Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am a bit disappointed that the last member who asked a question used up all the member's time, because I wanted to ask her a question. Perhaps we will do that some other time.
With regard to Bill C-13 and the budget, one matter stood out for me. To some degree it is a local matter, although it affects a number of communities across the country. It is a matter that was not addressed in spite of the long history of the Conservatives, and the Canadian Alliance and the Reform Party before them, in championing this issue of trying to attain some fairness and justice in the tax system. However, as soon as the Conservatives were in government, they seemed to forget about it. It is the issue of the manner in which we tax, in Canada, individual taxpayers who are receiving social security benefits from the United States.
This has been a longstanding issue. It goes back to 1996, at which point we entered into a treaty with the United States, saying that people who resided in Canada but received social security benefits from the United States would be taxed in Canada and the revenue from that would be collected in Canada. We would do the same thing with Canada pension benefits in the United States, that is, the United States would tax them, collect the revenue there and retain those funds. We had worked out a formula within the treaty, which in effect was to continue whatever the taxation rate was in those respective countries with regard to that income.
Immediately after that treaty was signed and we began to tax this in Canada, we in fact changed the formula. The way the formula worked in the United States was that because of the way money had been contributed to social security, the taxation of those revenues, that income, was to be on only 50% of the revenue.
Initially, the Liberal government--and to its eternal shame, because of some of the representations the Liberals made to the recipients of these funds--first taxed all the income, the full 100% of the income. The individual recipients began to lobby. They organized and they created associations, including a very strong one in my area of the country. They were able to get the government to move a little. Ultimately, in the 1997-98 period, the Liberals taxed on only 85% of the income. They reduced it by 15 points, but not down to what they should have, and that should have been to tax on only 50% of that revenue.
There have been a number of hearings on this, both in this chamber and in committee, and in the Senate. The groups of recipients who were opposed to this type of unfairness lobbied strongly, made representations and appeared before both houses, but they have been unsuccessful up to this point.
I wish to digress for a minute to speak about the impact this has had. One has to appreciate that for a large number of these recipients this is their total income. At the time this happened, of those who are receiving it now, for more than half of them it was their entire income. They had been living on that income. They had structured their finances accordingly. Suddenly they had this hugely increased tax burden. It was grossly unfair. They had lived their whole lives and had contributed to the social security in the United States with this program and scheme in place, which was completely legal. They planned their retirement and retired with that planning in place. Then, out of the blue, they were hit.
I have come across some horror stories. For example, one involved a member of my church, who has since passed away. Both he and his wife were receiving social security. They were still Canadian citizens. They returned to Canada and bought a house. They obtained not a large mortgage, but one they could afford with those incomes and that tax regime. When they both got hit with the increased taxation burden, they had to give up the house, something they had planned for through their entire lives. It had a devastating impact on them.
When I was campaigning in one of the elections, an elderly man told me about his brother, who had been forced to give up living independently because he had been hit the same way. For his whole life, he had planned for the way he was going to live his life. He had a small apartment and was living on his own. Because of the taxation burden he was forced to bear because of this new regime, he was forced to give up living independently in his apartment and move and share a room in his brother's house. This man said the only time his brother comes out of his room, and this had been going on for well over a year, is to come to meals and to go to the washroom. Other than that, he is embarrassed and depressed.
Those stories are repeated over and over again. The really sad part about this is that the government knows full well what is happening. There were three private members' bills put forward. On two different occasions, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, the member for Calgary Southeast, put private members' bills before the House that in effect would have put those people back into the position they were in at the time the treaty was signed, when the Liberal government attacked them. He was a champion for them. This was picked up more recently by the member for Essex, again, a government member. He also had a private member's bill before the House in the last session.
Both of those members lobbied the government heavily.When the Conservatives became the government of the land, when they took power, what happened is pretty simple: absolutely nothing. There were no changes. This is a simple change. It does not even require legislation. Those private members' bills are not absolutely necessary under the legal regime we have in this country. This decision can be made at the cabinet level with one meeting. The government fully understands what it is necessary to do. It knows about the unfairness. It knows about the injustice for these people.
One can only conclude that the government does not care about them, and in much the same way as the Liberal government before it, in a very cynical fashion. The government knows that the longer it draws this out, the more these individuals, who are in their later years, will pass away every year. The fight for fairness and justice keeps dwindling because they will become more elderly and there will be fewer of them. That cynicism is extremely regrettable. It does not bode well for the government or the two members who championed this, or at least allegedly championed it. We do not have the results we need, so the injustice and unfairness continue for literally thousands of people.
I want to make one final point on the subject. This is not a big ticket item. With all the tax breaks that were given in this budget, this would have been minuscule. When we look at the billions of dollars in tax breaks in this budget that went to major corporations, and international corporations in most cases, we can see that this would have been minuscule. That will continue now indefinitely. This size of tax break, which is really not a break at all but simply some justice for this group of taxpayers and citizens of this country, is a relatively small amount of money. The government is showing its inability to reflect any sense of fairness or justice for that group.
I know that my time is just about up, but I want to assure the recipients of this social security benefit that next week after the break I will be tabling a private member's bill, and this battle will continue. If the Conservative Party is not prepared to fight and get us justice and fairness, other members in the House are prepared to continue to fight for it.