House of Commons Hansard #76 of the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was sentencing.
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Finance said yesterday, this is a regrettable, but necessary measure to stem the loss of revenue from big corporations.
Why does the Liberal Party think large corporations should not pay their fair share of taxes? Why does it want to make ordinary people, rather than large corporations, pay all the taxes?
This decision to create a tax system is fair and balanced for everyone in—
Lucienne Robillard Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
Mr. Speaker, the government members must be getting the same emails we are getting from angry Canadians. Have they read them?
Let me read one. This is from Mrs. Sinclair in Surrey, B.C. She says:
As a single pensioner living mostly on my income trust investments I find myself now looking at the Hiring signs...of Tim Hortons...I trusted the [Prime Minister] when he...stated that “he would not touch income trusts”.
How can the arrogant minority Conservative government turn its back on people like Mrs. Sinclair in B.C.?
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, let me tell members what the president of the Canadian Snowbird Association had to say, a group that represents thousands of seniors. He said, “Seniors built this country and deserve to enjoy their retirement. I'm pleased that the minister of finance has acted to allow pension income splitting. It is in the best interests of all Canadian seniors, who will be better off under the government's plan”.
The real question is, why is the Liberal Party opposed to income splitting for seniors? Will the Liberals vote against this and will they commit to Canadians, should, heaven forbid, they ever come back to government, that they will take away that multi-billion dollar tax cut for Canadian seniors, particularly those on low and modest income?
Lucienne Robillard Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and the Conservative members seemed to know everything there was to know about income trusts when they were in opposition. By promising not to impose any new taxes on income trusts, they issued a direct invitation to small investors to put their savings in them.
What do they have to say today to citizens who will be forced to delay their retirement or even go back to work to make up the loss? Why did the Prime Minister throw them to the wolves?
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, I would remind the hon. member that it was her Liberal government that caused a scandal in Canada's financial markets because of recent leaks of confidential information. This was confirmed by an RCMP and Ontario Securities Commission investigation.
We have acted responsibly in making a necessary and difficult decision that will ensure that even large corporations—
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, Mr. and Mrs. Chaney from British Columbia lost over $80,000 in one day due to the Conservatives' broken promise. Mr. Chaney writes, “We need our savings just to pay for our basic living expenses. My wife has medical conditions and requires $12,000 each year for uninsured medical prescriptions”.
Today they no longer have sufficient income to pay for those basic living needs. Yesterday the government insultingly told them to just take a Valium.
Does the government have no compassion for devastated Canadians like Mr. and Mrs. Chaney?
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, we are always concerned when there are market fluctuations that affect people. We would encourage everybody to be responsible and patient investors. Inevitably the markets will stabilize, as they have already begun to do.
I would also point out that we are creating the macroeconomic conditions that will be helpful to all Canadians, including seniors. Today unemployment is down to 6.2%.
The person the member cites, and all Canadian seniors, will benefit from pension splitting and from an increase in the age amount. Canadian corporations will benefit from a reduction in the general corporate rate. There has also been a dividend tax cut.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are telling parliamentarians that the Conservatives misled them just to buy their votes and then they stole their hard-earned savings.
Mr. Shaw, of Alberta, writes, “I don't expect to ever recover from my losses. I would defend this country with my life—but I never expected to be betrayed by it”.
Will the government now demonstrate accountability, admit it broke its promise and apologize to Mr. Shaw and all Canadians for the devastation it has caused?
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, we are still waiting for the apology from the Liberals for having given leaks of privileged information to their millionaire friends on Bay Street last year, which resulted in very peculiar trading circumstances that profited Liberal insiders to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars with respect to income trusts.
We are still waiting for an apology from the Liberal Party for having promised to abolish and scrap the GST. It is still here. We are cutting it because we are in favour of universal tax relief for every Canadian, including low income Canadians.
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Mr. Speaker, the real purpose of the Minister of the Environment's trip to Nairobi was revealed yesterday by the Prime Minister when he stated, and I quote:
The minister is attending this conference in order to participate in the development of an effective international protocol, which will include the major emitters of greenhouse gases.
Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that, by giving these instructions to the Minister of the Environment, he is giving her the mandate of purely and simply sabotaging the Kyoto protocol?
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with this statement. The Minister of the Environment takes her leadership role at the Nairobi conference very seriously.
I assure this House that we will work closely with the other countries at the Nairobi Conference to develop a realistic and effective plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
I also urge the honourable member to work with us to reduce emissions and greenhouse gases in Canada by supporting our air quality bill.
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Mr. Speaker, does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the instructions he has given to the Minister of the Environment are modelled directly after George Bush's position?
Would it not be fair to say that the real objective of the Minister of the Environment in Nairobi is to help sabotage Kyoto by getting participants to adopt the American position, which is to give more time to major polluters so they can continue to pollute as they see fit?
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, that statement is completely untrue. This government has proposed, for the first time in the history of Canada, an air quality bill that will give the government the authority to impose mandatory regulations concerning pollution and greenhouse gas emissions on all industrial sectors.
We hope to pass this bill with the support of the Bloc Québécois.
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Mr. Speaker, while the Prime Minister is working on sabotaging Kyoto, he is catering to the major oil companies by giving them accelerated capital cost allowances of up to 100% for oil sands development in Alberta, which has resulted in unprecedented development for the industry.
Does the Minister of Natural Resources recognize that with the current price of oil, this tax break is no longer necessary and that he should abolish it and use the billions of dollars thereby collected to foster the development of clean energy instead?
Mark Warawa ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment
Mr. Speaker, over the next two weeks, in Nairobi at the UN climate change conference, one of the issues countries will be dealing with and discussing is how we can review the Kyoto protocol. It is an important agenda. It will include discussing what has worked and what has not. We all know the Liberal plan, which the Bloc is supporting, did not work.
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Mr. Speaker, the tax advantages for the oil companies turned out to be strong economic incentives when the price per barrel of oil was low. At the current price, they are no longer an incentive, they are a gift.
Can the Minister of Natural Resources understand that today the sector in need of incentives is that of renewable energies such as wind or hydroelectricity, and that he should take back his unnecessary gifts in order to promote their accelerated development?
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the budget brought down in the spring and supported by the Bloc included tax incentives for the renewable energy industries.
No measure was proposed to subsidize the oil industry. On the other hand, today this industry is obviously concerned by our decision to force all major companies to pay their share of taxes in the context of income trusts.
Jack Layton NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
Mr. Speaker, the government's flagrant flip-flop on the income trust is just another example of the promises the Conservatives enjoy breaking, apparently, with a certain degree of celebration over there. Let us think of some other ones.
The Conservatives said that they would never do anything but appoint elected MPs to the cabinet. They turned right around and took a Conservative bagman, put him in the Senate and put him in the cabinet, breaking a promise. They said that they would do something to clean the air, and their act makes it dirtier. Then they promised that they would do something about wait times. It was one of their top five priorities. What have they done? Absolutely nothing. There are four million Canadians on the waiting list--
Jason Kenney ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure there was a question. All I can say is the government is proud of our record.
We are proud of the fact that on our major commitments, in only nine months with substantial opposition from the other parties, we have done so much for average Canadians, from our GST tax cut to delivering on the universal child care allowance to providing for restoring accountability to government through the federal accountability act and by trying to make serious criminals do serious time through our justice reforms.
It would be nice to see that member cooperate with--
Jack Layton NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
Mr. Speaker, we really have to ask ourselves, with so many broken promises, why anybody should believe anything that the Conservatives say, either in the House or in byelections in which they are running right now.
Take Repentigny, for example.
We currently have a conservatrice government that changes its mind depending on which way the wind is blowing. It says one thing during the election and does another afterward.
The Minister of Public Works and Government Services was appointed to the Senate and now has the chance the run in Repentigny to be democratically elected. There was no democratic process for the Minister of—
