Dale Johnston

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, November 23rd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I want to speak in general terms about the whole aspect of the government's loaning money to small businesses.

I guess the reason the government first got into the business of loaning money to small businesses was that the banks simply refused to take on some of these ventures that had a little more risk involved in them.

We have to look deep down into the purpose of government's loaning money to small businesses. I think everyone will agree it is to encourage entrepreneurship, to put people to work in order to allow these people to flourish and perhaps even expand their businesses.

Some of the speakers today came up with instances where businesses had started in somebody's garage and then grown to nationwide and international businesses. That is exactly what I think is the optimum goal of getting into a situation where the government loans businesses money.

Everything we do here with regard to the Small Business Loans ACT should be pointed in that direction but I had a constituent who came to me the other day with an absolute horror story about borrowing money from the government. She is 58. She was involved in a government sponsored loans act. The Alberta Women's Enterprize Initiative Association loans money under western economic diversification. I realize that is not exactly what we are debating but it is along those same principles.

This lady went to the organization and asked to borrow some money. She needed approximately $60,000. It wrote her a contract for $60,000 at the rate of 17%. This was in 1996 at a time when if you had any collateral at all you could borrow money for 6% or 7%. Here it was saddling this person with a 17% interest rate. If that is helping small businesses it seems like a rather underhanded way to do it.

On top of that the lender chose not to release all the funds. No doubt it was written into the contract. The lender kept about half the funds the person borrowed and on which she was paying interest. Half the funds were kept on deposit in the financial institution from which she had borrowed the money.

If that is helping small business that is a little like throwing a drowning person a cement life saver. If going into a new business were not risky enough, withhold about half the capital borrowed and charge 17%.

By the time the lady came to see me it was too late for me to intervene. She had declared bankruptcy. They had foreclosed on absolutely everything she had. She had signed over her condominium, her life savings, her pension plan, everything she had as collateral toward this debt in order to get into business and be self-sufficient. Now she is basically a charity case. She has had to move in with her daughter and she is in a terrible predicament.

I felt very badly when this lady came to me and asked what I could do to help her.

The short answer was that I could do very little if anything to help. Likely I could do nothing. At the time she came to see me this case was before the courts. She is being sued for outstanding debt.

All I could do was sympathize with her and say that if I had the opportunity I would bring her case before parliament. She agreed that there was nothing I could do to intervene. She wondered if there was something that parliament could do to prevent this from happening to other unsuspecting people. She admits quite freely that she was not cautious enough. She should have read all the fine print. She definitely made some mistakes.

I think when we are talking about small business loan programs we should bear in mind what our ultimate goal is. If our goal is to help small businesses that had the other more established conventional lending institutions turn their backs on them, then we must make sure we are actually doing that and not simply putting a mill stone around these peoples' necks that they simply cannot carry.

We have to make sure taxpayers money is secured and that there is reasonable expectation for the business to flourish. I think the people who are borrowing money to invest in a business must prove they have expertise to carry on this business and that they have the necessary training, some rudimentary understanding of how business works, rudimentary accounting abilities and also have some good independent counsel available to them.

I would like to leave today thinking that the House and the committee considering this bill will bear in mind the burden placed on them to ensure this legislation is fair and does do what people such as the lady who came to see me expect it to do.

[Railways, November 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, last week while on route to an evening meeting in my riding I had to stop quickly for a freight train crossing the road in front of me. I felt fortunate that I had seen it for at night trains at crossings not equipped with lights, bells or barriers tend to blend into the darkness.

If all railway cars had markings on their sides to alert drivers, many accidents could be avoided. Railways have taken the initiative and are painting reflective strips on the sides of their new cars and on cars that come in for repairs. The problem is that in today's intermodal marketplace trains may be hauling cars belonging to U.S. shippers or even the Government of Canada.

The government needs to make the safety of the motoring public a priority. The Minister of Transport has the regulatory authority to make reflective markings mandatory on all railway cars travelling in Canada, and he needs to do it now.

[Manitoba Claim Settlements Implementation Act, November 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say first of all that a member opposite said we have drawn out the debate at great lengths. I think it would only be appropriate if four, five or six Reform members spoke to this legislation, and I believe that is how many have spoken today.

The other thing I would like to comment on is the fact that my colleague for Winnipeg Centre is completely off the mark when he tries to cast aspersions on the Reform Party by implying that somehow we have condoned, possibly spawned and encouraged this organization, which none of my colleagues in this caucus have even heard of, let alone been made aware of what the aims or goals are. I think that is probably one of the sleaziest things I have seen happen in this parliament up to this point.

Having said that, I would like to ask a question of my colleague from Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey. This agreement is an attempt to bring to a close 21 years of negotiation. The first thing that occurs to me is that when we are in negotiation for 21 years the people that benefit are not the stakeholders, they are the negotiators. This looks to me like a career for somebody to continue negotiations which started in 1978.

I would encourage my colleague across the way to remark on that or to enlighten me as to how he feels about the fact that this has dragged on and on. Who does he think have been the—

[Manitoba Claim Settlements Implementation Act, November 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed in the comments of the member for New Brunswick Southwest that he said that some portions of this bill are not needed because negotiations are ongoing. I did not quite catch what he meant, but it was something to that effect.

If I understand correctly, this is to finalize compensation for land flooded for a hydroelectric project that dates back some 21 years. I am having an extremely difficult time understanding how such a project would go ahead without having the terms of the settlement in place before the project was undertaken.

As is the case with a lot of members of this House, I have some experience in municipal politics. I know that if a municipality built a road and annexed some land from neighbouring landowners, whether crown land, Indian reserves or fee simple land, and then later went back to the people who were affected and said “By the way, we built a road on your place and we would now like to start to negotiate what it is going to cost us for that right of way”, for the land that has been taken off the title or out of production or whatever, that is an absolutely backward way of doing business.

One of the most important considerations in a project that is going to go ahead is what the acquisition of the land is going to cost. That is something that has to be determined up front, not some 21 years later.

I wonder if the member for New Brunswick Southwest would like to clarify the comments he made so that I could better understand where he is coming from.

[Supply, November 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about a compensation package offered sheep producers who have problems with scrapie. It seems she suggested that the $600 a head offered in compensation to those sheep producers is not adequate.

As a cattle producer I know that when someone slaughters a cow toward the end of her useful life they may not get much more than $600 for her.

I was wondering if the member could explain what she thought would be reasonable compensation for victims of the scrapie outbreak.

[Pearson International Airport, October 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour will know that 520 support staff at Pearson International Airport have been on strike since October 2 and negotiations are at a standstill. While management and the union negotiate or battle in the media passengers are inconvenienced and workers are suffering.

The workers have had a seven wage freeze to contend with and now they are trying to subsist on strike pay. How many more sandwiches will be flattened on the tarmac before the minister recalls the parties back to the negotiating table?

[Petitions, October 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by members of the towns of Wetaskiwin, Millet and Leduc in my riding who want to call the attention of parliament to the following: “Whereas the majority of Canadians understand the concept of marriage as only the voluntary union of a single, that is, unmarried male and a single, that is, unmarried female, it is the duty of parliament to ensure that marriage, as it has always been known and understood in Canada, be preserved and protected”.

Therefore, the petitioners pray that parliament enact legislation such as Bill C-225 so as to define in statute that marriage can only be entered into between a single male and a single female.

[Merit Principle, October 27th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their participation in this debate. It is funny how sometimes we get support from quarters that we least expect.

Maybe I am reading a little more into it than the member from the Bloc actually stated, but he did talk about how he was not in favour of patronage appointments or anything that was attached to political favours making sure that a person got the job. As a matter of fact he even had some examples that he cited for Hansard .

I would have to assume from that—and I hope I am making the right assumption—that he would not think an appointment to the Senate based on patronage is the right way to go. As a matter of fact he said that, so I would have to assume he would be in favour of senatorial elections.

That reminds me that just a few weeks ago I was speaking in a constituency and made a similar statement. One of the questions in the question period afterwards was “The latest senator is a very qualified person so if you were to select a senator he is probably an excellent applicant”. I agree with that assessment. However it is not the person's qualifications that are in doubt in that case. It is how he got there. He got there because he was part of the old boys club who just happened to have qualifications.

I suggested that because he had such good qualifications he should have thrown his hat into the senatorial election race that was taking place at the time in Alberta anyway and he might have got himself elected as a senator and made history.

One of my colleagues across the way in the government was saying that the imposition of quotas was in no way any sort of a burden on the employer and that it did not impose any undue hardships. Perhaps he should have a chat with his colleague in the Liberal Party from Mississauga East who obviously does not agree with that assessment. She said in one of the HRD committee meetings that in her estimation it cost at least $1,000 per employee to qualify and to comply with all employment equity conditions.

Lest people who have spoken to this are misunderstanding what we are trying to get across today, a person should be selected, as my colleague from Calgary East has said, on the basis of how well trained he or she is to do the job. If the person is of visible minority, a woman, an aboriginal or disabled, it should have nothing whatsoever to do with it. The sole basis should be if the person has the qualifications to do a good job for their employer so that their employer can produce and compete in the global environment. It should have nothing whatsoever to do with imposed quotas by the Government of Canada.

It is unfortunate that this was not selected as a votable item. I would be most interested to see how members of the government would have voted on it.

[Merit Principle, October 27th, 1998]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should support the right of all job applicants to be evaluated solely on the basis of merit.

Madam Speaker, the motion before us today calls on the government to support the right of all job applicants to be evaluated solely on the basis of merit.

The subject matter of Motion No. 7 was debated in the House on May 2, 1996. It was not selected as a votable item at that time and it is unfortunate that Liberals on the committee decided not to give members an opportunity to vote for fairness in this parliament either.

This motion goes right to the heart of equality. It asks that all job applicants be evaluated solely on the basis of merit, which means how well they can do the job, how qualified they are to do the job.

I hearken back to a headline from a recent news release from the office of the Minister of Labour which stated the minister supports equal opportunity at employment equity council meeting. Great, I thought. This minister sees the need to treat people equally. According to the news release the main goal of this council is to work with all levels of government in removing barriers to employment of members of visible minorities.

I believe that is a goal to which we can all subscribe. Members of the Reform Party want to ensure that visible minorities have an equal opportunity to compete for jobs. What we object to are the quotas and segregation of visible minorities. Canadians who wish to pursue a particular career path should not be face barriers of discrimination and those with the ability and discipline deserve the rewards of their hard work.

If the Minister of Labour is truly concerned about equality he will introduce legislation in this House to repeal the 1996 Employment Equity Act. While the legislation does not specify quotas it establishes a mechanism whereby the inspectors, auditors and those administering the law can force companies to comply with numerical goals that are nothing more than quotas in disguise.

We know all too well that this government is always looking for ways to intrude into the activities of the provinces and the private sector. The Employment Equity Act enables the government to cast its net even farther, not only in those industries are under federal jurisdiction but in private, public and crown corporations. They are forced to comply but now the quota law extends to provincially regulated private sector businesses with more than 100 employees who undertake contract work for the Government of Canada valued at $200,000 or more.

To qualify for federal government contracts employers must sign a commitment to undertake the following four measures. First, they must conduct a workplace survey to determine its composition by race, sex and disability for each type of work in the organization. Second, they must also compare the results of the workplace survey with national and local averages based on the most recent census data. Third, if there is a significant discrepancy between the workplace representation and national or local averages in any of the 12 designated categories, they must determine why this discrepancy exists and develop measures to correct them. Fourth, they must establish goals and timetables for increasing the representation of the designated categories in the workplace.

This is just the sort of thing that business and industry do not need. They simply do not need more red tape, more government intervention and more expense added to the product they ultimately deliver in the workplace.

Starting last November auditors representing the Canadian Human Rights Commission began conducting proactive audits to determine compliance in those areas.

When we examine the complex set of goals demanded by the government we can see how easily the cost of compliance can escalate. Under the guise of fairness and equality this government increased its bureaucracy and added to the regulatory burden of the private sector.

How can we expect these companies to compete in today's fierce global marketplace when they are mired in red tape and paperwork? If businesses are forced to comply with this sort of thing it naturally adds to the cost of their product which consumers will pay for in higher product prices, whether it is the Government of Canada or whomever.

At a human resources development committee meeting last year the member for Mississauga East said that the additional costs to individual employers in her riding for outside consultants and accountants amounted to approximately $1,000 per employee. Instead of hiring workers to increase productivity, these companies are forced to hire consultants and accountants to fill out their government forms. This demonstrates how misguided enforced equity really is.

For some reason the government subscribes to the misguided theory that it can solve the problem by regulating. As a result, it ends up with a lot of regulations and no solutions. The firearms registry is a prime example of that. Instead of dealing with the misuse and criminal use of firearms by dealing with criminals, it set up an expensive registry to tax law abiding gun owners. Instead of helping visible minorities compete in the job market it has imposed a set of complex staffing rules and quotas on employers.

The reality is that equity programs do not remove sexual, racial or other biases from the workplace. They institutionalize it. Employers should be free to hire the best person for the job regardless of their race, sex or disability. Employees want to compete fairly and be recognized for their expertise.

Hiring quotas place unnecessary obstacles in the career path of Canadian workers. They tie employer's hands and are another contributing factor in the migration of skilled workers to the United States.

Much has been said and written about the brain drain that we are suffering at the moment. At a time when the flow of skilled workers to the United States is a national concern, the government should remove the equity quota of all employers to hire and promote the best qualified people for the job.

The role of government is not to set the terms and conditions under which private companies hire employees. A diverse workforce is a plus for any business. The market will dictate the diversity of the staff. Employers will do it on their own because they cannot afford to ignore valuable resources. The last thing they need is hassle and government red tape.

The Ontario policy director of the Canadian Federation of Business said it is better not to have a regulatory scheme because these things tend to discourage job creation. It is exactly the opposite of what the government has intended it to do.

If the government is really serious about helping visible minorities it should work with employers to create an environment that encourages diversity and raises awareness about the special needs of the disabled and minorities.

Canada has skilled and competent workers. Let us remove the shackles of excessive government regulation and give them an opportunity to compete on a level playing field. I think it is time that common sense prevailed in this area.

[Gasoline, October 27th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we can fool some of the people some of the time but things are so bad in the Liberal caucus that the backbenchers cannot be fooled any longer.

Scrambling to save face at next week's conference on climate change, the environment minister announced last minute plans to reduce sulphur levels in gasoline by 90%. She claims consumers will pay a mere one cent per litre for this clean air plan. The Liberal chair of the gas pricing committee, however, pegs the increase at a whopping 15 cents per litre. That is not even close.

The sulphur tax is a carbon tax by any other name. When the Prime Minister assured Canadians last year that there would be no carbon tax, his backbenchers believed him. Canadians wanted to believe him. They have all been deceived again. Taxpayers will pay dearly for the Liberal's desperate attempt to meet its Kyoto commitment.

The government prefers to keep up international appearances rather than its promises to the people of Canada. Canadians are not fooled—