Dale Johnston

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, April 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, a bill to implement changes to the Income Tax Act is something we could talk on and on about. One of the first things we should point out to interested parties is that this bill will implement changes to the Income Tax Act for 1998. As we all know, the deadline to file taxes for 1998 is fast drawing to a close, it is 15 days from now, and we had all better have our filing done. This seems to me a rather odd time to be talking about implementing last year's changes to the Income Tax Act. That begs the question: Are are now filing under these implementations or are we not? Are these implementations going to take place in the 1998 tax year or in the 1999 tax year?

Let us look at a little history about income tax. Income tax was brought in as a temporary measure to pay the war debt of the first world war. It was a very cunning operation because it was deemed that only those very wealthy people who earned over $1,000 a year would be subject to this tax. Because that did not include a lot of people, most folks said “What is the problem? We will never be making the princely sum of $1,000 a year, so we will not worry about it. We will let those rich people pay it”. Of course it was only a matter of a very few years before everyone earned enough money to be blessed with income taxes. It is the sort of thing that creeps up on you and bites you right in the pocketbook where you least would like to be bitten.

The need for a flat tax is greater now than it has ever been.

We have heard people talk in this House today about the underground economy and what a scourge that is on Canada. We are assuming, at least Revenue Canada assumes, that the way to combat this would be to bring in several more inspectors, auditors and policemen to harass Canadians into their patriotic duty of paying more taxes. I do not believe that is going to do the job at all.

There is one thing and one thing alone that will encourage people to deal in the underground economy and that is a monetary incentive. If people feel that tax rates are so high that they have nothing to lose by dealing under the table, as my friend from Kamloops has pointed out, then they are going to do that. They are going to take the risk. It is simply a matter of people judging whether or not the risk is worthwhile. The higher the tax rates, the more easily people can decide that the risk is very worthwhile.

I believe that a flat tax rate would do a lot of things. It would more fairly distribute the tax burden in Canada, and we all know we are in favour of fairness as far as taxation is concerned. A flat tax would lower the tax rate for everybody. I firmly believe that if we were to lower the tax rate, the rate of compliance would increase to such a point that the government would suddenly discover it is getting more revenue than it did with the higher tax rate.

If Revenue Canada said it needed fewer people to harass and police to make sure it has compliant taxpayers, that in itself would be a net benefit to the government because it would incur less expense by not having all of these employees on the payroll.

We all recognize that there has to be some general taxation in Canada in order to provide the services that the federal government has undertaken to provide to Canadians. All services have to be paid for. However, I very much object to the method by which the government determines that tax rate.

The tax rate seems to be set by Revenue Canada taking absolutely every penny it can out of the Canadian people and then setting programs to make sure that the money is spent, and then some. By golly, in days gone by the government spent to the tune of $40 billion more than it took in.

We are now in a position where we are paying $40 billion, $45 billion or $50 billion, depending on the interest rate, in interest payments alone for the party which has been going on over the past many years. It is like paying for the pizza that we ate two weeks ago.

The Reform Party thinks the government's plans and priorities should be set and then the tax rate should be set in such a way that revenue can be brought in to pay for the services that are demanded by the Canadian people. That is the way we run our households. We do not say to ourselves that we are going to bring in every penny we can, spend all of it and run up our Mastercard, so that when the Mastercard is full we can take out a Visa to pay off the Mastercard. We do not spend and spend because we love being in debt and paying interest. I do not think we would find very many Canadians who would go along with that kind of philosophy.

At the moment taxes are the biggest single drain on Canadian individuals and families. Their tax obligation is more than their house payments. It is more than their car payments. It is likely more than their bills for food, shelter and clothing combined. When the tax burden gets to that point we have to realize that people are going to rebel.

People are going to rebel in various ways. They may not form picket lines on the street and demonstrate, but they may rebel in the way they comply with the tax laws.

I am in no way condoning non-compliance with the tax laws. I know that the government certainly has the upper hand and the last word in those instances. It certainly is very onerous for one to be in a delinquent position with the taxman. I would not recommend that to anybody, but the incentive is definitely there.

We cannot help but think about the smuggling problem in central Canada. The taxes on cigarettes were such that it was very profitable for certain individuals to bring cigarettes across from the United States duty free and sell them in Canada at a huge profit. The government's answer to that was to reduce the taxes on cigarettes. I would question the methodology in that case.

If the government is willing to pursue or to investigate in that particular instance, why would it not look at the possibility of lowering the income tax rates for all Canadians? Perhaps we would see, as I have suggested, better compliance and more actual revenue. It does not necessarily follow that increased tax rates result in increased revenues. I truly believe we need a system that will emphasize tax fairness. We need a system that people will be willing to comply with. Fairness is certainly the way to go.

I had intended to talk about the unfairness that is involved with the government's plan to attach itself to the public service pension plan. Unfortunately I am going to have to save that for the debate coming up sometime next week when that bill comes before the House.

Suffice it to say that one of the largest and most recurring problems we as members of parliament deal with in our constituencies is the unfairness in the tax system, either with the GST, with income taxes or various other forms of taxation. We have to act as negotiators or advocates on behalf of our constituents to try to get fairness out of the government.

[Division No. 358, March 23rd, 1999]

I noticed it was not the backbenchers who said no but the minister himself who does not want to answer any questions.

This puts an entirely different light on the situation. If we have a tentative agreement hammered out between PSAC and the Government of Canada, what are we doing here talking about back to work legislation? Why are we not talking about final offer selection arbitration or something that will—

[Division No. 358, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that if the government was this close to coming to a resolution of the problem in the beginning it is, to say the least, jumping the gun to bring in back to work legislation.

I have said in the House I do not know how many times in the last few days that this is no way to cement relationships with staff. This is no way to work on labour relations, to bring in back to work legislation when a tentative deal has been all but hammered out and the government brings in back to work legislation.

I suggest that is using the official opposition and everybody on this side of the House in a very suspicious manner. I object strenuously. This is a despicable move. Why is it done at this late hour?

It would seem to me that the timing of all this is simply for the convenience of the government since we will be on a two week break and the minister thought it would be a perfect opportunity to suck in the opposition parties and have them go through all this terrible debate, spend all night here and well into the morning, working on something the minister knew darn well was nothing but a pressure tactic to make his agreement come to fruition.

I still think it would be a great idea if we were able to question the minister under these circumstances. I ask once again for the unanimous consent of the House to have questions and comments of the minister for 10 minutes.

[Division No. 358, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, being a man of few words, I am sure I will not use the remaining 35 minutes.

I have been looking forward to the debate here tonight but when the minister comes into the House and makes an announcement as he has—

[Division No. 354, March 23rd, 1999]

In spite of my smile I think this is a very important and very serious situation. I would also like to read from the blue book regarding labour policy. It says:

The Reform Party supports the harmonization of labour-management relations and rejects the view that labour and management must constitute warring camps.

It would seem to me that in this situation the government has taken exactly the opposite view of what the Reform Party has articulated as our labour policy. It is very difficult to arrive at a negotiated settlement when we are in a situation where we are constantly ordering people back to work.

Daryl Bean of the Public Service Alliance of Canada warned the government that it would use grain as a lever in this round of negotiations. That should come as no surprise to anybody, because it has been done over and over and over again. We cannot simply point our finger at the labour union in this case and say that it brought about this stalemate, that it is entirely its fault. It would be absolutely false to say that.

There is also an unwillingness on the part of the government to come to an agreement. We have to overcome that. The best way to do that is through the process known as final offer selection arbitration whereby people can arrive at a negotiated settlement through a little pressure from a third party.

It is very interesting that recently the government decided to remove binding arbitration from PSAC workers and then a short time later legislated them back to work. I know we are not supposed to impute motive in this place, but we have to wonder if there is a lot more to this situation than meets the eye.

Twenty minutes is a long time to talk about back to work legislation. We will be presenting an amendment to the bill. We would very much like to see it include the use of final offer selection arbitration. We feel that anything less than that is simply a stop gap measure that does nothing whatsoever but grudgingly put parties back on the job. It does nothing whatsoever to deal with the contract or to smooth labour-management relations.

This is not the first time we have had such an amendment presented, but I hope this time we get unanimous or at least majority consent to pass the motion. We see it as a tool that could be used over and over again and we would not have to go through an extremely painful process for everybody.

I still have six minutes remaining, although I am not obliged to use the six minutes.

We have a big problem with the negligence we are seeing. This unethical, undemocratic government has rammed this back to work legislation down the throats of its workers. It is also limiting the amount of debate. Some of my colleagues are very anxious to speak to this item and we are being restricted in the amount of intelligent thought that we can put into this very serious matter.

[Division No. 354, March 23rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, as I was saying, we have done this before. I do not see this as a resolution. I do not see anything being resolved. In most situations somebody should gain something. There should be some winners. When I look at this situation I am hard pressed to find a winner.

What we have now is legislation before us that will put people grudgingly back to work. It will do absolutely nothing to improve the relationship that the employer, the Government of Canada, has with its employees. We have done this over and over again.

The last time we legislated people back to work was over 16 months ago, in 1997 before Christmas, when we legislated the post office people back to work. Those people are still without a contract. As of today they are without a contract. What have we gained? We got the mail moving all right, but we somehow got the government out of its obligation to bargain with and come to settlement with its employees. If that is the kind of situation the government wants, why does it not put it in its policies?

When we had the labour code up for amendment a year ago, the government said that it would be seeking a balance. That was the framework on which the amendments to part I of the labour code were based. This does not seem to be a balance.

The bill covers some 14,000 blue collar workers in Canada, some of whom are not on strike and some of whom will not be eligible for a strike position until this coming Friday. The government has some obligation to come to an agreement with its employees.

We have now experienced closure or at least the limiting of debate in the House 50 times. While I agree that we have an emergency on the business of getting the grain moving again in western Canada, I do not think there was any need for the government to drag its feet to the point where it suddenly feels its back is against the wall with a two week break coming up. It is now in a position where it wants us to agree to put the legislation through the House in all stages in one day. This is simply for the convenience of the government which is, I will point out once again, responsible for the situation we face today.

It is only reasonable to expect people to work without a contract for so long and then there will be some real problems. These people have been to the bargaining table. The President of Treasury Board says that in his estimation they have been totally unreasonable and that Canada simply cannot afford to agree to their demands. We have not been party to those negotiations so we are not sure just how to evaluate the remarks of the President of the Treasury Board.

However, I think the onus falls on the government to make sure that this sort of thing does not arrive at the situation where it is today. The main reason I say this is that it is a recurring thing. Again and again we will be called on to legislate some group of people back to work because of the failure of the government to act in a responsible manner and to arrive at a contract with its employees before it reaches an impasse.

That is why we have advocated for some time now the use of final offer selection arbitration in cases where there is a monopoly situation, where the services cannot be obtained anywhere else and where the withdrawal of those services would have a detrimental effect on an innocent third party such as the grain handlers, and in particular the grain weighers in this case. Some 70 people go on strike and stop the movement of all grain in western Canada to port.

Final offer selection arbitration is a tool that can be used equally well by management and by labour. By putting in place a mechanism that will require both parties to place their final offer, their bottom line, in writing before a mutually agreed to arbitrator or panel, they may possibly bargain so earnestly and fine-tune their position to the point where there will not be any need for an arbitrator to make any decision at all. The result will be that final offer selection, used to its ultimate, is not used at all. We firmly believe that the best settlement is a negotiated settlement.

I would like to quote from page 18 of the Reform Party's blue book which clarifies where we are coming from as far as labour relations are concerned. It states:

The Reform Party supports the right of workers to organize democratically, to bargain collectively and to strike peacefully.

At the same time we believe certain services in Canada should not be interrupted because it would have a detrimental effect on the country's economy and innocent third parties would be damaged by the removal of those services. We therefore suggest that in those situations final offer selection arbitration be used.

Some people have said that final offer selection arbitration will take away the right to strike from people. I counter by saying I do not think it will at all. It will not take away the right to strike any more than a negotiated settlement will take away the right to strike. Maybe it will take away the need to strike, but so does a negotiated settlement. If the settlement is arrived at and agreed to by both parties, there is no need for a strike.

Let us be perfectly clear. I cannot think of any union or any unionized person who would relish the thought of going into a strike. It is very traumatic for them, for their families and for their bank accounts to make the decision to strike. When they do they are trying to pry an intransigent party away from its position and back to the table to continue to negotiate.

[Division No. 354, March 23rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I know it is not summer but suddenly the reruns are here. It seems that we have been in this place before doing exactly the same thing, legislating some group of people back to work. This is certainly a heavy handed approach to take. It does not solve anything.

[Division No. 360, March 23rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the House for its co-operative spirit in allowing me time to have the last seven minutes of debate on third reading.

We have just gone through a very arduous and painful exercise in the House and I do not think any of us are looking forward to repeating this any time soon, but the truth of the matter is that we are destined to repeat it. As my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake pointed out, it might not be all that long until we do have to repeat this. With the record we have seen since we came here in 1993, this is a recurring dream. It is like the summer reruns. They happen over and over again.

Time and time again we have to face the unpalatable and drastic task of legislating some group back to work. I am totally at a loss as to know who is the winner in a situation like this. It is certainly not the members of this House. It is certainly not the government as the employer and certainly it is not the employees. There are no winners.

Why do we continue to put ourselves through this sort of task when it is not necessary? Some third party always suffers in these instances. A party that has absolutely nothing to do with the conflict that is taking place, the labour strife, suffers just the same.

My colleague from Selkirk talked about agriculture. This is about more than the farmers. The economy of Canada is quite dependent upon agriculture. Agriculture is still one of the largest employers in the Canadian economy. The spin-off effect from agriculture is huge.

We have all talked about the importance of our good name and reputation as a dependable supplier of goods in the world market. Yet we find miraculously on the last day at the eleventh hour the minister comes into the House and says that wonder of wonders, they have reached a tentative deal.

It makes us wonder just how far apart the parties were in the first place. It makes us wonder whether or not we were misled. It makes us wonder whether there was a deal in the offing as we were gathering to consider this legislation. It makes us wonder whether both parties were utilizing the grain. We cannot say that labour knows that grain is a flash point, that it is a hot button. The government is certainly aware of that as well. It knows that we cannot hold up the grain shipments. We know that it is going to create action, action that none of us are going to enjoy.

The reason I say there is no reason to go through this is that we have a method available to us, if only the government would choose to implement it. I am speaking specifically to the President of the Treasury Board and to the Minister of Labour. We need to implement final offer selection arbitration so that these matters can be settled amicably. We have all talked about how a negotiated settlement is far better than an imposed settlement. I think we all agree with that.

In the spirit of final offer selection arbitration, I would like to move the following motion. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefor:

“Bill C-76, an act to provide for the resumption and continuation of government services, be not now read a third time but be referred back to committee of the whole for the purpose of reconsidering all of the clauses with the view to provide final offer arbitration as an alternative to legislating agreements or workers back to work.

[Division No. 359, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Chairman, I heard the President of the Treasury Board talk about arbitration, but I was talking specifically about the use of final offer selection arbitration in which both parties are required to submit their final offer and the arbitrator takes all of one position or all of the other. Could he comment on that for me, please?

[Division No. 359, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Chairman, I am sure it is no secret to the President of the Treasury Board that the Reform Party very much supports the use of final offer selection arbitration.

Does he favour the use of final offer selection to settle cases like that of the grain weighers?