Monte Solberg

[Taxation, October 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister is absolutely addicted to taxes. Here is his record. The highest personal income taxes in the G-7. Bracket creep sucking $3.2 billion from low income Canadians, almost $2 billion coming from Canadians earning less than $15,000 a year.

When is he going to reach bottom? When is he going to get the monkey off his back? When is he going to realize that his higher power is not Revenue Canada? When is he going to say “My name is Paul and I am a taxoholic”?

[Rcmp Investigations, October 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, no doubt that will win a lot of points with the boss.

What an amazing coincidence. We are starting to see how corrupt the government and its transitional jobs fund are. RCMP affidavits say that top Liberal bagman Pierre Corbeil told companies that if they did not pay the Liberals big time he could nix the grant request, but if they paid in cash with fake invoices he could seal the deal.

When will the prime minister get to the bottom of this mess, or is it to the top?

[Rcmp Investigations, October 9th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, timing is everything. The government is now suggesting that the human resources development minister is some kind of a boy scout because he called the police on this fund-raising extortion scandal. Would a boy scout sneak through $3 million to the prime minister's riding just 24 hours before he called the police?

My question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. When the prime minister was lobbying him, when he was saying “show me the money”, where were his boy scout ethics then?

[Privilege, October 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have new and relevant information on this issue. I am vice-chair of the House of Commons finance committee. The government's premise that it is important to get this legislation to committee for debate is simply false.

Not only has this not been discussed, but the House of Commons finance committee strikes out next week to go on a tour across the country to hear from Canadians on completely different issues.

The clerk and chairman of the committee made it very clear in the discussions we had that in the nine days after that when we will be sitting up until the middle of November we will be hearing witnesses on a completely different issue, the pre-budget hearings.

When the House leader opposite says this legislation is being pushed into committee, I can assure that is absolutely false.

[Canada Pension Plan, October 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this is the largest single tax grab in Canadian history: $10 billion a year by the time the government is done hiking premiums; a 73% increase.

When is the minister going to change the name from 24 Sussex Drive to 24 Sucks us Dry?

[Canada Pension Plan, October 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister's massive CPP rip-off is a little bit like a dead fish. The longer it sits in public the more it stinks. Cutting off debate after one and a half days is a massive insult to Canadians.

Why will the finance minister not admit that he is ramming through this tax to avoid the stink of this bad deal sticking to his own political ambitions?

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, October 7th, 1997]

In other words, people will pay in some cases $3,300 a year for 47 years if they happen to be self-employed, and at the end of that time they will get a measly pension of $8,800, and that is the best case scenario.

If a you happen to be a widow, under the government's plan, after your husband has paid into the plan for 47 years at $3,300 a year, you can count on $460 a month. That is absolutely disgusting. And the government says that this is some kind of reform as though it is good? No one believes that.

However, that is not the worst of it. It also raises the huge issue of the inter-generational transfer. Many members know, if they have talked to young people, how cheated young people feel by what is being proposed in this legislation. Young people are asking why in the world they are being asked to contribute to something that they will never draw from. That is their attitude.

I am sure that hon. members know if they will examine their hearts that in a few year's time when young people form the majority in this country they are going to be sorely tempted to change the plan to ensure that they will get some of the benefits that will now only go to some people who are currently in the plan.

The government has set up a plan that is going to set young people against their parents. It knows this is one of the problems with the plan, but it has done nothing about it.

Because I do not have a lot of time, I want to talk about the Reform Party proposal.

My hon. friends across the way have tried to scare people, which is their typical way of dealing with these things, by suggesting the Reform Party plan is something radically new. I would point out to my friends across the way that not only have about 25 different countries around the world adopted this sort of plan, countries like the U.K., Switzerland, Denmark, Australia now has a version of it, and Argentina. The U.S. is looking at this right now. It is talking about going to this sort of plan.

I make the point that the Reform Party is simply taking the best of what is being offered around the world and offering it to Canadians. Why are Canadians second class citizens to this government? Why can they not have some of the great benefits that this plan has brought to other countries?

I would point out that Singapore has had this plan or a variation thereon since 1955. It has the highest savings rate in the world. Eighty-five per cent of the people in Singapore own their own homes. It is because there is a tremendous amount of prosperity in that country, due in part to this plan. We need to talk about these issues.

When the government members held consultations did they want to hear about this sort of plan? No. Their consultations were limited precisely to the type of plan they wanted to consider.

I invite my friends to consider what the Reform Party would do if it was in government. First, it would bring in tax relief. Now, that is novel for the government to hear, tax relief. Under the Reform Party plan it would take 1.3 million Canadians right off the tax rolls. That would do something to deal with the problem of the hike in premiums that the government is proposing and 300,000 seniors would be lifted right off the tax roll. I think that is important to talk about. The Reform Party would target seniors benefits so that people on the low end of the income scale would get more through the seniors benefit.

We would also guarantee that existing seniors would get the CPP benefits which were promised to them. We would bring in an improved survivor benefit. Under Reform's super RRSP we would have the situation where we could actually turn over the entire amount of the annuity to the surviving spouse.

As my friend from Calgary pointed out earlier in the day, under the Reform Party plan, if the mandatory CPP premiums were put them into an RRSP, and accumulated in an account in the individual Canadian's name, at the end of the 40 years they would have an annuity of over $250,000, paying them an income of about $24,000 a year. That is three times what the government plan offers. It would be a tremendous benefit which would be turned over entirely to the surviving spouse.

I do not know why government members do not want to adopt something like that instead of paying a measly $436 a month to the surviving spouse.

Beyond that Reform would provide the super RRSP plan so that people who are just coming into the system would start to pay into an account in their own name. As I mentioned a minute ago, that would build up over a period of time. It would give them a tremendous retirement nest egg, far greater than what the government is proposing.

At the same time we would start to contribute a bit into the existing CPP because under successive Liberal and Tory governments it has run up a $560 billion liability.

Finally, I point out that the Reform Party plan would give Canadians the power of choice. It would allow them to direct where their money was to be invested. That is a novel idea.

Under the government plan we know where the money would go. It would go to the super investment board, which would probably represent the largest intervention in the Canadian economy since the second world war. The government would be directing about $130 billion. We would have a team of bureaucrats or political appointees, chosen by the finance minister, to direct where $130 billion would go in the economy. That is ridiculous.

We have heard in the House today and in previous days how corrupt are some of the things that go on in this government. Do we really want to turn over the keys to the vault to these people? We are talking about $130 billion.

These people forget to whom that money belongs. These people think it belongs to them. They think it is their God given right to tax it out of people's pockets.

I would argue that is wrong. That money belongs to the Canadian people. It is their hard earned money and it should accumulate in an account in their name, far from the grasping fingers of the government.

That is why it is time for the government to wake up and realize there are other options. Just because an idea comes from the opposition does not automatically mean it is wrong. Maybe it is time to look at alternatives. The government should start to look at the alternatives which exist around the world. If it did that it would begin to realize that the Reform Party is on to something.

To force closure on this issue eight hours into the debate in a brand new Parliament sets a precedent which I believe will resonate throughout the entire mandate. I hope my friends across the way will seriously consider the impact that moving closure on a bill of this magnitude will have on this Parliament. To me it speaks to the anti-democratic nature of the government. I trust that very soon it will be punished when Canadian voters once again get the chance, just like it was punished in the last election when it lost 30 members.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, October 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say it is a real pleasure to discuss the bill in the House but I cannot. However, I can tell you how disgusted I am with the government for moving closure on what is probably the most important bill it will bring before parliament in this mandate.

We have had eight hours of debate and already the government has moved closure. Hon. members in the Reform Party, and no doubt in other parties as well, will tell the House that when people come to their town hall meetings the issue that is highest on their agenda is the issue of pensions.

I guess the government does not think it is important enough to allow parliamentarians to debate this issue. After merely eight hours it has said “Enough, we are going to close off debate”. That is absolutely disgusting, anti-democratic and typical Liberal.

Last time around the Liberals jumped all over the Tories who set a record for introducing closure. This time around the Liberals have already gone well beyond what the Tories did. It proves the old adage of my friend, the member formerly for Beaver River, now from Edmonton North, Liberal-Tory, same old story.

I want to speak now to the essence of the bill. First, the Canada pension plan is in serious trouble. Everybody knows that. It has a $560 billion liability. We know that in order to deal with the problems of the plan, the government is raising the premiums by an astounding 73%, the largest tax hike in Canadian history, a $10 billion tax hike by the final year that the new premiums go into effect. Despite that $10 billion when people retire they will still only get a pension of $8,800.

[Income Taxes, October 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, by the government's own measure taxes have gone up $8 billion a year since the government came to power. The finance minister says to Canadians he wants to consult, when in fact he has already committed in the throne speech to higher spending. What gives?

The fact is lower taxes, not higher spending, is the way to job creation. With interest rates increasing, when is the minister going to recognize that the only way to create jobs is to start cutting taxes? When is he going to get it?

[Income Taxes, October 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the Governor of the Bank of Canada says he is going to continue to raise interest rates, but now the CIBC says that he is choking off the potential for job creation.

Since high interest rates shut off job creation, the minister must now finally explore the only other avenue that will create jobs: lower taxes.

Instead of increasing spending all the time when is the minister going to start lowering taxes?