Robert Thibault

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the question here is about the Atlantic accord. The Atlantic accord was of great advantage to Nova Scotia. It said that the revenues from Nova Scotia's non-renewable resources will not be calculated against its money in equalization. Therefore, it would get that money to invest in the future of the province, because those are non-renewable resources.

Maybe that was better than fair. Maybe it was a disproportionate fair share. Maybe it was not completely equal with other provinces, but when the Conservatives were in opposition they supported it. As well, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister made the promise that he would not go back on the Atlantic accord.

That is what the question is here. It is a question of integrity. It is a question of how much people can trust the Prime Minister, and to that I say zero, zero on the Atlantic accord, zero on income trusts, and zero on ethics when we look at the way he dealt with Senator Fortier, to whom he gave the department with the biggest spending. Senator Fortier is not here to answer questions in question period, but the Prime Minister said during the election that he would not appoint cabinet ministers who were not elected.

These are the fundamental questions. Can we believe this person? Can Canadians believe the Conservative Prime Minister?

The Conservatives like to call themselves the new government, Mr. Speaker, but I show you the next opposition.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the report stage of the budget bill.

We are looking at the question of the treatment of the tourism industry and our competitiveness in the tourism industry. That is one element.

A very good program was brought in forward by the Liberal government, the GST rebate for tourists from other nations. This program encouraged them to visit Canada. It also helped us compete with other jurisdictions around the world, particularly important for the convention and tour business. However, it was also important to purveyors, to people who would come here to hunt and fish and to people who would come with their families.

We were able to get the Conservatives to move on some elements of that, but they could go forward and reinstate the full program. It was not very expensive, nationally, when we look at the total value of the tourism industry. It was very important to the operators and to our country. I will go back to that later.

If I look at the context of the budget generally, I see two things. One is we evaluate the intention of a government and its competence through a budget. The other thing is we see what opportunity we have and how a government wants to grasp it.

Now we have the most buoyant economy in the history of our country. When the government came into power, it inherited surpluses, the lowest unemployment rate ever, very stable and low interest rates, an economy growing faster than almost every other nation in the world and a very stable one. It has a surplus of $13.2 billion this year from last year's operation.

Let us see what the Conservatives did in their budget.

First, because the economy is so buoyant, this is the highest spending budget in the history of the country. However, when we look at where these investments are made, it leaves a lot to be desired. Rather than building a country, looking at the nation and asking where are its weak elements, where should we be making investments to bring the potential up so we can achieve the national dream and individual can achieve their dreams, the government does not do that.

This is a purely political budget, looking at a very quick election. I think when the budget was drafted, the intention was to go to an election before we would get to this stage, before we would talk about budget implementation.

We see promises to Ontario, Quebec and Alberta of huge transfers of funds. We talk about fiscal imbalance, but we see that these funds were promised before we even voted on them in the House.There were tax cuts within Quebec for political advantage, something we learned had been negotiated, which is distressing when we look at everything else that was left out and not done and everything that was cut.

The same day a $13.5 billion surplus announced, a million dollars was cut in social programs. I have spoken to those at large. We talked about the CAP sites across our nation. We talked about summer employment. For summer employment this year, $11 million have been cut, and we saw the ramifications of that across the nation. We saw students all across the nation, volunteer groups, not for profit sector losing their ability to carry out their work and the students getting revenue and that experience.

Now the Conservatives are backing down part way, another one of those famous flip-flops that we have seen from the finance minister, but again not enough. Imagine if the government had been in a majority situation.

We saw it in the income trust sector, and we raise this often. I think it is symbolic of the problems with the government. It makes a promise and then flat out breaks that promise. By making the promise not to tax income trusts, the Prime Minister encouraged people to put more of their investments in that sector. Then he broke that promise and taxed them heavily.

We had very good committee hearings on this, and we invited him to have a look at it. Admittedly there were problems in the sector. If we can only look at the testimony of one individual, I encourage people to look at the testimony of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, which was quite well balanced. He indicated there were problems within the sector and that action was warranted. He pointed out that there were problems in governance in certain elements within the sector. He also said that it was an excellent vehicle for the capital markets in certain parts of the sector.

The Minister of Finance has a lot of people investing in real estate in his riding and in his communities. He agreed with that. His friends all in real estate trusts, REITs, were not touched. He left it in that sector, but he did not look at other sectors, such as energy where it was an excellent vehicle. Rather than having a surgical strike, repairing the problems within the sector, there was a nuclear blast that destroyed the whole sector. We know the results: $25 billion in capital losses to the people in that sector.

We have the Atlantic accord. If members remember, I was on the government side of the House. The Conservatives were so in favour of the Atlantic accord. When we went through the budget at the end of the last Liberal government, they asked that we divide it. They wanted to vote on the Atlantic accord separate from the budget, because they wanted to vote in favour it only. What did they do in their budget? They reneged on the Atlantic accord.

Now the Conservatives have negotiations on the background. We know Premier MacDonald in Nova Scotia is in trouble. We watched Nova Scotia lose $1 billion, and not a word from this guy in the last little while. He did not come to finance committee last week. I thought that was regrettable. While Nova Scotia's economy is at risk and burning, he fiddles.

Danny Williams is being a little bit more vocal. I am pleased to hear that somebody from the Atlantic is speaking.

However, the promise made through the Atlantic accord was that independent of any other program of government, if there were changes in equalization, changes in transfers, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador would not be affected. The Atlantic accord was above and beyond all the programs.

Then what does the Prime Ministerdo? He said that either they kept the accord or they took the new equalization formula. He has said that it is not capped. We heard that in the House today, but it is capped. On equalization, Nova Scotia is capped as soon as the economy reaches the amount of the least of the non-receiving provinces. We know it is capped. That is the ultimate level at which it can receive money. If it chooses to go to the new equalization, which is better on the short term, it gives us $1 billion in the long term through the Canada-Nova Scotia agreement, which I think is not at all reasonable.

We saw the CAP sites being closed down. Giving Internet access to rural communities, small communities, disadvantaged people in urban areas, we saw that being closed down. The Conservatives refused to make the announcement. We kept the pressure on and now they are talking about making it, another flip-flop that I am very happy to see.

We saw an increase in taxes to the most vulnerable Canadians. The lowest paid Canadians who are paying taxes are seeing their taxes go up from 15% at the start to 15.25% and 15.5% next year.

Reducing consumption taxes by reducing 1¢ on the GST, which the Conservatives did last year, helps those who are at the upper end of a lot of discretionary spending. At the lower end, most people's spending goes on items that do not attract GST, so those people do not benefit.

We heard promises by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans when he was on the fisheries committees. He supported the report on the fisheries committee that we needed more investments in wharves. Not a cent was invested. There was a reduction when we should have been investing more.

We know the problems of the harbour in Digby. One of the members in opposition was always speaking about that harbour. When the Conservatives came into power, they got the report of the arbitrator, the perfect thing they needed to make that investment and take over the wharf. There was complete and utter inaction.

We get signals every now and then that they will be doing it, but they are not doing it. They are probably waiting for an election. It is the responsibility of the government to give service to the people of Canada between elections, not only during elections.

We saw the problems within the lobster industry. To be a hero, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced a huge change in the licensing procedures and the way that licences were held. He reduced the value of these licences by half. About $600 million of capital value in these licences, retirement funds of these families, was lost overnight with one announcement.

Again, the Conservatives say that are willing to reconsider. I wrote the minister about six weeks ago, but I have had no answer yet. I have brought it up in the House, but I get no answer. Then they give us the same promises on the bill. The bill has many of those same elements. If the ministerial order can be modified, how can we be confident that they will act accordingly and responsibility if we pass a bill that gives the minister and his appointed tribunal so much power?

There are many things that we would like to see. There were huge announcements made by the government in the area of defence spending. They were huge. Where have we seen them? Where are the contracts? Very few--

[Petitions, June 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present a petition on behalf of Mr. Brad Fullard of Ontario. Mr. Fullard is one of two million Canadians who lost a lot of money from their life savings that was invested in income trusts.

The tragedy, according to Mr. Fullard, is that many of those two million Canadians were encouraged to invest even more in income trusts, based on the promise of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance not to tax them. The promise was not kept. A 31.5% punitive tax was added and they lost, jointly, over $25 billion in capital assets.

The petitioners ask that the House and the government repeal the punitive 31.5% tax on income trusts and that an apology be extended to all those who took the Prime Minister at his word.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Western Arctic spoke about the energy component. I realize that he is the critic for energy, but he speaks in defence of the Conservatives' position on income trusts. He would know that the governor of the Bank of Canada indicated at committee that income trusts were a completely reasonable and preferable vehicle for managing mature oil fields and depleting access, and in the absence of having these income trusts in that field, the beneficiaries would be offshore owners, American owners, and, mostly, multinational big oil companies that now have no competition in buying and operating those fields.

In light of the words of the governor of the Bank of Canada, how can the member, in the spirit of energy independence for our country, maintain the position that all income trusts are inherently bad?

[Committees of the House, May 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I fully agree that this is a question of clarity. It is a question of clarifying what has been the stated intention.

Looking at the oil and gas industry, we have the Sable oil and gas field off Nova Scotia. We developed it fully knowing that the bulk of the exports would go to the U.S.

We are on the North American energy grid. What happens in energy in one country has an impact on the other country, similar pricing, similar distribution and those problems. We did it with open eyes. We knew it was within NAFTA. Whether the decision was right or wrong, that is the decision that was made. We want to be 100% sure that we do not do the same thing with water.

If at some point there is a shortage of natural gas and there is a little bit left on Sable Island, we will get the same proportion we are getting now of what is being exported, and the rest we will have to share with the Americans or our partners within NAFTA.

I would never like to see that situation happen with water, because water is a mainstay necessity of life. We are the guardians of the largest freshwater resource in the world. It is important for this planet that we manage that resource properly and that we do not get it caught up unintentionally in some international trade deal.

[Committees of the House, May 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, one must put this in context. This is not a private member's bill that puts legislation forward, puts articles forward or possible legislation, this is a recommendation to the Government of Canada that it put in writing in the agreement what it already has done through an exchange of letters, to “legitimize” it, I think might be the closest word that I can come up with immediately. It has been stated that that is the desire. The desire is that water not fall under NAFTA and the exchange of letters said that.

The open-ended question remains, if there is some trading at one point or another for whatever reason, does bulk water then get captured by NAFTA under the heading of a good and it becomes a marketable and a commercial good? At that point it would be because the exchange of letters refers to water in its natural state. I believe that was an error at that time. I would not think that the Government of Canada would not have wanted to go further and make sure that it covered bulk water. All this motion is doing is inviting the Government of Canada to enter into those discussions, not to reopen NAFTA, although I would dearly love it if we did have some discussion around NAFTA.

We saw in the free trade agreement where it cost us a billion dollars to capitulate and now we see the trouble that we are having in the industry. There is a risk of being challenged again by the American side. NAFTA is not perfect. There is no reason that we should shy away from having some discussions with our partners in a trade agreement at any time.

[Committees of the House, May 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that to be false. The recommendation is quite clear. It says:

That the Standing Committee recommend that the government quickly begin talks with its American and Mexican counterparts to exclude water from the scope of NAFTA.

If that statement said that at all costs reach an agreement, the member would be correct, but it says “recommend that the government quickly begin talks...to exclude water”.

The member pointed out earlier that there was an exchange of official letters by the three partners in 1993, stating that covering bulk water was not the intent of NAFTA. My feeling is that what we are looking at here is clarification for the future.

Again I point out that I am not an expert in international trade. The suggestion is out there; there is that apprehension in Canada. I am sure it is there in the other countries that should ever any trade of that nature happen, that bulk water becomes a good or a commodity and therefore is captured by NAFTA, the three partners within NAFTA have already stated that it was not the intent. In my mind, all that the recommendation does is ask the three partners to clarify that, to make sure that we have surety for the future.

[Committees of the House, May 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to discuss this question and speak in favour of this report.

We have heard a number of arguments in this House. Some reasons were good, others perhaps less so. It must be acknowledged, however, that now, in the agreement with the United States and Mexico, there is no provision for trade in water, but it is also not excluded. It does not say that if one day, whether in 10 or 20 or 50 years, we decide to permit bulk water exports, that will not become a product covered by NAFTA. I therefore consider it to be entirely reasonable for us to discuss the subject in this House.

I was surprised to hear a Bloc member—not the last member who spoke, but the member who spoke earlier—say that this is a matter under provincial jurisdiction, that we should not have this debate at the national level, and that it was a question of drinking water management.

On the contrary—I think that it is in the interests of all the provinces for these discussions to take place. Ontario may suddenly decide, in 20 or 40 or 50 years, to export water from the Great Lakes. That would have not insignificant repercussions on the St. Lawrence, and so on Quebec and the Atlantic, through the Gulf. This is a question that must be debated in Parliament and we must take it seriously.

A few years ago I was driving in the Annapolis Valley with my mother, who was not elderly but advancing a bit in age. It was a very hot day. I went into a grocery store and came out with two bottles of water for each of us.

I asked her what her grandparents and great-grandparents would have thought. They worked so hard in the Annapolis Valley to build the dykes, the sluices to take the water out of the land. I asked her what they would have said if they thought at one point we would be buying water. She said that they might understand that, because water is a necessity of life. She said that she would not want to explain to them about the aisle in the store, which was 100 feet long by 40 feet wide, and the fact that one side was for dogs and the other side was for cats.

The world changes. We could not have predicted 60 years ago that there would have been such a huge market for cat food and that we would sell bottled water in Canada. We also cannot predict what will happen in future provincial or federal governments, whether they will have the desire to export bulk water.

I think it is completely reasonable that we look at the question of the NAFTA and ask, “Should that happen?”. I agree with the member from the Conservative Party who said that nobody now in their right mind would think of that, that it would be a huge mistake.

However, should one province at one point do it for one reason or another, ship a truckload, or boatload, or a cargo load or put a pipe in to answer to an emergency situation in one community of our neighbour to the south, would we at that time be stuck with the position that because of our agreement, NAFTA, we would have to continue those exports, which we turned into a marketable commodity, a good?

I am not an expert in international trade and I do not pretend to be. The question is raised in the community and it creates apprehension. I hear of it often in my community. If we can clear that question, if we can give surety for the future, which is what the report seeks to do, then that would be a reasonable thing to do.

I have a situation now in my riding. We have Digby Neck, a very pristine area, low population, fishing communities, retirees, families who have been there for almost 400 years. It is a beautiful area of nature. Most of the people who live there choose to live there for its intrinsic value. If they wanted economic opportunities, except perhaps for the fishermen, they would be living in the city or other areas. They live there for those values.

Now we have a company that wants to export basalt rock out of that community. It wants to make a huge quarry and mine to export basalt into the U.S. Why would the Americans want to come to Nova Scotia, such a pristine coastal community, where all or most of their eastern seaboard has the exact same typography and geology? It is because they have decided, in their communities, that they would not risk those intrinsic values or diminish their quality of life. Therefore, for their aggregates for road construction, concrete and other things they are looking to Nova Scotia.

There is a huge fear because of the North American free trade agreement. If the province wants to close this first quarry or not permit its expansion and stop the exports to the United States, because of the articles of NAFTA it would be in the situation of lawsuits for economic loss for the American companies. It is a valid concern. In that case, the Liberals, when we were the previous government, struck the joint panel review process. It was the toughest level of environmental scrutiny available to Canadians.

That also brings in the provincial criteria. When we looked at the Canadian level, we know it was purely on the scientific basis, whether it would be hazardous to fish stocks, air or water quality, or done safely within it. Although those questions has not been answered, they would be the federal concerns. Provinces can look at the questions of socio-economic factors. They can look at whether 20 or 40 jobs are worth the loss in quality of life to the remaining residents and the loss to the tourism industry.

Dr. Fournier, a noted oceanographer, is chairing that panel. We hope to see his recommendations soon. Hopefully, it will make the people happy and that the province will play its role.

Those are the difficult questions that come in under NAFTA, but here we are looking at water, which makes it even more visceral and unnerving for people, because it is a huge factor.

We are the guardians of the greatest freshwater resources on the planet, a lot of them in pristine condition, and some of them we have damaged already. This debate is good in that it makes Canadians realize what we have.

We know that to the south of us there is a huge demand. We know that with global warming the demand within Canada is going to increase.

We know that the demands for irrigation in our prairie provinces is going to increase. Anybody who has flown over Alberta and has seen the areas that have been irrigated and the areas that have not, has seen the difference between starvation and life. The future is going to be more in that direction based on what we are hearing about global warming. It is important that we take care of our freshwater resources. It is important also that there be surety.

I would ask the member not to discount it completely based on the situation today. We have to think of how the situation could evolve in the future. This is a matter for reasoned debate. We have had very good debates in the House of Commons this year on questions of legislation brought forward by the government and some by private members dealing with apprehensions in the area of criminality. In some cases the fears were warranted and in some cases the fears were not necessarily warranted. We take action, we have debate and we have considerations. Sometimes a law passes and sometimes it is modified, but it is based on the apprehensions out there.

If we look at the question of minimum sentencing, if we look at the question of mandatory release, all the statistics show us that the crime rate is decreasing. The effect of our criminal justice system in Canada is much better per capita than that in the U.S., but there is a desire by the Conservatives to “toughen” criminality based on reducing criminality. Nothing tells us that that is true, but that perception is out there, that demand by the Canadian public that we have those discussions. We have the discussions, and that is right and correct.

Now we are looking at the question of water. I do not think we can do any less. The member was raising the question of basins, and that is correct. We have the International Joint Commission. We have had very good discussions in those areas, but as time goes by, there are areas outside of those basins that will become important also, because of the possibility of a pipeline, the possibility of trans-shipments. There are demands. People have wanted to buy some icebergs in the past, put them on ships and sell iceberg water, because there is a market value. It is among the highest quality untreated water that can be bought.

We cannot neglect these questions. We have to have a serious look at them. If we look around the world and see what water is, the proper management and the proper dialogue among neighbouring states is often the difference between war and peace, whether we can properly use the water and properly protect it.

I encourage the bottling and exporting of bottled water. We see Perrier water being sold in Canada. Why could we not be selling Montclair in the United States and other areas? I encourage that. They are value added. It creates a lot of jobs in Canada and creates water now. If we look at the average bottle of water in the grocery store, people are paying more for it than they are paying for milk or fuel. A litre of water most times costs more than a litre of gasoline.

It is a renewable resource and it should be managed that way. It should be managed properly. We should know that in the future our kids in this country will have the benefit of the resource that we have had and that we will continue to have.

That being said, I rise in support of this motion. I thank members of the committee for bringing this discussion forward to the House of Commons where it belongs, because it is a matter of national importance.

[Fisheries Act, 2007, May 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I think the government had choices and one choice would have been to refer the bill after first reading to the committee. There are also reasonable arguments as to why the government would not do that.

However, there are interim positions. One is that once members have the text of the bill, either before or after it has been presented in the House, we could consult based on that text. If the text were sent to the committee for study it could consult with the Canadian public and make recommendations to the minister for changes prior to the introduction of the bill. It could have been done by the department itself, by the minister or by the provinces. There are a thousand ways it could be done.

It is a shame that there were no consultations on the text prior to the bill being introduced in the House. We know that at second reading the necessary substantive changes cannot be made to certain parts of the bill.

What we have in the communities is a lot of anxiety. People do not understand the bill and they are not sure of what certain wording would mean and whether the bill is good or bad. Therefore, constituents are asking us to not support the bill. They suggest that, while the act is bad now, they can live with it. They say that at present they have an industry but with this bill they may not.

[Fisheries Act, 2007, May 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member has made the assumption that the Liberal Party is supporting this bill. I would point out that one of the problems with presenting a bill like this, and it has been done in the past, is that if we make the environmentalists all happy, the fishermen cannot leave the dock. To make the fishermen 100% happy, it is a disaster environmentally, so it is tough. We need to find a balance.

The tribunal process has some good elements in it. If we look on the environmental side of it or on the fisheries side, depending on the severity of the offence, there is a severity of the sanctions and we can choose to go to criminal areas. Plus, it does not override any other act. It does not override the Canadian Environmental Protection Act or all the other conditions. We need to take those things into consideration.

We do not want to bog down our courts and our governments in endless court cases if we can settle and give the punitive penalties a lot quicker and stop the negative actions a lot quicker.