House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 56% of the vote.
Tax Agreements April 4th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, at the meeting of the finance ministers of the 34 countries of the Americas in Toronto, the Canadian minister said that he did not contemplate putting an end to the tax agreement between Canada and Barbados.
How can the Prime Minister allow the Minister of Finance to be the one who decides to maintain the tax agreement between Canada and Barbados, when it is common knowledge that the minister draws personal advantage from that agreement?
Tax Agreements April 4th, 2001
the Canadian minister said that he did not contemplate putting an end to the tax agreement between Canada—
Tax Agreements April 4th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, at the meeting of the finance ministers of the 34 countries of the Americas in Toronto—
Taxation April 3rd, 2001
Mr. Speaker, does it seem normal to the Prime Minister that the third-ranking country in terms of Canadian investments, after the United States and the United Kingdom, is Barbados, a tax haven per excellence with a population of 269,000?
Does the Prime Minister not feel that enough is enough? Is it because the Minister of Finance has eight subsidiary shipping companies in Barbados that there has been no change in this situation since 1994?
Taxation April 3rd, 2001
Mr. Speaker, for some years now, the OECD, the auditor general and the Bloc Quebecois have been speaking out against such harmful and negative taxation practices as tax havens and tax treaties signed with these countries.
Canada has one such treaty with Barbados, which benefits the rich but costs Revenue Canada hundreds of millions of dollars yearly in unpaid income tax and other taxes.
While the finance ministers of the 34 countries in the future free trade area of the Americas are in Toronto discussing harmful taxation practices, might it not be a good idea for the government to speak out against this tax treaty between Canada and Barbados as a sign of its willingness to combat these harmful practices?
Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000 March 27th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, there are days when no amount of effort moves things forward. This is only the third time I have tried to finish my speech. I hope that no other prerogatives of the House will prevent me from making it all the way to the end. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will show some understanding.
Before I was interrupted I was saying that when one puts 30% of one's income into accommodation one is viewed as needing assistance.
In view of such outrageous figures, which reveal that an additional almost 60% of homes in Canada spend over 50% of their income on accommodation, how is it the Minister of Finance did not give a moment's thought to spending a cent on social housing? It would have been easy to allocate $2 billion or $3 billion of the $135 billion expected surplus over the next five years. Why did he not think of that?
Why, on the other hand, did he think to turn to the millionaires, people who are not having a hard time, people who do not need $9,000 or $11,000 in savings this year? However, people earning less than $15,000 a year would certainly like to have had better housing for their family. No, this is not one of the Minister of Finance's priorities, not at all.
With the billions he has, how did he end up taking money out of the pockets of the unemployed, the disadvantaged and the sick, those who cannot benefit from proper transfers corresponding to the needs of the people in the health care sector? How did he end up picking the pockets of students, too, who could have used some of the manna going into the government coffers? Why did the Minister of Finance not think of putting money into these sectors? Why did he not give a moment's thought either to increasing Canada's contribution to international aid, which has shrunk since this heartless minister has been Minister of Finance?
How can this man continue to believe that the best way to fight poverty and unemployment is to continue to make off with the surplus in the employment insurance fund every year? How can he not have given a minute's thought to doing something for the 57% of people who are excluded, the people out of work who are not eligible for employment insurance? It is because he needs the dough, because he needs to make use of the surplus to offer tax cuts to those with annual incomes of $250,000 and up.
How can this man not have thought that it would be a good idea to raise the old age pension, particularly for older women living alone?
Barely 16 months ago, a National Council on Welfare report informed us that the situation of seniors who are on their own, particularly the women, is getting worse, and that additional funding was needed to help them and keep us from returning to the vicious circle we were in prior to 1960s. Back then, there was no safety net for these people. How can this man still want to make women and children the first ones that have to pay?
The Minister of Finance's reaction to that, when I said it the other day, was to laugh. I would love it if, at some point, the camera would catch his smile when we confront him with such evidence, when we tell him that women and children are paying for his negligence, when we tell him that his grabbing billions of dollars from the employment insurance surpluses, $38 billion since 1994, directly hits women and children first, and further marginalizes young people. He is still smiling. I would love it if the camera would catch him.
He also smiles when we tell him about elderly women living alone. There is nothing funny about the plight of elderly women living alone and getting increasingly poor.
Why did this man think of reducing taxes for millionaires before using money to help the poor and the homeless?
Recently, an alderman from Hull, whom I salute and congratulate for his work, told us that in the Outaouais region there are not only more and more homeless people who lose their jobs, who lose everything, but that entire families are also homeless. There are no shelters for these people.
Why did the Minister of Finance, who must know the Outaouais since he has been living here for several years, not to mention the fact that he is a member from Quebec, not think about using part of the billions that he is taking from the poor to build facilities to house these homeless families?
One sometimes wonders if the minister and his government have a heart. Mr. Speaker, you know what a heart is. You do. I am sure that you have one, but I sometimes have doubts about whether the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister do.
When we see how priorities are set with regard to budget allocation and when we see the savage cuts in social programs, particularly income support programs, over the last few years, we cannot help but wonder if he has a heart. If he has one, he must have one since he appears to be alive and well, it is not in the right place, as my grandfather would have said.
If his heart were in the right place, with the means available to him today to really meet the needs of those in difficulty, of middle income families that have been bled white by taxes for almost two decades, he could have made the right decisions.
I urge him to go back to the drawing board and to make sure that these billions of dollars that will be coming are allocated in a way that will benefit the right people, low and middle income people, particularly families, as well as the unemployed. These people would benefit from a true reform of the EI plan, which now excludes 57% of the clientele it is supposed to serve. These funds should also be put toward full indexing of federal transfers for health, education and income security.
In the area of social housing, there are crying needs. Will our shouts be loud enough to make the finance minister understand that there are people in the street who are cold and hungry? Will we have to shout louder and louder to express the pain of those helpless people who cannot speak for themselves here, who cannot speak directly to this heartless government? How loud will we have to shout to express their pain?
There comes a time when we do not know anymore what data we should bring here, because we have the impression that the people opposite do not care. We can mention facts that speak for themselves, talk about the 25% increase in child poverty since they took office, the 60% increase in people who must spend more than 50% of their income for housing, we can tell them that 57% of the unemployed, mostly women, are excluded from EI benefits, the people across the way just do not care. What will it take to make them understand?
It should not be so difficult for the Minister of Finance to re-examine his forecasts. Incidentally, he will be making an economic statement in May. I hope he will have the decency to stop taking us for morons and come up with concrete numbers. Even if these numbers are a bit pessimistic due to the U.S. economic downturn, I hope he will not have the outrageous idea to try to pull the wool over our eyes once again. I hope he will not take us for what we are not and take Canadians for fools. At one point, one has to stop laughing at people.
Last week, he said that it was a good thing he made conservative forecasts in spite of the fact that the opposition blamed him for being cautious. However there is a difference between being cautious and hiding the facts. There is a difference between being cautious and accurately stating the facts. There is a difference between being cautious and being cynical when people say they need information.
The Minister of Finance has shown cynicism these past few years by forecasting surpluses that were half the real surpluses. I even remember one time when, within a six month period, the finance minister, who claims to be competent, open and transparent, was off by 130% in his surplus forecast for a four or four and a half month period. Who was he trying to kid? He said he was happy he erred on the side of caution. What caution? He was not the least bit cautious.
He has spent the surplus he has creamed off the EI fund, to the tune of $38 billion since 1994. He has put it towards debt reduction. He has used it to lower taxes to millionaires. Where is this so-called caution? Where is the EI cushion?
Suppose there is a downturn in the economy resulting in an increase in the number of unemployed, then we will need more money to help them. Where is the cushion to do that? It is gone. Where is the finance minister's caution? It has gone by the wayside.
I will give you the real numbers. Before the downturn in the U.S. economy, we were expecting a surplus of roughly $148 billion over the next five years. For once we were in agreement with the finance minister, and we will not start arguing about a few comas or decimal points. With this year's downturn, and we have also taken into account next year's downturn and a normal real growth of the GDP, the gross domestic product, we came up with a projected surplus of $136 billion at worst. This would mean a shortfall of about $12 billion over five years. A little over two billion a year is not that bad.
If the finance minister would only stop lowering the taxes for the rich and use the bulk of the surplus to lower the taxes for middle and low income earners, invest in social housing, correct the inequities and injustices of the employment insurance system, and index the health, education and income security transfers, there would be no problem. Every year he could even pay back some of the federal accumulated debt. He would be able to do that. He better not come up with numbers lower than this projected surplus.
If he does, we will travel across Quebec, and Canada if necessary, to let everybody know that the finance minister is taking everybody for a ride. People are not stupid. He should take his responsibilities.
Consequently, we will be voting against Bill C-22 because it does not serve the interests of the majority of taxpayers. When they talk about tax reductions, we must know to whom they are addressed. They are for the finance minister's friends. It is not you and me, it is not middle income families, it is not low income families. They will get almost nothing this year. It is the people who earn $250,000 and more who are benefiting from these cuts.
With regard to his tax reduction plan, the finance minister should go back, take a good look in the mirror and ask himself if he is proud of what he did. I am sure the mirror would tell him that he is not proud of himself. He will have a second thing to do: sit down at his desk, do his homework again and rethink the tax cuts, give them to low and middle income people and consider the unemployed. For once, he should have the heart to look at what he has done since the beginning of his mandate.
It would be a good idea if he started having more feelings, if he behaved a little more like a human being, if he developed a little of what is called social partnership. I do not know if he is aware of this concept. He talks about compassion, a more liberal and bourgeois value. However social partnership means partnering with people who live in poverty to try to bring them some relief. He is in a major position and he could bring some relief to these people.
I simply ask him to reconsider his past decisions, to do his homework over and to reflect on what I have told him: to help people, to bring them some relief, to demonstrate some social partnership and to show some heart. It seems to me that this is easy, that one does not need magic to do it.
Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000 March 27th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to go on with my speech.
As I was saying before you so politely interrupted me for question period, despite the expected downturn in the U.S. economy during the current year, the federal government has accumulated surpluses that will increase federal tax revenues over the next five years.
Even using conservative estimates of federal tax revenues due to a possible economic downturn in Canada during the current year, we could get surpluses over the next five years totalling some $135 billion, and this is based on pessimistic estimates of economic growth rate.
As I was saying before question period, it is easy for a finance minister to accumulate surpluses when he does not need to make any special efforts. He only has to squeeze annual surpluses of $5 billion to $6 billion out of unemployed Canadians to create a budget surplus.
He was also able to save money by cutting provincial transfers for social and education programs. He has generated revenues since 1993 through hidden personal income tax increases, by refusing to index tax tables before last year.
This just goes to show that the Minister of Finance has incredible opportunities to make the right choices and promote social justice.
The minister knows full well, since he is the one who has been emptying the pockets of middle income families, that a large part of the tax reductions he brought in does not go to middle income families or to those families who made sacrifices by paying high taxes or by being subjected to EI cuts. They are not getting the share of surpluses to which they would be entitled if the government wanted to reward those who have been most responsible for putting our fiscal house in order.
The Minister of Finance could have taken exactly the same amount he intends to spend on tax reductions over the next five years, which is about $73 billion, to reduce taxes for low and middle income families.
According to our own calculations, if the Minister of Finance redid his homework, he could bring in measures that would ensure that, as early as this year, families with an income of $35,000 or less, particularly single parent families, would not pay a cent in federal income tax.
They pay taxes now and they are not the ones who will benefit the most from tax reductions this year. Those who will benefit from significant tax reductions are those who make $250,000 and more. They will save at least $9,000 to $11,000 in taxes this year. For a single parent family with dependent children, we are talking about savings of some $250 this year. They are laughing in people's faces.
It is also tantamount to laughing in the faces of nine out of ten taxpayers who have significantly helped to get Canada's public finances back in order and helped the finance minister amass huge surpluses, but are still unable to benefit from our financial house being put back in order.
The poor will still have to wait for social housing, since the Minister of Finance has announced no new measures in the last budget or in last fall's mini-budget to help thousands of families who are hurting because they have to spend too much money on shelter, compared to what they spend on basic needs like food, clothing and heating.
When the Minister of Finance took over the department in 1993, about 500,000 households in Canada were spending more than 50% of their income on shelter. Nowadays, we have over 850,000 households spending more than 50% of their income on shelter. What it means is that these people have to feed and clothe their children and heat their house with only half of their income.
People spending more than 30% of their income on shelter are considered as the less fortunate since they have to cut spending on other basic needs in order to pay the rent.
In light of these devastating figures, with estimated surpluses of some $135 billion over the next five years even with the expected downturn, why has the finance minister not thought about reinvesting in that area?
Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000 March 27th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-22 implementing certain provisions of the latest budget of the Minister of Finance.
I can say right away that we will oppose this bill, because we have repeatedly criticized, not only during the course of the regular budget of March 2000, but also when the Minister of Finance tabled his mini budget in the fall, the fact that the huge tax resources at his disposal over the next five years were being badly used.
When we speak of huge tax resources, the situation has not changed, even with the prospect of a downturn in the States. We will return to this later. In the next five years, even taking into account a downturn in the economy in fiscal 2001-02 linked to that of the States, the Minister of Finance will have some $135 billion in surplus.
That is a lot of money, $135 billion. It is slightly down from what he anticipated last year in fact because of the American situation. Last year, the talk was of $147 billion or thereabouts. Now the figure cited is $135 billion. However, the possibility of making choices around these huge surpluses remains essentially the same.
The Minister of Finance is faced with a situation in which, through various unfair measures he created, on the backs of just about everyone, annual surpluses that will reach record levels in the next five years.
He has accumulated these surpluses and will continue to do so on the backs of the unemployed. He will take from the employment insurance fund between $5 billion and $6 billion annually to create his budget surplus. Five to six billion dollars a year will be taken from the contributions by employers and employees, contributions which have nothing to do with those of the federal government. The government has not contributed to this fund for a number of years, but still takes $5 billion to $6 billion annually from it. It is shameful.
In recent years, the Minister of Finance has taken $38 billion from the EI fund surplus. This money came from the pockets of employers, workers and mainly the unemployed. What must be kept in mind is that, if the surplus in the EI fund is accumulating as rapidly as it is, it is because of two things: first, employer and employee contributions are too high, and second, the majority of people who are out of work are excluded from the plan.
I remind hon. members that only 43% of people who end up unemployed are in fact eligible for employment insurance. Corrective measures by the government will remedy some of this, but only a tiny portion, not all of it. Despite the improvements made by the bill on employment insurance, most of those who are left out will continue to be.
Year in, year out, the Minister of Finance is going to continue to pocket at least $5 billion of the $6 billion EI fund surplus to add to his budget surplus and to look good, as well as to be able to give tax cuts to the richest members of Canadian society.
As well, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Minister of Finance created this surplus, and will continue to add to it, at the expense of the provinces.
For six years now, the Minister of Finance has cut transfer payments to the provinces for the funding of education, health and income security. This was money that the provinces did not have, year after year, to meet their citizens' needs.
The surplus is in Ottawa, while the needs are in the provinces. The health sector needs money, and the Minister of Finance had plenty. Last year the Minister of Finance did restore some funding, but year after year they are still some $2 billion short of what is required to cope with changing health costs, caused in large part by the aging of the population. Over the next five years, the shortfall in transfers will total $10 billion.
Given the greying of the population, we know there will be a natural increase of 3% in health requirements, in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. This increase is solely because of the fact that the population is aging. The Minister of Finance has not taken this phenomenon into account and the surplus continues to accumulate in his coffers.
This year again, in spite of the downturn in the U.S. economy, the Minister of Finance will have a surplus of about $18 billion to $20 billion. It is easy to have such surpluses when one does nothing and makes the provinces do the work by cutting transfers, by not indexing in view of the urgent needs in health and education, and by shamelessly dipping into the employment insurance fund. It is easy to accumulate surpluses under these circumstances.
We believe that with the surpluses for this year and the four previous years, the Minister of Finance could do a lot more than what he intends to do under his five year plan. He is in a position to target groups that need help. The Minister of Finance intends to give major tax cut to those who earn $250,000 and up.
From this year on, those, and there are not too many of them, who earn in excess of $250,000 and others such as millionaires and billionaires will enjoy significant tax cuts. They will get about 70% of all the tax cuts planned by the Minister of Finance. If a person is earning $250,000 this year, he is lucky because he will get the largest tax cuts, because of the changes related to the partial inclusion of capital gains, because of tax cuts as such, or because of indexation. These people will get at least $9,000 to $11,000 in tax cuts.
However, a single parent with dependent children is not so lucky, because he or she will only get about $250 in tax cuts this year. Talk about equity and social justice.
Under our proposals, with the same tax resources the Minister of Finance has estimated for the next five years, we in the Bloc Quebecois would have taken measures to ensure that starting this year families earning $35,000 or less would not pay any taxes. Everyone else would have benefited from a 50% tax break. That is what I call being progressive. That is what I call dealing with the needs of the people, the real needs of the people.
The Minister of Finance could have diverted his resources to the majority of taxpayers, as we have done. Nine out of ten taxpayers would have benefited from a tax break under our proposals, not just 1% of all taxpayers, the richest taxpayers in Canada and partisans of the Liberal Party and our millionaire friend, the finance minister, but nine out of ten, that is 90% of taxpayers.
If we can come up with these proposals using the same basic figures as the Minister of Finance did, why has he not redirected his policies?
With the estimated tax resources for the next five years and despite the downturn in the U.S. economy, because we adjusted our estimates accordingly, the Minister of Finance could have used $5 billion of the $6 billion EI surplus every year to improve the system, raise the benefits and expand the system to include the 57% of the unemployed who do not currently qualify.
Seasonal workers, women and especially young workers who are particularly hard hit by the vicious employment insurance system could have benefited this year from decent EI benefits.
Why are we able to come up with a scenario whereby each year $5 billion stays in the EI fund to help young people, women and also families? We are talking about a good parental leave plan in Quebec City, not the useless kind of plan being proposed to us. With our forecasts with regard to surpluses, why are we able to do all these things? It is because we in the Bloc Quebecois believe that our first duty is to serve the most disadvantaged, those who belong to the middle income category, those into whose pockets the federal government has been dipping since it came into office in 1993.
Let is not forget that these nine taxpayers out of ten, to whom we wanted to give tax cuts considering the huge surpluses that will accumulate in the federal government's coffers, are the ones who pay the biggest share of taxes. Indeed, the federal government gets most of its tax revenues from families in the $25,000 to $80,000 a year income range.
With all these surpluses, the federal government is not thinking about those families. It is not thinking about those who have been taxed to death these last few years. It does not want to ensure that they benefit from these surpluses, but it wants to ensure that millionaires do. That is the kind of social justice practised by this government.
Let us not even talk about social housing any more. It is not a priority for this government, as evidenced by the fact that it has not invested a cent in this area since 1993. Yet, the needs are enormous. Since that year, the number of families spending more than 50% of their income on housing has almost doubled. If one spends 50% of one's income on housing, it means that there is only 50% left to buy food and clothing for one's self and one's children.
Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act March 27th, 2001
moved:
Motion No. 6
That Bill C-8 be amended by adding after line 33 on page 34 the following new clause:
“70.1 Section 160 of the Act is amended by striking out the word “and” at the end of paragraph (h) and by adding the following after paragraph (i): j ) a person who is a director of another financial institution; and k ) a person who has, directly or indirectly, an interest in the supply of products or services to the institution.
Motion No. 7
That Bill C-8 be amended by adding after line 20 on page 35 the following new clause:
“71.1 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 161:
161.1 (1) The position of chairman shall be separate from the position of chief executive officer and shall not be held by the same person.
(2) For greater certainty, the role of the chairman shall be to ensure that the board of directors assesses the management of the institution, while the role of the chief executive officer shall be to manage the institution's day- to-day activities.”
Madam Speaker, basically, these amendments have three purposes. The first is to give more power to shareholders of financial institutions. Earlier, we spoke about the special ownership structure of the Canadian financial sector and that is precisely the idea of the first motion. We said, for example, that for large banks 20% of the shares can be held by a single shareholder and that 80 % of voting shares would be widely distributed in the public.
The effects of such a distribution can be negative since small shareholders have very little to say, particularly during annual meetings of the large Canadian banks, and the bill is designed to strengthen the powers of those small shareholders.
We add our voice to that of the Association de protection des épargnants et des investisseurs du Québec, the APEIQ. We want to give our support to its campaign for more democracy at annual meetings of banks, as well as in the way the boards of directors of financial institutions operate.
On this point, in our first group of amendments, we say that shareholders, no matter how small, have a right to be heard and to participate in any decision made by the financial institutions. To do so, they must receive prompt and timely notice of a general meeting. They must have all the documents relevant to this meeting and they must also be allowed to be heard, not just on matters having to do with the profitability of the financial institution, but also on any other matter which directly or indirectly affects the activities of the institution per se.
I will give an example. Right now, it is not possible for shareholders at a general meeting to raise matters having to do with the social aspects of a company's activities. Nor may they raise political issues. For instance, they could not ask questions about the activities of a company in which they were a small shareholder in countries where democracy was not the rule and where fundamental rights were not respected. It is not possible at a general meeting to table resolutions along these lines or even to question the board of directors. It is time that this changed. It is now 2001 and the democratic system in use at the general meetings of major financial institutions is completely archaic.
There are also other motions, one of which was to avoid any possibility of conflict of interest.
A person cannot sit on the board of a major bank and also provide that bank with goods and services. This would make him or her both judge and party to the action when it came time to make decisions relating to the financial institution.
For example, someone cannot be a member of the board of a bank and a shareholder in a company of external auditors, for instance, hired by the bank to audit its financial statements.
What we are proposing then is to ensure that there are new provisions which would, for example, call for questions to be asked and for it not to be acceptable for a board member to be directly or indirectly involved in providing the institution with products and services. Nor would it be allowed for a board member of one financial institution to also sit on the board of another. This could lead to problems.
That is the gist of what we are proposing. It is also the position of the Association de protection des épargnants et des investisseurs du Québec, APEIQ, which we totally endorse.
It is our hope that, in the spirit of greater democratization and transparency of the activities of the financial institutions, the government will support such proposals, along with the members of the other opposition parties. They cannot help but improve things from the point of view of equity, small shareholder participation, democratization and, above all, transparency of the activities of these major financial institutions.
Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act March 27th, 2001
moved:
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-8 be amended by adding after line 20 on page 28 the following new clause:
“54.1 Subsection 46(2) of the Act is replaced by the following:
(2) The shareholders of a bank shall, by resolution at the meeting of shareholders called pursuant to subsection (1), a ) approve, amend or reject any by-law made by the directors of the bank; b ) subject to section 168, elect directors to hold office for a term expiring not later than the close of the third annual meeting of shareholders following the election; c ) appoint an auditor or auditors to hold office until the close of the first annual meeting of shareholders; and d ) adopt a code of internal procedure respecting the conduct of meetings of shareholders.
Motion No. 4
That Bill C-8, in Clause 63, be amended by replacing lines 21 to 33 on page 31 with the following:
“63. Subsection 138(1) of the Act is replaced by the following:
(1.1) A bank with equity of five billion dollars or more shall set out in the notice of a meeting the number of eligible votes, as defined under subsection 156.09(1), that may be cast at the meeting as of the record date for determining those shareholders entitled to receive the notice of meeting or, if there are to be separate votes of shareholders at the meeting, the number of eligible votes, as defined in that subsection, in respect of each separate vote to be held at the meeting.”