Werner Schmidt

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the important issue here is that the third point is the one that matters. The third point is that we would make absolutely sure that there was a complete and radical reformation of the equalization program. That is the issue.

If the hon. member would stop talking and start listening, I think it would help his understanding.

We want to reform in a radical way the equalization program. There are two points we would make in the radical reformation. If the hon. member would take the time to read the new Canada act, he would find them there. They are equal treatment of all citizens with per capita grants to provinces for shared cost programs and then a single equalization grant based on a macro indicator of per capita provincial GDP compared to the per capita national GDP.

This is at the heart of the issue. That shifts the formula away from the political considerations the hon. parliamentary secretary referred to. He wants to get into this conflict again of one province versus another.

We want to bring the individual into the equalization formula and make sure that we have a macro measure so that we do not have one region competing with another region, one region lording it over another region so that no one benefits. The fact is the manipulation for political reasons takes precedence rather than the needs of individuals and that is what we are concerned about. That is really at the heart of the issue.

I encourage the parliamentary secretary to take this to heart and do this in the equalization formula. If he does that, he will not have all this concern about which kind of oil it is, how old or new it is, whether it is heavy oil or light oil, whether it is gas or oil, or whether it is gas sold in Canada or elsewhere. He would not have to do that. He could simplify his life so much.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 9th, 1999]

The hon. member says she does not like him. That is her privilege.

I will refer to what he said to a conference of Canadians from across Canada: “Do not, first of all, give us grants and subsidies; rather, reduce our taxes. We will use the resources that are left in our pockets, that are left in our province, that are left in our corporations to greater advantage than if you filter them through the government”.

That was a premier who was saying “Let individual Canadians keep the money, the individual New Brunswicker”, rather than sending the money to Ottawa and then having it returned to the provinces to be filtered down.

In that process a lot of people lose money. They do not make money. I would suggest that even the hon. member who thinks Mr. McKenna does not know what he is talking about would spend her money more effectively than if she gave it to the premier of New Brunswick, the Prime Minister of Canada or any other politician or bureaucrat. She is wise in the expenditure of money. That is why she is here today. She knows how to spend money properly. She wants to represent her people so that they will be able to apply their resources in the best way possible. I commend her for that.

Allowing people to apply their own initiative, their own resourcefulness, would create a better world than the kind of world a government would create. The government's role should be to create an environment so that individuals can apply their skills, abilities and energies in a way that will be most productive.

The relationship between the federal government and the provinces has often been compromised by conflict, by the federal government intruding into provincial jurisdiction and by confrontation.

The national energy program created a direct confrontation with at least one province in Canada, but I will take an example that applies to every province, health care.

We know there was a time when the Liberal government, the current group that is in charge of Canada today, said it would never ever pay less than 50% of health care costs in Canada. It promised that would never change, and it underlined never. However, it did.

Not only did the amount change, but even as the proportion of the funding that came from the federal government changed it insisted that the provinces would get less money. And guess what? The provinces could not decide how they would make up the difference because they were told what to do by the federal government.

In other words, if a province wanted to introduce a special fee for a service it was not allowed to do that. If the province wanted the money it would have to spend it the way it was told to spend it.

That is not only unfair, it is downright dirty. Why would anybody want to do that? It took away the money and then told the provinces “Now you have less money to do this job. Do it our way”. Talk about conflict. Talk about confrontation. That is exactly what happened.

I want to return to the issue of interprovincial trade barriers. The Constitution says that we should have the free movement of goods and services across provincial boundaries. We want that. We want that very much.

The federal government has the responsibility to enforce the Constitution of Canada. What have we had? Nothing.

We agree that this is what we want and what does the federal government do? Nothing. How do we put those things together?

The government chooses to interpret the Constitution the way it wants to, the way it seems will be most advantageous to further its political agenda.

Do I blame the government for that? The Liberal Party has done that forever. The time has come for us not to do it from the top down, but to do it from the bottom up.

Canadians would take a different approach. Canadians want those barriers removed.

I was talking to a fellow in Ontario last week. He said that he finds it more difficult to trade his commodities across provinces than to ship them south into the United States.

What kind of sense does that make? On the one hand we have this great equalization program and then we make it difficult for the provinces to develop their economies by trading within their own country. However, they can trade freely across other borders. There is no logic. A decision has been made, but there has been no action.

I want to refer to a certain provision in this bill which I find absolutely insulting. I do not know if I should say insulting. It really caused me to envision all kinds of terrible things about what this government is really trying to do.

There are 33 tax elements. Guess what? I want to read this into the record. I know the parliamentary secretary is laughing. I think he knows exactly what I will read into the record.

There will be in these new 33 taxes eight different measures for oil and gas revenues. There will be eight different measures. How many different ways will gas and oil be measured? This is the list. There will be conventional new oil revenues. That is “conventional” and “new oil”. Then there will be conventional old oil revenues. These are somehow different. There is new oil and there is old oil, but in both cases it is conventional oil. I guess the difference is drawn between new and old. Where will the line be drawn between what is new and what is old, that which was covered last week or that which was covered a year ago? What is new? What is old? That is one complication.

Then there are heavy oil revenues. I guess that heavy oil weighs more per barrel than the other oil. I know better than that, but is it not interesting that they separate heavy oil from conventional oil? It talks about mined oil revenues. Those are the four oils.

Then it goes into the natural gas: domestically sold natural gas revenues, exported natural gas revenues, sales of crown leases and reservations on oil and natural gas lands. There are three gas measures and four oil measures. Here comes the catch all: oil and gas revenues, other than those described in paragraphs (q) to (w).

There are eight different ways of saying the same thing. The government wants to tax all oil and gas revenues, whether they are from conventional oil, heavy oil, old oil, new oil, gas, whether its sold domestically or whether it is exported. The government simply wants to tax all the revenues from oil and gas. Why in the world can it not say that? No, the government has to write it eight different ways. That is what is going on here. It is needlessly complicated.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, first I thank the powers that be for the occasion to debate this very significant part of Canadian financial affairs. Within this debate we can come to the realization that many things are happening in Canada which are highly desirable. There are other things happening in Canada that are not desirable.

I want to make it abundantly clear that at the heart of this question is the heart of Canada. What do we as Canadians believe about one another? It is very significant for us to recognize that many people prefer to live in Canada than in other countries. In many instances they were born in other countries and chose to immigrate to Canada because they liked it here and because they felt they could live better lives and create a better situation for themselves. It feels good to have been born in a country where that characteristic is admired and envied in many other parts of the world.

Before I go any further in my particular remarks on the bill, I want to refer directly to the earlier remark of the member of the NDP who suggested that the Reform Party does not care about Canadians and that this is just a postering position.

I would like to read into the record the three points that clarify and are absolutely essential to the understanding of the heart of Canada. Canadians care about one another. I believe these words will probably quash at least partially the hon. member's statement. I hope she is listening because it is significant. I also assure her that I believe what I will read right now. I am there.

For the member's benefit, if for no one else's, Reform will begin negotiations with the provinces to amend the formula for equalization to make it more sustainable and ensure that equalization payments are refocused toward Canada's poorest provinces. Is that not exactly what the hon. member was alluding to? I loved her passion. I think we all need to become far more passionate about Canada than is often demonstrated.

The second point I would like the hon. member to remember is that Reform recognizes the need and the constitutional requirement for equalization and would ensure that transitional funding and flexibility would be available for any province which found its equalization entitlement reduced. If that does not speak directly to the concerns that have been expressed, I would like to know what does.

The third point is that under Reform equalization for the poorest provinces in Canada would not be reduced and could be increased subject to negotiations with all Canadian provinces. We would have this interaction among all Canadians.

That suggests to me that not only do we have a heart but we recognize that all other Canadians have a heart. What we need to recognize is that as we help each other we can help to build an even stronger nation and an even more desirable country than we have at the present time.

I would now like to refer to what exactly is the equalization that we are talking about. It is an unconditional grant. An unconditional transfer is perhaps a better way to say it. It is a transfer to the less well off provinces from the better off provinces. That is what it is. That is what we support.

The principle of equalization is embodied in the Constitution. This is not something which this particular government dreamed of at this time. Neither is it something that we suddenly discovered. It was there at the very beginning when this country came into being. It is in the Constitution. Interestingly, the provision is not in the formula. The provision is that this must happen. The Constitution did not say that a particular formula should be observed. Periodically the formula is amended to take into account changes in economic circumstances. That is the current position of the equalization payment provisions in legislation and in the Constitution.

What we also need to recognize is that as we go through history we notice that it has changed dramatically from a very simple taxation system, of which parts of it were transferred, to a highly complex system. There are 33 different measures to determine whether equalization payments should be made. It is needlessly complicated. It does not need to be that way.

What does that suggest? What does it make possible? Whenever we complicate something three things are possible. One, it is not easily understood. That means that there is a group of people who can become experts and everybody else has to believe their interpretation of how it works.

Second, that creates all kinds of other opportunities. It creates the opportunity to manipulate the formula and the inputs in such a way that would appear to arrive at the same conclusion as anyone else using the same formula would arrive at. However, we all know that when we examine this it does not turn out that way.

Let me give members one interesting example that happened in the first quarter of this year. Lo and behold when the premier of Prince Edward Island looked at the equalization payments he discovered that he was going to have a deficit budget. Then he noticed that it was okay to call an election. He called the election. What happened? The transfer payments were recalculated. All of a sudden he had a balanced budget. It was a $30 billion difference.

How did that happen? Did it happen because the formula changed? Did it happen because taxes changed? Did it happen because we had a new province? Did it happen because we had a new government in Ottawa? It was none of those things. Had suddenly the population base in Prince Edward Island changed? Had suddenly the GDP changed? No. Something went into this thing that changed the whole picture. Who knows exactly what happened. We could make all kinds of surmises, we could have all kinds of speculation, but nobody could prove the point.

What is the third thing that could happen? In that manipulation and development the whole system could become politically motivated and politically driven. It seems to me that the example I just used illustrates that is exactly what can happen.

The present equalization formula also encourages poor economic decision making by provincial governments and impedes free and efficient labour mobility. That point has been made before, but I want to put this in the context of another issue which has to do with the trade barriers that exist among provinces.

We seem to have developed in this country a preferential interpretation of the Constitution. When it suits us to interpret the Constitution one way, we do that. In other words, the federal government chooses sometimes to intervene in provincial affairs. How does it do that? It intervenes in the educational system. It intervenes in the health care system. What does that do?

The federal government has taken the Constitution, which says that those issues are completely within provincial jurisdiction, and it has intervened. Then it turned the other way. The Constitution also says that there shall be free movement of goods and services across Canada from one province to another. It shall be free. What have we got? We have 700 plus barriers to the moving of goods and services from one province to another, which costs Canadians billions of dollars every year.

On the one hand we interpret the Constitution as saying that the federal government can interfere in provincial affairs and on the other hand we interpret the constitution as saying that it cannot. What kind of sense does that make?

The reason that happens is because the formula has become so complex that it becomes the dictator of what happens. The result is that politics becomes the issue, the bells and whistles become the issue, rather than the heart of the matter which is to help people and to be fair, equitable, transparent and democratic about the whole thing.

That is the heart of this issue. That is why we have some real difficulty with this.

Does this mean that we do not want equalization payments? Does it mean that we should not have them? It means that we have to have equalization payments, which is what I said at the outset. We need them, but they should be transparent, they should be simple and they should be fair.

I want to move to another point which was made by Dan Usher, an economist and professor of economics at Queen's University.

I notice the hon. member opposite is laughing. Why is he laughing? Is he laughing because Dan Usher does not know what he is doing? He knows exactly what he is doing.

He concluded that the equalization program was inefficient, counterproductive and should be radically reformed or scrapped altogether. That is not our position. We do not believe it should be scrapped. But should it be radically reformed? Absolutely.

Usher argues that the ultimate benefit of equalization to the poor may be negligible, even non-existent, and is certainly less than if the federal sources were provided to the poor directly.

That is an interesting development. Give it to the poor people directly. That is ultimately who it is supposed to help. It is not supposed to help governments, it is supposed to help people. It is not the province of New Brunswick that is to be helped, it is the people who live in New Brunswick who are to be helped. That is where we are going. That is what we want to do.

A recent study by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies found that the massive regional subsidies that have become part of Canada's fiscal and political makeup have done more economic harm than good. The conclusion is that Atlantic Canadians should look to their own economic resourcefulness and not to government or transfers from the rest of Canada. Wow. What a conclusion.

I also refer the hon. member to a conclusion of a former premier of New Brunswick, Mr. McKenna.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill for the concise history she gave of the equalization payment system in Canada.

I would like her to refer briefly again to the shift that took place. In the very beginning it was to make sure there was a balance in the distribution of wealth across Canada. It was so direct, so transparent and so simple that anyone could understand. Now it has become convoluted, difficult, complex and somewhat obscure.

Could the hon. member speculate on why it went from simplicity to complexity, from openness and transparency to obscurity and obfuscation in many cases?

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 16th, 1999]

I do not know. I am not accusing anybody of doing it. I know there is an official ad.

The point is that I do not want to advertise that sort of thing. I also do not want to guarantee citizenship in Canada to anyone other than someone who is prepared to accept the oath that I mentioned earlier. We do not want people from a criminal element. We do not want that in our society. We do not want to advertise for them to come to Canada.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have just been handed an ad: “Guaranteed immigration to Canada with the purchase of a Fleet rent a car franchise. Total investment of $50,000 Canadian, approximately $30,000 U.S.”. “You are guaranteed”—underlined—“immigration to Canada, even with a criminal record. For information write 5950 Bathurst Street, Suite 1009, Toronto, Ontario, fax at Toronto, Canada [phone]”. I do not know who put that ad in the paper but I know the ad exists.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 16th, 1999]

Mr Speaker, we have before us a bill entitled “an act respecting Canadian citizenship”. The first statement inside is “This enactment replaces the existing Citizenship Act”. That means we have before us an act that we should first of all be discussing and debating in principle. We should be dealing almost exclusively with the principles that are involved in legislation of this type. This creates probably the most significant function of a Canadian citizen, of a Canadian person, than anything else they can possibly do.

I am a Canadian. I am a Canadian citizen. We should be able to say that with pride. We should be able to say with our hands on our hearts “I am a Canadian”. There should be no question that the number one concern here is that I am a proud Canadian. We are proud of our country.

I remember so clearly being at an international conference in Dallas, Texas. Twenty-five thousand people assembled in an arena. Not a single person in that arena was not singing the national anthem. Their hands were clasped over their hearts and they were singing with pride.

In Canada I have witnessed Canadians singing the Canadian national anthem with caps on their heads, slouching with their hands in their pockets with absolutely no respect for the national anthem. We should be proud to be Canadian.

I was born here. My grandfather was an immigrant to Canada. He chose to come here. I am so happy that he did. It is because of his citizenship in Canada that I today am a Canadian citizen.

What concerns me so very much is that the hon. minister chose to ignore certain things that have happened in her discussions across Canada. She was told across Canada that what we need to have are people who are citizens, who are born of those people who are Canadian citizens. What was her reply? The minister stated that she made no changes in this proposed act because there was no research done on how big a problem the citizenship at birth issue really is.

This is not a statement of principle. This is a statement of numbers. In other words, it does not matter whether it is a matter of principle whether one is a Canadian citizen, it is simply a matter of how many numbers are involved.

That seems to me to be the typical Liberal interpretation of legislation. Test the winds to see how many people say a particular thing and then the Liberals will do it; whether it is right or whether it is wrong has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand. I decry that kind of statement.

I will now move on to another part of this legislation which I think is rather significant. Clause 6 states that an individual shall be granted Canadian citizenship if they have a command of one of the Canadian languages. I will now ask a whole series of questions. I want to draw rather heavily, in fact in detail from a presentation that was made to the committee as it travelled across Canada by the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce.

These are the issues the chamber was concerned about. Who will be doing the standardized language testing? Will it be the federal government? Where will the testing take place? Is it a part of the acceptance criteria and does it have to be done in the country of origin? Will this be a major expense and undertaking?

It is important to note that there is a big difference between learning English in a country of origin and learning English in the Canadian context in Canada. There are tremendous cultural differences with respect to language use. Immigrants learn so much about Canadian society, language use and meaning through the first English as a second language classes they attend.

The chamber contends that as we understand it there is currently no universal valid test of English abroad. Who is going to do the language testing overseas? This will cause an even greater backlog than there is now. We assume there will be additional fees associated with taking these tests and that is okay with them. Does the language proficiency being proposed include labour readiness?

It appears as though the motivation behind the language recommendations is to discontinue support for any type of language training funding and to implement additional fees on top of the existing fee structure. That training would be totally payable by the immigrants. It is interesting that Canada will train Canadians in either official language but it is not considering investing in the training of immigrants in either official language.

In many aspects of this report it appears that Canada is purporting to put higher demands on immigrants economically and socially than what it expects of its own people.

We need to be very careful to put in place the kind of testing and validity that will give credence and acceptability to this clause.

Clause 34 is a single sentence: “The form of the oath of citizenship is set out in the schedule”. Is the oath of citizenship so unimportant that it can be relegated to a schedule of the act or is it as in the earlier part where the minister shall grant citizenship if the person pledges allegiance according to the oath? The minister on her own volition has proposed the following oath:

From this day forward, I pledge my loyalty and allegiance to Canada and Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada. I promise to respect our country's rights and freedoms, to defend our democratic values, to faithfully observe our laws and fulfil my duties and obligations as a Canadian citizen.

The significance here is in what is left out of the current oath that is asked of persons who wish to take Canadian citizenship. What is left out of the present oath are the words “heirs and successors”. It should be allegiance to the Queen followed by heirs and successors. That has been eliminated in the proposed oath. Why has that been eliminated? I can only speculate but the question in my mind is, is this the beginning of an effort on the part of the Government of Canada to eliminate the role of the Queen of Canada? It looks like that sort of thing could be happening here very subtly and very surreptitiously.

The oath adds a couple of very interesting phrases. It adds the phrase “respect our country's rights and freedoms”. I would like to ask the minister and all members opposite what exactly are the rights and freedoms of a country? And who grants those rights and freedoms? Do the citizens grant the rights and freedoms to the country? Does the country grant those rights and freedoms to itself? Does some other country grant those rights and freedoms to another country? Does the United Nations do it? Does the World Court do it? Who grants these rights and freedoms to the country?

The second phrase is “to defend our democratic values”. I am unalterably in favour of the values we hold as a democratic society. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you as a Reformer and a member of the official opposition based on one thing, that we work from the grassroots up and not from the top down. That is what we need to do. The defence of my values is the defence we want to do as individuals and as a country. It is absolutely imperative that it be there but this is done on an individual basis. I must do that and I myself pledge to do that.

If that oath is as important as I believe it is, it should not be relegated to the schedule in the back of the act. It should be part and parcel of clause 34 in the act so everybody knows exactly what they stand for. I am a Canadian, I am a citizen of Canada, I am proud of it and I want everybody else to know that.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I too want to commend the hon. member who just spoke on his passion for Canada and on his allegiance to Canada. I am glad he chose Canada. I am one of those who was born in Canada. I am always proud to think that there are people from other countries who have chosen to come to Canada to live and become citizens of this great and wonderful land. It makes me feel good and proud that others would choose to live in this country.

If it does not make any difference what is in a name, why bother changing it? If it is okay to be a judge and if it is okay to be a commissioner and they are now judges, why bother to change it? If it does not make any difference to him, why change it? Obviously somebody thinks it makes a difference or they would not be bothering to make the change. The change is only there in order to achieve something that somebody thinks is worthwhile. If it really is not important, then the legislation is unimportant and therefore we should not treat it with any kind of respect.

I am sure there is a fundamental error here in the judgment and the logic being used that it does not matter what they are called. If it did not matter, it would not be here. Could the member please explain that?

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary just made a big point about getting this to the committee and making sure the committee had the appropriate interaction.

I wonder whether we could ask the member from Nose Hill to please clarify for us why she thinks the government members decided not to act on the special committee that dealt with citizenship and immigration. Does she think or believe that in the new consultations on this act there will be any different reaction to the suggestions that might be made than was the case in the past?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 15th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member opposite is suggesting that we could have addressed all those issues. The important thing is that if we could not—