Debates of March 7th, 2013

Public Sector Integrity Commissioner

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour, pursuant to section 38 of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, to lay upon the table the special report of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner concerning an investigation into a disclosure of wrongdoing.

This report is deemed permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

Office of the Correctional Investigator

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 193 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, I am pleased to table a report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator entitled “Spirit Matters: Aboriginal People and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act”, in both official languages.

Government Response to Petitions

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 10 petitions.

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the following reports of the Canadian Delegation of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group respecting its participation at a number of events: first, the U.S. Congressional meetings that were held in Washington, D.C., United States of America, February 28-29, 2012; the 65th Annual Meeting of the Council of State Governments West, held in Edmonton, Alberta, July 20-23, 2012; the 78th Annual Meeting of the Southern Governors Association, held in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, August 10-12, 2012; and the National Conference of the Council of State Governments, held in Austin, Texas, November 30 to December 3, 2012.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, two reports from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

First I wish to present the 42nd report entitled, “Access to Information Requests and Parliamentary Privilege”. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

I also want to table the 43rd report in relation to the report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the province of Alberta, 2012.

Fisheries and Oceans

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans in relation to a motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, October 18, 2011, on closed containment salmon aquaculture. Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of the Commons, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

I also wish to thank all members of the committee for their hard work and the spirit of collegiality from all parties. I also wish to extend my thanks to the dedicated staff of the committee.

National Defence

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on National Defence in relation to Bill C-15, An Act to amend the National Defence Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

Justice and Human Rights

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 20th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendment.

Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, I move:

That the House do now proceed to the orders of the day.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #629

Committees of the House

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I declare the motion carried.

Bill C-48—Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, the First Nations Goods and Services Tax Act and related legislation, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67(1), there will now be a 30-minute question period.

I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in this question period. I would direct members, as they are asking their questions and giving answers, to limit them to one minute and no more.

The hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say that it is with pleasure that I take to my feet today to address yet another shutting down of Parliament by the government, a government that seems unwilling and maybe incapable of actually working with the opposition within the constraints of Parliament. We have yet again a motion that shuts down debate for the 30th time, tying the record of any government in Canadian history for shutting down debate in a Parliament. What is it shutting down debate over this time? It is on a bill that has been 11 years in the making. That is 11 years of tax uncertainty for Canadians.

The committee has begun pre-hearings on this bill it will receive. It has heard that it has affected the GDP and our economy.

The government uses an arcane process by which it has passed more than 100 tax bills, with thousands of amendments to the tax code, and yet it does not make the changes. It waits a decade or more before ramming them all into one bill. New Democrats have suggested that there is a better way to do this. We have suggested that there is a better way to do Parliament. There is a better way to have conversations about the nature of our country and what the future looks like than shutting down debate because the Conservatives grow frustrated with having that conversation.

Parliament should do one thing: hold the government of the day to account. I know that the finance minister, the Prime Minister and the House leader do not like that idea very much, but that is the fact. The reason there is a Parliament is to hold the government to account.

We have a bill that was created by a broken process, which I think even the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance would agree with. It cannot be something created every 10 years, creating tax uncertainty for Canadians and businesses that we need to grow our economy. Members have already heard testimony that this lag, this wait, this debate has affected our economy and GDP. Deals do not get done. People do not know how to file their business taxes properly.

After 11 years, Canadians have grown frustrated by seven hours of debate. It is the 11 years that caused this uncertainty. It is this 11 years of waiting that caused the uncertainty that affects our economy. Is there not a better way to do this type of legislation? Is there not a better way to finally treat Parliament with the respect it deserves?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Minister of National Revenue and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Mr. Speaker, this bill has been before Parliament for five months now. It was introduced in November of last year. This means that the House of Commons has had over 100 days to examine this bill already, and we are only at the preliminary stage in what is a very long parliamentary process. We have had literally days of debate and have heard hours and hours of speeches. The speeches are all saying the same thing. If New Democrats are concerned about the economy, then I encourage them to vote and pass this bill. They are simply playing politics with this issue.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, what is very clear is that we are seeing a different style of government. We are seeing a Conservative government that now has a majority and feels that it can get away with doing absolutely anything it wants inside the chamber, even if it means taking away the ability of opposition members to have appropriate time to debate a wide variety of issues. This is a majority government that has brought in time allocation more than any other government in the history of our nation.

We only need look back at some of the closure motions it has brought forward. They dealt with the Canadian Wheat Board, the pooled pension bill, the copyright bill, the gun registry, back-to-work legislation, our financial systems review and two huge budget bills. The way the government has walked on the rights and privileges of members by limiting debate is unprecedented. New Democrats are challenging the government House leader to do the job he is paid to do and start negotiating in good faith with opposition House leaders. That is what is essential.

My question is to the government House leader. Is he prepared to actually sit down with House leaders to ensure that a proper debate will occur on those bills that are affecting Canadians from coast to coast to coast?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, please allow me to convey my sympathy to the family of the late Stompin' Tom Connors. Tom and I both call the small community of Skinners Pond, P.E.I. our home. He will be missed dearly by his family, his friends and all Canadians.

Back to the topic at hand, from 2009 to 2011, in advance of this bill, our government engaged in repeated open and public consultations on the proposed technical changes that would be included in this legislation. Those consultations took place in December 2009, July 2010, August 2010, November 2010, December 2010, January 2011, March 2011, July 2011, August 2011 and October 2011.

This is one of the bills that has been most consulted on in this House. It has been before Parliament for five months now, as I said. That is 100 days during which the opposition could have examined this bill. It is a bill that has all-party support. It has been a decade in the making.

I encourage the opposition to get down to business and pass this bill.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again I rise with great sadness that for the 30th time, the government has decided to enact closure to ram through one of its pieces of legislation, and not just any legislation, but very important technical tax changes, almost 1,000 pages, affecting more than 100 tax laws that are very important to all Canadians.

We have heard a lot of testimony from tax practitioners in this country about the importance of the timely resolution of these technical tax changes. Let me say that if this bill is so urgent on the part of the government, why did it take it 11 long years to bring this bill before Parliament and to get us to this point?

Second, if the government introduced the bill 100 days ago, what has it been doing? We have only just been able to get this on our agenda for debate.

While many of the changes themselves may not be controversial, the process, whereby the government has waited 11 years to enact technical tax changes that have already been announced, is the issue we need to debate.

We have no other opportunity to debate this. It creates confusion among Canadians and creates confusion among tax professionals. It creates a drag on our GDP because businesses do not know which set of rules they are playing by, the ones that have been announced or the ones that were formerly in place. We deserve a full and thorough debate of the process by which these tax changes get made. Will she answer that?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

Mr. Speaker, certainly the hon. member would agree that 11 years is long enough, so it is time that we get this bill passed.

We have listened to the professional accountants industry, which represents over 75,000 tax professionals, and I have a quote from them:

Some of the measures contained in today's bill were initially proposed as early as 1999.... With unlegislated tax measures, taxpayers and professional accountants must maintain their records and forms—sometimes for years—to be in a position to comply, even without knowing when and if these measures will be approved by Parliament and enacted. This uncertainty and unpredictability places an enormous compliance burden on taxpayers, businesses, professionals and their clients.

This is what the member, the NDP finance critic, had to say about this bill only this week in finance committee:

Obviously we support the goal of closing tax loopholes and making the system in Canada clearer and easier to understand for Canadians.... [I]t's important that these technical changes be adopted so that there's clarity and certainty in tax legislation.

Therefore, let us adopt them.