House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 70% of the vote.
Employment Insurance October 22nd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, let me use a euphemism and say dutifully misappropriating $45 billion from working Canadians.
Does Long John Silver over there believe that a $45 billion EI overcharge belongs to Canadians or does he think it is his personal buried treasure?
Employment Insurance October 22nd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the minister tries to take credit for overtaxing working and low income Canadians by $45 billion.
Halloween is not until next week and he is already dressed up. He is dressed up in the disguise of a good manager, but under that disguise there is a pirate there, just like the previous finance minister, trying to take credit for stealing money from working Canadians.
Does Long John Silver--
Employment Insurance October 22nd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, over the last decade the Liberal government has overcharged working Canadians by $45 billion on their EI premiums, and it has used it as a slush fund.
The finance minister and his predecessor's phony surpluses have come at the expense of the picked pockets of working families. One-third of this year's so called surplus is really EI overcharges.
Will the finance minister admit that he and his predecessor have overcharged working Canadians by tens of billions of dollars on their EI premiums?
Aboriginal Affairs October 21st, 2003
Madam Speaker, imagine a country where your race determined your treatment by the justice system. Such a country would be violating the most fundamental tenet of justice. Only one such country exists and we are in it. It is Canada.
The appalling truth of the 1996 Liberal amendments to the Criminal Code and the 2000 Youth Criminal Justice Act is that they require sentencing judges to treat aboriginal offenders differently than other Canadians.
That is wrong. It is an insult to law-abiding aboriginal people. It is an insult to the victims of aboriginal crimes, most of whom are aboriginal people. It sends a sickening, perverse message to aboriginal young people. Most important, it fails to address the causes of higher aboriginal crime rates: the deplorable socio-economic status of aboriginal Canadians.
On behalf of aboriginal Canadians, I urge all members to support my private member's bill, Bill C-416, which will restore a true and equal justice system to our country.
Member for LaSalle—Émard September 26th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the new Liberal leader is not really new. He has a record.
He wrote the red book of broken promises: the promise to eliminate the GST, broken; the promise of an independent ethics counsellor, broken; and the promise of a sex offenders registry, broken. In 1999 he voted for marriage and just the other day he voted against it.
He claims he will end the democratic deficit but he blocks attempts by rivals to sign up new party members.
He is not a good manager. He inherited a robust economy which was none of his doing. He fudged the books by cutting health care and education transfers to the provinces and blamed them. He signed the cheques for the out of control billion dollar gun registry. He overcharged working Canadians by $45 billion on their EI premiums.
Only by Liberal standards would this be called good management.
Employment Insurance Act September 25th, 2003
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst for bringing this bill forward for discussion today.
Bill C-406 contains several elements intended to amend the Employment Insurance Act. These proposed amendments would expand the eligibility criteria; increase the benefits; eliminate the waiting period; increase the length of the benefit period, especially for claimants who live in high unemployment regions; eliminate any interest charges on penalties imposed for violating the act; and other changes are proposed as well.
My comments are not and should not be taken in any way to defend the status quo in terms of the act. There are changes that should be pursued, and certainly we would encourage those to be pursued, but I would emphasize that the member, and those who support this proposal, would like to appear to be supportive of the unemployed worker. I do not believe they are.
We should know with certainty what the effects of our spending on social programs, such as health care, aboriginal welfare and unemployment insurance, are having. Too often in the past this country has endured the perverse effects of poorly designed social programs on a fiscal level but those who truly suffer, when we throw money at a problem, at a social malaise, without thought, are the recipients of that money themselves.
One only has to take a look at the perpetual welfare dependency of many aboriginal communities across the country since the introduction and expansion of these programs in the 1960s: the concurrent alcoholism, the drug dependency, the abuse and the suicide rate particularly among teenagers. Aboriginal elders consistently claim that the single most damaging social policy for first nations people in communities was the introduction of welfare.
Let us set aside for a moment the escalating financial costs for the aboriginal welfare programs which have exploded to about $2 billion annually. Let us forget about the good things that we could do with those resources were they available to us. We should go to these communities and examine the real costs, the human costs, the abused children, the beaten women, the fetal alcohol syndrome, then talk to the elders and understand where these problems originated.
After one does that, I urge any member of the House to tell me that he or she does not wish that we could go back and change things in terms of the way those programs were designed. Anyone with an ounce of genuine compassion would immediately recognize that the improper design of a social program can create far greater problems than it would ever solve.
The member has not outlined any costs for his proposals. He asks us to demonstrate how much we care by being genuine with other people's money but he has not in any way addressed what the long term consequences of these changes he proposes might be.
We must have the courage here to ask what the effects will be and whether there are real measurable outcomes that will benefit Canadian people and contributors themselves in the future.
I would like to quote a noted Canadian, the premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna, who said:
Canada is the only country that I know in the world that offers such generous programs that there is absolutely no incentive in return to divert yourself towards education or training...the truth is that the generosity of Canada has in many ways been the principal impediment to our growth.
If we follow the member's suggestions there will be a variety of outcomes he apparently has not even considered: the distortion of employment patterns; the enticements to create short term, low skilled jobs in declining industries; the temptation for young people to forgo education and training opportunities, why sacrifice income and leisure for training; the discouraging of full year, highly productive jobs in growth industries; the potential for long term dependence; the increased use by employers of short term lay off strategies; the tendency to avoid work once EI does kick in; and the fact that unemployment insurance may be a factor in Canada's rising level of unemployment and our lower level of output.
The member fails to even recognize the need to consider the impact of these proposed changes on families and children. There is nothing more important than children. Each decision we make in this Chamber will have an impact in some way on the future of Canadian children.
The decisions we make around the design of social programs, such as social assistance and EI, are particularly significant in their impact on Canadian families.
The OECD economic working group has been sharply critical of the government's decisions on these issues. In the Economic Survey of Canada 2003, released a couple of weeks ago, it stated:
Features of the employment insurance (EI) programme also contribute to the high unemployment rate. EI has moved well beyond providing income support during unexpected spells of unemployment and has become a major vehicle for delivering family, social and regional assistance.
The criticism of the abolition of worker experience rating contained in the previous survey remains valid. Other aspects of the system also need to be improved. The qualification period is short by international standards, while variations in eligibility rules between high and low unemployment regions discourage internal labour mobility, leading to persistent differences across the country and thus higher structural unemployment.
The member's proposed changes would see the qualification period, already criticized for being too short, reduced even further. The member has also failed to recognize that his changes would further exacerbate Canada's high structural unemployment and would very likely hurt the very region from which he comes.
Furthermore, the OECD recommends that EI should:
--include stronger training and job search requirements and greater use of initial case management and diversion programmes, as the countries that have been most successful in cutting unemployment are those that have improved both incentives and enforcement.
Those who advocate for changes, such as the member proposes in his bill, are promoting higher benefit costs. The government does not pay these costs. rather, the employed workers and the working poor, in particular, will be expected to pay for these changes.
We must remember that this is not a government fund. It is a pooled insurance fund. The money comes from the workers' paycheques and the costs reduce the workers' take home pay.
We must also remember that this has an impact on the families of this country, especially those who work full time in lower wage positions.
We must not make the same mistakes as the former finance minister here, who is responsible for allowing the overpayments to balloon to over $45 billion. That is not the sign of a good money manager.
This is the same finance minister who inherited a robust economy, which was none of his doing. He balanced the books, supposedly, but he did it by cutting health care and education transfers to the provinces and then blaming them for the problems that resulted. He signed the cheques for the out of control billion dollar gun registry, while at the same cutting things like agricultural research and infrastructure.
Again, we must not forget that he overcharged working Canadians and small business people by $45 billion on their employment insurance premiums and that he used the money as a slush fund for Liberal patronage projects.
We must remember that this is not our money. This is the working money for working Canadians. It is not a slush fund for the former finance minister to play with. It is not a slush fund for MPs to throw around like confetti. It belongs to Canadian families. When it is left in the hands of working parents it supports Canada's children.
When the design of a social program discourages employees in their search for work, when it discourages them in the pursuit of their training, when it discourages employers from hiring and when it discourages young people from choosing further education we have a problem. We must make no mistake about it, we have these problems in Canada right now.
In fact, today the Vancouver Sun reported on a study done by Statistics Canada which supports the charge that the “EI system is too generous and discourages the unemployed from actively seeking work”.
Most of the proposals in the bill, but not all, will simply make matters worse. They are cloaked in the guise of compassion. They are nothing of the kind. They are more of the shortsighted, misguided, vote buying tactics that have been practised by successive federal governments throughout the last quarter of a century.
The perverse outcome of which has been elevated structural unemployment in this country. Most tragic to our young people is the loss to Canadian children of the role models they need: the role model of a parent dedicated to working, committed to education and always mindful and in pursuit of the glorious potential that Canada has to offer each of its citizens; appreciative of a hand up but never looking for a handout.
Human Resources Development September 23rd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I would also like the minister to accept some measure of personal responsibility for the problems in her department.
Political pressure by her Liberal colleagues has been pointed out as a factor in this issue. I am curious as to why the minister has failed to disclose whether her department's approval process was manipulated as a result of political string pulling.
Why has the minister still made zero attempt to depoliticize her $800 million grants and contributions program after all this time?
Human Resources Development September 23rd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, critics gave the original HRDC boondoggle scandal a big thumb's down and now Canadian taxpayers are being subjected to a painful sequel. Despite the minister's assertions that the problems in her department are confined to a few bad apples, it looks like we have a rotten barrel on our hands.
Now the police probe into federal job training projects is sweeping southern Ontario, I would like the minister to confirm that the infectious wrongdoing in her department is way beyond her control.
Parliament of Canada Act September 22nd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member whose sincerity and enthusiasm I admire and have for a long time. I know many of the points she has articulated today are points that we share in the Alliance. We have made those points in debate on this bill and will continue to do so.
The member alluded to this as being a legacy piece of legislation. That is a fair observation. There is an attempt here to throw a bandage to a person who has been punched and bloodied pretty much over the last 10 years by the Prime Minister. It is about that trivial an attempt. It is a cosmetic attempt to try to patch up the credibility of a government that has had great difficulty in behaving credibly.
The member opposite, in defending the government on this issue, asked a question about specific examples. I could go on at much more length than I have time for today. However, for example, when a government pursues trumped up charges against the preceding prime minister, when it cancels contracts solely on the basis of a partisan initiative, when it cancels whether it be helicopters or Pearson Airport contracts, it costs taxpayers millions of dollars.
What this does is it calls into question not only its management ability, and certainly that would be in question, but it also calls into question its own ethics. It is under the Prime Minister that these things have happened.
Management competence versus ethics we could get into when they brush up against one another, which is the predominant problem, the management inability of the government or its ethical lapses. However the fact remains that this is a government that has been plagued by both of those problems.
Bill C-34 will not address satisfactorily the independent promise it made to affix an independent officer, an independent ethics commissioner, under the 1993 red book authored by the new prime minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard. If we expect a fresh face and a fresh approach, I do not think we will get one from that member because after all that is a book of unfulfilled promises.
Would the member like to elaborate a little more on some of the unfulfilled promises of that book in terms of the promises it made to improve the lives of Canadians, those less fortunate, those have not Canadians? I would like her to elaborate a little on that aspect of the unfulfilled promises of that book and how that might relate to a better role for an ethics commissioner who would be truly independent in this Parliament.
Parliament of Canada Act September 22nd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, of course I will not ask the member to think like a Liberal; Liberal thinking being an oxymoron. But I will mention that I am pleased again to hear the expressions of concern from the member and I will remark on the fact that it is notable how the concerns of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party are so similar on this particular bill as on so many others. That is fruitful.
However, I want the member to comment just quickly, based on his comments and my research on this bill. I find one part of this whole proposal offensive and that is the term “independent” being used in the context of a proposal the government is making for an independent ethics commissioner. I see no sign this ethics commissioner will be independent. I would like the member to comment on that aspect of the proposal.