKay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, there is no such thing as a fiscal imbalance. I would remind the hon. member that 25 years ago the argument was that all the money was in the provinces and all the needs were in the federal government. Now they argue that all the needs are in the provinces and all the money is in the federal government. Twenty-five years ago they found that there was no structural imbalance. Provinces have the same access to resources and to revenue sources as does the federal government.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the federal contribution accounts for 11.5% of the funding for post-secondary education, while at one time it accounted for 50%.

Does the government realize that, if it really wants to follow up on its commitments set out in the throne speech and provide a real solution to the fiscal imbalance, it must increase transfers for post-secondary education?

[John McKay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, there is a very simple solution to the hon. member's inquiry, and that is on Thursday night support Bill C-43 and Bill C-48.

Social Development

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, during the last election campaign, the Prime Minister was as proud as could be to announce that Quebec would receive money for child care with no strings attached.

How does the Prime Minister explain that a year after making that promise there is still no agreement with Quebec?

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, Minister of Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said many times in the House, we have ongoing negotiations and discussions with the province of Quebec. We are very hopeful that those negotiations will end up in an agreement.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should know that an unconditional transfer would be very easy to negotiate.

In that context, how can the Prime Minister sign agreements with five provinces and tell us that negotiations with Quebec are ongoing when it should be a mere formality? Let him explain.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, Minister of Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, the first step that needs to be taken in all of this, in order for money to be transferred to the provinces under any agreement, is to pass the budget on Thursday night.

Canada Post

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it does not appear that the government has any interest in solving the case of André Ouellet's missing receipts. As recently as March of this year, the Canada Post minister told this House that he still did not have the receipts. Yet yesterday, before the government operations committee, Mr. Ouellet testified under oath that he sent the minister the receipts in December of last year.

Will the minister now admit that his department has had the receipts since December of 2004?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in a parliamentary committee, the hon. member challenged the right of a witness to respond to him in French. I hope today he will be so kind as to allow me to respond to him in French.

My response is that what he just said is not true. There was no political interference in the past and there will be none in the future.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is as evasive today as Mr. Ouellet was yesterday.

The Liberals are not interested in getting to the bottom of this issue. For every other Canadian, tax rules are straightforward: no receipts and we pay a taxable benefit. Mr. Ouellet claims he lost almost $200,000 worth of receipts and “the dog ate my homework”.

The same rules that apply to everyone else must apply to Liberal fat cats in this country. Or is “I lost the receipts” now an acceptable excuse for Revenue Canada tax officials?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, the matter is still being investigated.

Not only did this member insult French Canadians with his remarks on bilingualism, but he is also challenging the professionalism of 30,000 public servants at the Canada Revenue Agency. He should apologize to French Canadians and those public servants.

Aboriginal Affairs

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary North Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister continues to struggle with the residential school file. To date the government has spent $625 million on the residential school fiasco and has settled with less than 2% of the possible claimants.

Now the government is reportedly negotiating a $3 billion to $4 billion deal with the AFN to settle the claims of 80,000 people who have not sued the government, yet it ignores the class actions of 15,000 people who have sued the government.

Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House what she is doing and what happened to the ADR--

[The Speaker]

The hon. Deputy Prime Minister.

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, the ADR process continues as it should. We are working with the claimants, the claimants' lawyers, the AFN and other interested parties.

This is a very difficult issue. It is part of a horrible tragedy that happened to a significant number of aboriginal Canadians. I think the hon. member acts in good faith on this issue, but I would encourage him to be patient and to understand that we are working with all the key interested parties to try to reach a fair and transparent result for--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Calgary Centre-North.

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary North Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is terrible. The proposed settlement with the AFN should exceed $3 billion. Neither the February 2005 budget nor the budgetary fireworks since created by the Liberals and the NDP include any funding for this settlement.

Could the Minister of Finance explain to the House where this money will come from? Are we talking about an informal budget?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I think the question was perhaps not as clear as it could have been, but if the hon. member is in fact talking about our negotiations with the AFN, the claimants, the claimants' lawyers, the churches and other interested parties, let me say that those discussions continue.

We have a shared objective to try to deal with as many claimants as possible, as fairly and as quickly as possible. That is what we are doing. That is what the ADR process is about. That is what our discussions with all interested parties are about.

The Budget

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Exploits, NL]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative members from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia sat on their hands when the Liberal Party stood in favour of the budget and the Atlantic accord. Now the Conservatives want to vote for one budget implementation bill while voting against the other.

Could the minister clarify what the status of the Atlantic accord would be if the opposition defeats the second part of the budget implementation bill?

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member said, the Conservatives are now saying that they will vote to support the budget and the government, and then, 10 minutes later, they will vote no confidence and bring down the government.

There are two confidence votes tomorrow. It does not matter which one they defeat. If they defeat a budget bill, they defeat the government and they defeat the Atlantic accord. They defeat the new deal for cities. They defeat child care. They defeat funding for the environment. They defeat funding for post-secondary education. They defeat affordable housing.

Conservatives need to be straight with Canadians. Canadians will not be fooled. The Conservatives need to take responsibility for defeating the budget.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the new NDP budget provisions certainly improve the lives of people and improve our environment. They have received a favourable response from Canadians right across this country.

We expect that the government will soon be introducing measures to implement these very important new budget provisions. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance to update Canadians about progress by the government for implementing these measures and ask if he could give some details about where we are with respect to these very important new budget provisions.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I think what the hon. member is referring to are the votes on Thursday evening, which are votes at second reading. Subsequent to that, the budget bills, if successful, will flow to committee where in fact I am sure there will be committee deliberation.

[An hon. member]

Is that how it works?

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it seems that I have to explain to those hon. members across the way how it works, because there is some confusion. While those members expect to vote for one budget bill and defeat the other, they actually presume that they are not defeating the government. In fact, they are.

I would say to them to support the budget, support the Atlantic accord, support the increase in tuition fee funding, support the increase in foreign aid, support the new deal for cities and communities, and do what is right for Canada.

Shipbuilding Industry

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the Minister of Industry is quite simple. For years now the industry minister has had on his desk a shipbuilding policy designed by the industry and shipyard workers throughout the country. From Victoria to Marystown, Halifax, Lévis and Port Weller, we have the capability, we have the industry and we have the workers to build these ships that Canada so desperately needs.

We cannot help but notice that the federal government is moving to assist the auto sector, which we support, and it is willing to assist the aerospace sector, which we support. We would also support the government if it put in a new shipbuilding policy so that our industry and our workers can get back to work.

[David Emerson, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, this government has had a shipbuilding policy in place since 2001. In fact, I met on Monday of this week with members of the shipbuilding and marine industrial sector from across the country.

We are having a discussion about how to update that strategy to ensure that our Canadian shipbuilding industry is technologically sophisticated and competitive, so that it can be competitive in the world economy and win government contracts for Coast Guard and other defence vessels.