Gilles-A. Perron

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, during his speech, my friend and colleague, the member for St. Albert, talked about the financing of political parties. While I totally agree with him, I believe that the approach to the financing of political parties should be reviewed in depth.

I would like to hear his comments on this point. Does he agree with the method used in Quebec, where public financing is the chosen approach, or does he think we should simply limit the corporate contributions to political parties and set the ceiling at $10,000, $25,000 or something like that, instead of allowing businesses to give sums of $500,000, one million dollars or even more?

I would like to hear what the member has to say on public financing and political party financing.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, May 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as regards today's important topic, I wonder if my learned colleague opposite could continue to present arguments, as he so aptly began to do. This is my comment.

[Excise Act, 2001, May 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to Bill C-47, which deals with the taxation of spirits, wine, tobacco and beer.

I hesitate to say “and beer” because it is not mentioned in the title. However, the bill defines what beer is, what a brewery is, what this and that is with regard to beer.

It makes me wonder. Why would there be a definition of beer when beer is mentioned nowhere else in the bill? I have the feeling that, as a result of pressures from large breweries, the government decided to exclude beer from this bill.

Why exclude beer? When we talk about beer, we obviously have to talk about microbreweries. We know that microbrewery products are becoming increasingly popular in Quebec.

Unfortunately, if the beer market continues in the same direction and if the government does not decide to be fair to these microbreweries, there will not be a single one left five or ten years from now. For those who need proof, in 1997, there were about 90 microbreweries in Canada, but that number has now dwindled down to less than 30.

I am speaking from experience. In my beautiful and charming riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, which I am proud to represent and which includes the cities of Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Deux-Montagnes, Saint-Eustache, Boisbriand and Sainte-Thérèse, we lost, in Saint-Eustache, a microbrewery that employed some twenty workers. These workers, who were beer experts, could not find another job. I think that, unfortunately, when they stopped drawing EI benefits, they became social welfare recipients, which means that the Government of Quebec has to support them.

Why are these microbreweries, of which the two most popular in Quebec are the Brasseurs du Nord which brews Boréale, and Unibroue which brews Blanche de Chambly, U, etc., in dire financial straits? Simply because microbreweries pay excise taxes that are way too high.

They pay a 28 cent excise tax per hectolitre, while their competitors, microbrewers from United States, France, Germany and Belgium, pay 9 cents a litre. Once they are established on the Canadian market, they have difficulty to remain competitive.

There is something even more degrading and malicious about the bill. I want to talk about Brassal, a microbrewery in LaSalle. It had to compete with Labatt, which is also located in LaSalle. It also had to compete with foreign microbrewers who were exporting their products to Canada through Labatt.

The big Canadian brewers, Labatt, Molson—about Molson, allow me, Mr. Speaker, to congratulate your son Brad for the remarkable work he is doing with the Montreal Canadiens. As I was saying, Molson and Labatt import American beers onto the Canadian market to compete against small Canadian brewers with a homemade product.

So they take the gun, if I can put it that way, and shoot our small Canadian brewers by using imports against them. That is the way they show their pride in being Canadian and Quebecers: by killing the competition in a roundabout way. This is unacceptable.

We learned that the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance unfortunately rejected an amendment moved by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot, which would have included beer in the bill. I think that beer was previously included in the bill, since it had definitions for beer and brewery. Why include definitions when one does not want to talk about what they refer to? Why define beer when one does not want to refer to it in the bill?

Were government members subjected to undue influence? Did the government do the bidding of the big breweries by withdrawing the beer from Bill C-47? This stinks. It reminds us the Gagliano case. We will have to open new embassies in distant lands for some ministers.

On a more serious note, when the bill is referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, we will have to sit down, get serious and really be mindful of the needs of microbreweries. Beer and most of all microbreweries will have to be part of Bill C-47 again.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to debate this important bill.

You will recall that on April 29, 2002, the government tabled in this House Bill C-42, which mentioned “military security zones”.

As a result of the hard work of the opposition and Canadian citizens, the government decided to withdraw that bill and replace it with Bill C-55, which is before us today.

With used material such as C-42 you cannot make something new, like the government would have us believe with Bill C-55 this morning.

I have a lot of concerns regarding Bill C-55. My first concern has to do with the minister's discretionary authority. It has to do with the powers given one or several ministers. The Minister of National Defence will have discretionary powers, and so will the Minister of Transport and the Minister of the Environment. It is of great concern to me.

Take for instance the issue of Afghanistan and Afghan prisoners. We believe the defence minister showed a little lack of judgment.

Let us add to that the fact that, if former minister Gagliano--I was going to say your friend, but I will say instead your former colleague--had had to make decisions under Bill C-55, given what we know of the conflict or problem that exists today in the Department of Public Works, it would have been rather scary, I think. His decisions might have been dubious.

The bill puts a great deal of unilateral power in the hands of ministers. What is the use of having the House of Commons then? What are we doing here in the House, what are we doing here in parliament? We wait, we look around, and we see what is going on. But we were elected to take part in decision-making.

The other concern that comes to my mind is the lack of consultation between the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments.

I would have liked the minister, before presenting such a bill or making a decision leading to the designation of a controlled access military zone, to at least pick up the phone and call his counterpart in Quebec to tell him what he intended to do. But no. He is the one who makes the decisions. He could not care less about those elected to the other levels of government and he will decide. This is wrong.

Another concern is the size, the dimensions of that controlled access military zone. The only criterion mentioned in the bill is that the zone may not be greater than is “reasonably necessary”. What does this mean? I am looking at my friend watching me and I am convinced that his view and mine are not the same, and I am convinced that the expression “reasonably necessary” does not mean the same thing to you, Mr. Speaker, as it does to me. We could argue about this for hours and just waste our time.

It does not make any sense to leave the power to decide the size of the military zone in the hands of a single person.

Everyone who lives within a controlled access military zone will surely be affected, in terms of their property and the problems that they will experience to go to work and to enter the zone, since controls will be very strict. Some people may even be denied access to this zone. These people will not have any legal recourse. They could lose money or their job, or they could experience psychological problems, but the government does not care and says “Tough luck, it is your problem. Deal with it”.

In Bill C-42, a clause provided that military security zones could be established for reasons relating to international relations, defence or national security. These reasons are not set out in Bill C-55. This means that the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Transport, or the Minister of the Environment could give any reason for their decision. Any reason making action reasonably necessary—this is a concept that can be stretched—may be given. One might go as far as to presume that, at the upcoming summit in Kananaskis, the Minister of National Defence could decide that, since heads of state from all over the world will be in attendance, there is a risk to national security and to the security of these officials, which justifies establishing a controlled access military zone.

As things now stand, this means that nobody has the right to take part in a peaceful demonstration. It is possible to demonstrate peacefully. Anyone who took part in demonstrations could be arrested and excluded from the controlled access military zone.

I have a lot of trouble not seeing this bill as similar to the War Measures Act. People remember what happened when the War Measures Act was introduced in Quebec in 1970. They remember it like it was yesterday. People were thrown in jail for no reason. They were simply thrown in jail without a trial, without the right to a lawyer, without anything, and were never compensated. We do not want to pass Bill C-55 and find ourselves with another War Measures Act on our hands.

Recently, one of my greatest concerns has been that the government is going to ignore the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The bill simply says that this bill will be exempt from the provisions of sections 3, 5 and 11. I am not the only one to be concerned about this part of the bill. Let us not forget that the privacy commissioner criticized this bill very harshly, publicly and in writing, saying that Canada was in danger of becoming a totalitarian state, a police state, a military state.

If those listening have been paying close attention, they will surely understand that I myself, like my Bloc Quebecois friends, and I think all the opposition parties, are completely opposed to this bill and are going to vote against it.

In conclusion, I thank the Chair for her tolerance and for letting me speak my mind on this bill.

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, to begin with, I was expecting a much more virulent outburst from my friend, the member for Abitibi--Baie-James--Nunavik.

Unfortunately, he merely read newspaper articles. He barely mentioned the problem and the solutions required, if at all. He barely touched on the problem. I am very disappointed with his attitude.

He did mention workers briefly. Yes, we agree that we must save workers' jobs. First and foremost, we must also agree to save the industries that are in a precarious situation.

We know that in Quebec alone, the industry has contracted $550 million in loans.

Does the member for Abitibi--Baie-James--Nunavik agree with the Bloc Quebecois' position that the government should be guaranteeing these loans by existing companies?

[Auto Industry, May 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, despite the enormous growth the Canadian auto industry has experienced since the signing of the auto pact, Quebec has never received its fair share of the benefits.

With the closing of the GM assembly plant in Boisbriand, over 1,400 direct jobs will disappear from the greater Montreal area.

Will the government finally decide to do its job and take action to save the GM plant in Boisbriand?

[Excise Act, 2001, April 30th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-47 with some degree of regret and bitterness.

Why so? Because the bill deals with excise tax, which by its very definition, gives the full significance of beer, what a beer is, what a brewery is, what a microbrewery is. Whether unwittingly or otherwise, the people over there have neglected to legislate on beer. This is a major omission, particularly where the microbreweries are concerned, when these are virtually all in the process of having to shut down.

I would like to draw my colleagues' attention to a very important point, the taxation of the small breweries, the tiny ones, commonly called microbreweries. When the representatives of the Brewers Association of Canada came before the Standing Committee on Finance last October, they told us about the difficult situation the microbrewery sector is currently going through. They presented solid arguments for the reduction of excise tax for the microbreweries.

In the context of globalization, these small companies have to compete with foreign companies that are less heavily taxed than in Canada. In a market that is becoming increasingly open, the competition does not necessarily come from within the country, but rather from other countries. The foreign competition often benefits from beneficial tax treatment, which allows them to provide a product at a price that is more than competitive. The Canadian parliament must not ignore this situation when passing legislation.

At present, Madam Speaker, France, Germany, Belgium and, most particularly, our U.S. neighbour to the south charge their microbreweries less excise tax. Canada is the only industrialized country that has refused to grant its microbreweries this privilege, or equity, or parity, as far as excise taxes go.

Take, for example, the case of a microbrewery from my region, Les Brasseurs du Nord, which brews the wonderful Boréale, naturally, and its competitor in the United States. Here a brewery producing 6.5 million litres pays a federal excise tax of 28 cents per litre, which comes to $1.8 million.

In the United States, in Boston—and speaking of Boston, I would like to take a moment to congratulate our glorious Canadiens for their win against Boston—the same business would pay $585,000, or 9 cents a litre. The figures speak for themselves. For the same production, there is a $1.2 million difference in taxes.

This is why the Brewers Association of Canada is calling upon the Government of Canada to reduce the excise tax by 60% on the first 75,000 hectolitres produced by Canadian breweries that produce a maximum of 300,000 hectolitres annually. This proposal has received support from the four largest Canadian breweries belonging to the association.

It should be noted that between them, the 53 breweries that pay excise taxes shell out $19 million a year. A 1995 study of Ontario breweries showed that the excise tax is nine times greater than profits in the sector, which are estimated to be $2.1 million.

Microbreweries can be found in just about every region. They are small businesses set up in small communities, which contribute a great deal to their development. They are tourist attractions, which generates employment, and consequently, more financial resources. Unfortunately, this unfair and untenable situation that the industry is up against constitutes a very real threat.

Only three months ago, there were 19 craft style breweries in Quebec. Now there are six, including one in my riding, Broue-Monde in Saint-Eustache, which has disappeared.

The situation demands to be rectified. The government must now make decisions that will help these small entrepreneurs. The question is: given the current state of affairs, why should microbrewers continue to invest in Canada, when there are incredible benefits to setting up shop in the United States? The excise tax represents a very heavy burden for these small Canadian businesses. It is therefore urgent that the excise tax program be amended.

In other sectors of activity, small businesses investing $1 million in land, equipment and facilities are successful. They hire fifteen or so people and have sales of $1.5 million to $2 million. They make a profit and shareholders take a profit. They are successful.

However, for microbreweries, it is a completely different scenario. With sales of $1.5 million to $2 million, they barely break even; no clear profit, but a requirement to pay a little over $200,000 in excise taxes to the federal government. The excise taxes are unrelenting. Let us be clear: in the case of microbreweries, excise taxes are higher than labour costs.

The government must recognize that small breweries are distinct and should be taxed accordingly. Unfortunately, it is the only party that still does not recognize this.

The amendment being requested is minimal compared to the revenues generated by the general tax. The proposed tax break would represent only 2% of what the government collects in excise taxes. Let us be clear that this concerns a small sector which is highly labour-intensive, manufacturing-intensive, requiring major investment, a sector that plays a vital role in small communities in their provinces.

The current taxation system will have to undergo a comprehensive review, something which has not been done since 1964, with the Carter commission.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 30th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Drummond on her fine and interesting speech.

Since the beginning of the 1960s, there has been no substantive reform of the Canadian tax system. Does the hon. member think that, instead of a piecemeal approach to fiscal issues like we had with Bill C-28 and now with Bill C-47, it would be important to have substantial changes to the Canadian tax system?

[Supply, April 25th, 2002]

—from Beauharnois--Salaberry must be from another planet. What he is saying is illogical. Let us recall how many times the auto workers have come to the Hill to protest. Let us recall how many times the auto workers have, over the years, come to see their federal MPs from Quebec, and gone from one minister's office to another. How many times has this happened?

I would like to remind my dear friend and colleague, the man from another planet, of the problem of PACCAR, Kenworth-PACCAR. This business closed down, but thanks to the good work of the federal government of the day and the good work of the Quebec government, and thanks to the efforts by the people of the region, PACCAR reopened its doors, and things are going very well for it. They have just done some more hiring, some job creation.

The government is talking of money. The Quebec government made an offer to GM of a $360 million plan to help the company survive. The brilliant Deputy Prime Minister over there said “Well now, you know, I don't know about that”. I was there when he gave his response at the Boisbriand city hall. My dear colleague said “Well now, we at the federal level surely have some programs that could perhaps—” No one sat down with GM to offer a clear, cut and dried federal position on this.

The Minister of Justice went to Detroit. He came back to report, saying “It's all over, guys, GM at Boisbriand is a thing of the past”. He threw in the towel. When did they go to Detroit with Mr. Gagliano? Two and a half years ago. I know all about this issue, I have lived it. I do not promise pie in the sky. In the issues I deal with, I do not promise what I cannot deliver. I am involved hands-on. Let them not come and—

[Supply, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I ask myself what I should reply. I believe that my colleague from Salaberry—