Debates of Oct. 17th, 2017

Opposition Motion—Minister of Finance's documents submitted to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Exactly.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

If we are going to have a finance minister bringing legislation that has to do with pensions, then Bill C-27 will have to be withdrawn, because it is so obviously tarnished with the self-interest of him and his company and his offshore villa that it has no credibility. For anyone on the government side now to stand with that finance minister and say that they are going to continue to push this attack on defined pension benefits, when this man laid out the plan for his shareholders in 2013 and has followed through, it falls to the government to say that it will reject him and his bill.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I go to questions and comments, I just want to remind the parliamentary secretary that if he has any comments or questions he should not be yelling them out but he should actually stand when it is time for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to read to my friend from Timmins—James Bay from the “Statement on Open and Accountable Government” and I would ask him to comment on it:

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must avoid conflict of interest, the appearance of conflict of interest and situations that have the potential to involve conflicts of interest.

How is the government doing with that?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is going to be really hard to answer that question in a very short space of time.

I remember when the Prime Minister said not only is it a ministerial code but the Liberals are going to elevate it and as soon as they elevate it they are going to make sure that it is standard operating procedure. They ditched it immediately.

We are not talking about a finance minister who wrote a letter on behalf of one of his companies, which he is not allowed to do. We are not talking about a parliamentary secretary who writes a letter on behalf of a company in an area where it may have some work through Parliament, even if that individual was just trying to help a local business as any other member of Parliament is allowed to do, because we need to have rules for parliamentary secretaries. We are talking about a minister who has not bothered to tell anybody that he is making $150,000 a month directly from Morneau Shepell in the area of moving toward privatized pensions, who told his investors that we needed to change the legislation, and then stood for office and brought that legislation into Parliament, and is now trying to push it through while still being involved directly with Morneau Shepell.

The level of abuse of public trust is so much more elevated and it is incredibly elevated because we are dealing with the pensions of Canadians. People who do hard work year in and year out should be able to retire in dignity without having to worry about the Liberal government and its pals on Bay Street undermining them.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, in regards to the issue of the minister's villa, this was a story in 2015, and the fact that the opposition is now trying to pick up on it is quite remarkable.

I want to ask the member a question more specifically to his comments about him being “Joe Public” and the “little guy” as he referred to himself. Does he really think that the members of the House represent “Joe Public”? Do we not have it a little bit better than them?

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Absolutely.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

What are you talking about? You've got to be kidding me.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Is the member truly representing them by coming here and purporting that he is “Joe Public”, that he is one of the “little guys”?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I understand that there is much participation in this particular debate but I do want to remind members that if they have questions or comments, instead of heckling or yelling across the way to please wait until questions and comments and feel free to stand up to be recognized.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, if the member for Kingston and the Islands is not here to represent “Joe Public”, then he should get the heck out the door.

If the Liberals are here to look after their friends, their insiders, all the rich and the wealthy in this country then we have had 150 years of that and it is enough.

I am here to represent people who have been written off the political and economic map of this nation and they are being written off by the Liberal finance minister and his attack on the pensions of seniors and hard-working Canadians. If there are no Liberals willing to stand up and defend them, then they should just step out.

[Simon Marcil, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, we can agree that after 10 years in opposition purgatory, the Liberal government has not really changed its corporate culture.

Who would my colleague say is the worst Minister of Finance between the dishonourable Paul Martin, who registered his ships in Barbados, or the current finance minister, who hid a villa in France?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is a tough question. I have to choose between Paul Martin and Morneau Shepell. It is the same party.

The problem is the lack of integrity in the Liberal Party, a party that does not believe that it has to defend the interests of the middle class and the working class. The Liberal Party has always preferred to defend the interests of the wealthy and multinationals. For example, the Minister of Finance says that the precarious employment situation is normal. It is not normal. It is the result of policies that favour multinationals and friends of the Liberal Party.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, did we just hear the member for Kingston and the Islands ask if we really think we represent Joe Public? He stood and asked if we actually think we represent Joe Public in the House. I can tell him that this caucus is made up of farmers. It is made up of teachers. It is made up of construction workers who may own construction companies. It is made up of business people from across this country. We are Joe Public in the House. The reason we are here today is that the Liberals do not believe that they are. They do not believe they represent the public in this country. That is why they keep getting themselves into the trouble they are in.

I have been here probably too long now, but I remember one of them saying, “I am entitled to my entitlements.” We all remember that. Fortunately, in the end, it cost that government its position, and it had to move over here. The Liberals moved back into government and brought that same attitude with them right from the beginning. I want to talk about that this afternoon.

We are not here just because of an issue concerning the Ethics Commissioner. We are here because of the attitude shown by the government that disrespects Canadians right across this country, particularly the attitude of the finance minister and the Prime Minister of this country.

I will be sharing my time today with the member for Peace River—Westlock.

We just heard the NDP member talk about the finance minister, in 2013, giving a speech explaining changes to pension plans and benefits he wanted to see that would benefit his company, Morneau Shepell. Let us fast forward to his being elected and appointed finance minister, when he introduces Bill C-27. Anyone who looks at the bill knows it would accomplish pretty much everything he wanted in 2013.

We know he is going to leave here. Where is going to go? It actually does not make much difference if his interests are in a blind trust right now or not, because he is taking care of them from here. That is the problem. That is the heartbeat of a Liberal right there. We are here today not just because of that one issue around ethics but because of an attitude the current government has had from day one.

There is a total disinterest by the Liberals in being here today, and we know why that is. However, I have to ask if it is because they have a sense of entitlement that they do not even need to be here to answer the questions Canadians are asking. We have seen that for the last month on the tax changes. Liberals want nothing to do with Canadians. They want nothing to do with talking to them. They want nothing to do with town halls. They want nothing to do with extending the consultation period.

They ask if we represent Joe Public. We actually meet Joe Public. They have been hiding in their offices for the last two months, afraid of the Canadian public.

Is it arrogance that keeps them from being here today? Is it carelessness? From the beginning, we have seen that they just have not been able to get the job done. They are running massive deficits. They have not been able to keep virtually any promise they have made. Is it because of corruption that they do not want to be here today to defend themselves? The opaqueness we are seeing is not meant to inform Canadians; it is actually meant to push them away and protect the Liberal government.

I heard this afternoon that they are begging for more time and that we treat the finance minister with great respect because somehow it is poisoning the well if we dare question the direction the Liberal government is going.

Let us talk about what is expected of ministers. Members are elected and are appointed to cabinet or to the position of parliamentary secretary, and it is expected that they will not be able to control their assets. They are expected to either sell them off or put them in a blind trust at a distance so they cannot have any influence over them. All of us who were in that situation had to give up control of our assets.

What is it that the finance minister has done? Nobody really knows. The further we go, the more convoluted this gets and the more unsure we are about what he has actually done with his assets. We heard today that he could be making up to $150,000 a month. My Liberal colleague across the way talked about how we are privileged to be here. The finance minister is making the equivalent of an MP's salary every month just in dividends from his company, according to the information.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Is that a bad thing?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

The gentleman across the way asked if that is a bad thing. It is a bad thing if the Canadian public does not know what he is doing and if he has been fooling around with his assets for the last two years so that he is getting a benefit that the Canadian public is not aware of. We are supposed to list those kinds of things, and Canadians are supposed to be aware of them.

Yesterday at the press conference, the Prime Minister himself would not let the finance minister answer questions. It starts to look like someone is guilty of something.

The Prime Minister is not exactly lily-white in this whole situation either. Lately, he has been bragging about how someone else manages and controls his family fortune. We certainly hope that is so and that the Prime Minister holds himself to a higher standard than he has allowed the finance minister to hold.

From the beginning the Prime Minister said that the government did not want to see or smell corruption anywhere. Right or wrong, from the very beginning we have questioned the ethics of the government. The Prime Minister has been in the middle of it from when he took his family with him to state dinners and left his ministers at home. A natural resource crisis with softwood lumber is going on but he leaves the minister at home, because he wants to take his in-laws with him to a state dinner.

There are numerous examples we can use. How about the one last Christmas? The Prime Minister went to a billionaire's island. I would say he got a personal benefit. The ethics code does not allow us to get a personal benefit from our position and the opportunities that we have. I would say that taking a private jet to a private island and spending 10 days there enjoying someone's hospitality in a fancy resort would be a private benefit. We have not heard anything yet whether that was in fact some sort of violation of the code, so why are we surprised when other cabinet ministers start dabbling as well?

We can talk about office renovations and their cost. When new ministers decide they will spend $600,000 or $800,000 on an office renovation, it does not matter because the tone is being set by the Prime Minister and his finance minister in the government. The Prime Minister claimed that the Liberals were going to be clean and accountable. We are just not seeing that.

It seems to be the way the government is that if it can find a loophole, it will take advantage of it and move through it. That is okay to it and there is no problem as long as it can find the loophole and squeeze through it. The problem is that the Liberals treat everyone else differently. When they start talking about regular people being tax cheats for using using corporate structures not to pay taxes, we know they are treating them differently from themselves.

I want to take a short look at the history of this government. I have talked a bit about some of the things it has done and the ethical standards it has failed to set up. The Liberals continue to mislead Canadians about the consequences of the tax cuts, but I would like to talk about the last six weeks in particular and the approach they have taken to Canadians.

The Liberals accused Canadians of being tax cheats, the people who have used some sort of corporate structure for their small businesses or their farms at a time when the Prime Minister and finance minister have had their own trusts. However, we found out they have foreign corporations in Barbados and France. Would they be putting those corporations in place if they were not trying to avoid Canadian taxes? I doubt it.

With its last approach to tax policy, the Liberal government has dragged millions of Canadians into a situation wherein they will face increased taxes. It is an attack on small companies, private business, employees, and agriculture. We know the details. Private investment is being taxed at levels of up to 73%. That is what the Liberals were proposing. They said, “Okay, we have got income sharing going on in small companies. We have to stop that. Well, if we can't stop it, we are going to go in and are going to make sure we spend time with these people to see if they are actually doing the work they claim they are doing.”

Are the Liberals serious? Are they going to put in place a reasonable test that will result in inspectors being on farms? Most of the people who work for the government cannot even come close to working the hours that farmers and their spouses work on their own operations.

In addition, the government talked about capital gains changes that would basically make it cheaper for people to sell their assets to a stranger than to their own children. Now, we hear it is backing off from that. The only reason it is backing off is the pressure it has been put under by this side of the House and Canadians across Canada.

The Liberal government threw out a little tiny promise it made, refusing to keep it for two years until it was in big trouble. Then it decided to move ahead with a tax break that was in place two years ago, but which it chose to disregard and remove, and now it wants to put it back in.

Canadians are supposed to treat this policy and the government seriously. It will not work, as people are starting to see through the government. They are starting to see its arrogance and sense of entitlement. As well, they are starting to smell something even worse, which is a deep-rooted sense of corruption in the government.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, in following up on this, I took a shot at the member for Timmins—James Bay, and he took one back at me. I respect that. However, given that the member who just spoke also brought it up, perhaps I will try again to say what I had already said the first time. Maybe the members opposite could listen to me this time.

The member for Timmins—James Bay referred to himself as Joe Public. He referred to himself as the little guy. What I was saying is that despite—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If I did refer to myself as the little guy, I would like to retract that comment. I am not a little guy. In fact, I have put on a lot of weight on the leadership bid. However, on standing up for average people, and if we call them the average Joe, then yes, I will do that every single day of my life.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, at least now I know the member has heard what I said and has understood it. I appreciate the fact that he retracted it. I am sure he comes here with the best intentions, as we all do, to represent everyone, but to suggest we are the little guy, I think is extremely disingenuous.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I do not know what palace he comes from, but I come from an average family farm in southwestern Saskatchewan. My grandfather and his brother came here and homesteaded. My father and uncle farmed together, and I farmed with them. I would call that a pretty average Canadian.

My colleague, the finance critic, talked this morning about his parents being teachers. Two teachers, and he has the privilege, as I do and many of us do, to be here in the House of Commons to represent the average person across the country. If he thinks average people are different than the little people, that is up to him. On this side of the House we do not have an extra $33 million to lose track of. We do not have a French villa that we cannot remember to declare. They may have that across there. We represent average Canadians, the little people across the country. They certainly do not, especially when they stand up and argue against the fact that they should be doing that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to follow up with my hon. colleague, because this fundamental question about who we represent is, to me, at the heart of what parliamentary democracy should be. If we call this the House of Commons it should be the house of the common people. However, we are being told by the Liberals that we are somehow being mean to people who forget they own French villas, that we are supposed to be in solidarity with them because of our paycheques, that this is somehow the rich boys' club, whereas I would say that the people of Canada pay us very well to represent their interests, not to represent the interests of people who cannot remember the fact that they own French villas.

My hon. colleague and I have not agreed on very much over the years. I have known him since 2004. We disagree on a lot of things, but we do agree about defending our regions. I know my hon. colleague defended his region. I will defend my region. The people I represent are hard-working. They play by the rules, and they get none of the benefits that Morneau Shepell gets on a daily basis.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for pointing that out because we all insist on representing our constituents and our regions.

The government is killing us in western Canada. It could care less about what is going on out there. Its members are not speaking out for their interests. An example is the pipeline. They play this hypocritical game with pipelines, pretending they are approving things that will never go through. They have changed the rules around pipelines a dozen times, so it is impossible to get natural resource development done properly, and we are losing investment by the billions of dollars. We have probably lost close to half a trillion dollars of investment in western Canada because of the policies of the government, and he stands across the way and says to us we are not the average people. We are the average people, and we are going to stand up for the average people in our ridings.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I acknowledge the next speaker, I just want to advise the member that I will have to interrupt him at some point because of the orders of the day with regard to the votes.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Peace River—Westlock.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I usually say it is my pleasure to rise to speak, but today I definitely question why we have to be here to discuss this. It impacts all Canadians significantly when the Minister of Finance's ethics are on the line. That is what we are discussing today, and I am sad we have to be here to that. Nonetheless will go forward.

My riding is a riding of farmers, loggers, and oil field workers. That is typically what we do. My farmers get out of bed every morning to farm, and it has been rough lately. The crops are under snow. Last year they were under snow as well in the fall. Therefore, we are looking at two years of significant crop failure.

I will talk a bit about a farmer named Guido. He is a 24-year-old farmer who still lives with his parents. Two years ago he saved up enough money to rent a quarter section of land and seed it. He drives a logging truck all winter so he can save up enough money to put in a crop. Last year, it was pretty much a total failure. He picked himself up, drove a truck again throughout the winter, and saved up enough money to rent the land again and put in another crop. We are talking about that spirit. A total failure one year, he gets up and does it again.

He does not have a French villa to go back to during the winter. He has to drive a logging truck. He made a significant amount of money doing that and he invested it forward. He has the opportunities at this point in his life to take a total loss into his stride and go forward. That is what we are dealing with when it comes to farming in northern Alberta. It is a risky business.

Farmers are entirely dependent upon the weather. They are always looking at the weather to see if it is going to rain enough, if it is going to rain too much, or if it is going to be too dry, all of these kinds of things. Is the frost going to come early, or is it going to come late, or will they get a good harvest? Is the price going to be good? That is what we deal with when it comes to farming.

I mentioned that he also drives a logging truck. Many people in northern Alberta are not tied to just one industry. They often will work in one industry and subsidize their efforts in another area. I know many people who service a number of oil wells, who are farming on the side, and who are perhaps souping up trucks at a hot rod shop down the street. That is very common. Many people work three jobs in northern Alberta just to make a living.

Now, to be told they are nothing but tax cheats, that if they have a private corporation to limit their liability in the particular area they do business in is merely just a way to avoid paying taxes, is disingenuous on the part of the government. It is also severely hypocritical when the finance minister himself has, what appears to me, put in place private corporations to avoid paying taxes. Many of the people I know who have private corporations do that purely to limit their liability, not to avoid paying taxes. However, the finance minister on the other hand appears to have put in place private corporations purely to avoid paying taxes.

We are here today asking the finance minister to table documents between November 4, 2015 to July 18, 2017. We would like to know where the finance minister is on this, because his ethics and integrity are critical to the functioning of the country. If we cannot trust our finance minister, where will we go from here? We are already suspicious of the finance minister coming after significant amounts of taxes.

The Liberal government has a spending problem, and it is looking everywhere for the next dollar. It is not looking at the next million dollars; it is looking for the next dollar. I know this because it is going after employee discounts. It said that this was a mistake. If this was a mistake, it did not happen overnight. Somebody was drafting that document and building that website. I know from my own experience that drafting and building a website does not happen overnight. It typically takes a minimum of two or three days.

If the Liberal government is going after the employee discount, what else is it going after? We know it is already going after the small businesses when it comes to income sprinkling. When people are shareholders in a farm, they are asked if they actually do any work on that farm.

Farming is a way of life more than it is a business. It is said that if we love what we do, we never work a day in our lives. Therefore, to ask farmers what they did for their company today, they would scratch their heads and say that they were not exactly sure, that they did the thing they loved to do. If they were asked what their individual tasks were, they would say that they were not sure, that they would have to go through them.

Are we going to require an accounting of all the individual tasks that get done? Farmers do not punch the clock like everyone else. They typically take their paycheques one day of the year, when they deliver their crops to either the terminal in Westlock, or drive it down to Edmonton or that kind of thing.

Therefore, we know the government is significantly out of touch when it comes after things like employee discounts, or small businesses or family farmers. We know it does not understand what it is like to be the average everyday Canadian. The hypocrisy stinks. I know that the people I represent up in northern Alberta were suspicious of the current government when it was elected and their suspicions have been confirmed, for sure.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It being 5:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

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