Debates of April 30th, 2008

Elections Canada

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and this entire party have known for many years that it is perfectly legal for parties to transfer money from the national to the local. In fact, we know the Liberal Party did just that, to the tune of $1.5 million. Interestingly, those local campaigns then transferred back about $1.3 million to the national Liberal Party.

The member is not willing to explain any of his personal behaviour. Could he tell us more about those million dollar transfers between local and national Liberals?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, eight times we have given the Prime Minister the opportunity to answer a simple question. Let me jog his memory.

The former Conservative candidate in Berthier—Maskinongé, Ann Julie Fortier, said she confronted him personally before the last election, saying that Conservative organizers tried to force her to pass off $28,000 of national expenses as their own. Is this why the Prime Minister will not answer the simple question?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

How disappointing, Mr. Speaker. The member has been asked four times to explain his very unusual financial transactions from the last election, during which a group of New Brunswick Liberals got together, organized by the national party, paid for out of the account of the national party, with no interaction between those local candidates and the newspaper in which the advertisement ran. After all that, he did not even report on his election return that he had picked up those expenses.

When will he explain to Canadians his failure to come clean?

Gasoline Prices

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, curiously, the price of gas starts going up every year as soon as vacation time approaches. Yet we could have an instrument in place this summer to better monitor the petroleum industry, if the government would only cooperate with Parliament for once, as it expressed its unanimous support on Monday for our bill, Bill C-454, which strengthens the Competition Act and gives greater powers to its commissioner.

Will the government agree to pass our bill at all stages, so it may be in full force by this summer?

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-454 is at committee and will be dealt with at committee in accordance with the industry committee procedure. It will be studied and analyzed. A number of interesting provisions are in the bill and it will, in due course, form part of the discussions.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, integrated oil companies control more than 90% of the market and rake in huge profits, while independent companies are struggling to get by. Far from competing with one another, they get along so well that they share the market and provide each other with refined gasoline.

Given the soaring price of gas, does the minister recognize the urgent need to give the Competition Bureau the power to conduct a real investigation and force oil companies to justify their practices?

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, as the member is fully aware, the Competition Bureau has extensive authority and how that authority might be changed has been the subject of discussion here in Parliament for some time.

The Bloc has put forward a bill that is now before the industry committee for analysis. I would point out for the hon. member that some time ago, well in advance of that, a panel was struck, the so-called Red Wilson panel. That panel will be investigating this and reporting back to Canadians in June of this year. We will take action at that time.

Manufacturing Industry

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec and Ontario manufacturing industries have been hard hit by the economic slowdown. The turmoil is not over. The European Union is looking ever more seriously at imposing a carbon tax on goods imported from countries that did not sign the Kyoto protocol or that do not respect its rules, such as Canada under the Conservative government.

Will the minister admit that his government, by favouring the oil industry and not respecting Kyoto, is harming Quebec and Ontario manufacturing industries?

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, our government quickly took action to stimulate the economy. We reduced the GST, cut income taxes and also provided tax relief for businesses in order to create jobs. It worked. Our economy is more robust than that of the United States. We are creating jobs, whereas the number of jobs is decreasing in the United States.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government has told us that its economic policy is based on respecting market forces. However, its decisions show otherwise. By not respecting Kyoto, by giving tax incentives to oil companies, the government is directing market forces in favour of the oil companies.

Will the Minister of Finance admit that the government favours economic laissez-faire only for the manufacturing industry?

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, what the government will continue to do is to build solid fundamentals. This government will not retreat behind Bloc protectionism, nor will it use isolationism, nor will it do what the Liberals proposed we should do, which is to have higher corporate taxes, higher personal taxes, higher consumption taxes, less competition and fewer economic investments in respect of infrastructure. That will not sustain the economy. That is not where Canadians are going. That is where the Liberals would take Canada, not the Conservative government.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' laissez-faire, I do not care attitude is dragging Canada's economic heartland into a recession.

The fact is that since January 2007, Canada has lost 165,000 manufacturing jobs. Other governments are taking action.

Why on earth has the government stubbornly refused to present any meaningful plan to help Canadian manufacturers or provide any real hope to Canadian manufacturing workers?

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should be fair to the facts. Over the last 12 months 325,000 net new jobs have been created in Canada.

My friend speaks about laissez-faire. That is code among Liberals for actually raising taxes. It is code for tax and spend liberalism, raising consumer taxes, raising corporate taxes and putting a drag on the economy so that we cannot actually be competitive.

We will not go there. We will continue to defend the interests of the country.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, two years ago, the Conservative government inherited the best economic and fiscal situation of any incoming government in Canadian history.

Today, Canada is teetering on the edge of deficit and we are hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs.

Why is there no real manufacturing plan? Is it because bad Conservative fiscal policies have eliminated any capacity to help or invest in manufacturing or is it because the Conservatives simply do not care?

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, my friend misrepresents the facts in the circumstances. Our economy is stronger than the U.S. economy. We continue to create jobs at a greater rate than the American economy.

What has the leader of the Liberal Party put forward as an alternative? He wants massive increases in gas taxes. How will that help anybody get a job or be an advantage to industry in Canada?

The Economy

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while the finance minister is busy handing out $100,000 jobs to his Conservative cronies, hard-working Ontarians everywhere are losing their jobs on a daily basis: Belleville, Kapuskasing and Oshawa, 900 jobs lost; Listowel, 500 jobs lost; Ottawa, 1,100 lost; Brampton, 1,200 jobs lost; and that list continues to grow.

When will the finance minister show some leadership and take some action to actually help, instead of insulting Ontarians?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, there the member goes badmouthing the Canadian economy and wishing ill on the Canadian economy.

We took a dramatic stimulus in the month of October by reducing business taxes dramatically. And, guess what? Members of the Liberal Party supported that. No wonder they supported it. Their leader, when he was in Toronto at the economic club in October, said that business tax cuts were the way to go. Not only did they support it in this House, the leader opposite said it.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the leader and this party supports Ontarians and the province of Ontario. The bottom line is that actions speak louder than words. There has been no plan of action for the auto sector, no help for laid-off workers and only insults for Ontarians.

The finance minister has emptied the cupboard bare. Why is he forcing Canadians to make a choice between filling up their gas tank, filling their fridge or filling their prescriptions?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the stimulus that we took in October, supported by the Liberal Party opposite and advocated by the Liberal Party opposite, was reviewed by the IMF.

Here is what the international community said in the IMF World Economic Outlook:

A package of tax cuts has provided a timely fiscal stimulus....

...the [Canadian] government structural policy agenda should help increase competitiveness and productivity growth to underpin longer-term prospects.

If Canadians want to pay a lot more at the gas pumps, they can elect the Liberals who want to bring in a massive tax increase on gasoline in Canada.

Elections Canada

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the time of the last election, the most recent guidelines to candidates issued by Elections Canada specifically provided that advertising costs incurred by a local candidate that promoted either the candidate or the party was an allowable expense of the candidate. Now it appears that Elections Canada has changed the rules after the fact.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board please inform the House of the discrepancies between the 2005 and 2007 election manuals provided to official agents?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, the 2005 election handbook for candidates states:

Election advertising means the transmission to the public by any means during an election period of an advertising message that promotes or opposes a registered party or the election of a candidate....

In other words, local ads can focus on the candidate or the party. However, after the election was over, Elections Canada suddenly changed the rules to delete “registered party” ensuring that only advertising focused on the local candidate would be allowed to be expensed locally. It cannot change the rules after the game is over.

Officers of Parliament

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while meeting with the public accounts committee yesterday, Auditor General Sheila Fraser told us that she and other independent officers of Parliament were ordered to have their communications material and media releases vetted by the government. This is an unprecedented attempt to violate the autonomy of these independent officers.

Will the Prime Minister today withdraw this order and acknowledge that the independence of officers of Parliament must be respected and protected?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the House that this government respects the independence of each and every officer of the House.

I might add that I was having quite a wonderful time listening to the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board explain about the problems of the Liberal Party. I hope the members ask more questions in that respect.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General, the Ethics Commissioner, the Chief Electoral Officer, the Privacy and Information Commissioner and others are independent officers. This should be an easy concept to grasp. Demanding that they vet their work through PCO is an attack on their independence.

The Auditor General said yesterday, “My communications strategies aren't going to PCO”. It appears we have a standoff.

Does the Prime Minister of Canada really want to pick a fight with the Auditor General of Canada?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that we respect the independence of the officers of Parliament and this government would not do anything inconsistent with the independent role of those officers.