Werner Schmidt

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, October 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the depth and the analysis of my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill. There has been a tremendous interest, not only an awareness, in the scam perpetrated on the public over the last number of years. She called it the Ponzi scheme, which is not an unfair analogy. I think she explained it rather well.

There is a real indictment not only on the present government but on previous governments. The time has come.

Could the hon. member explain exactly how it is that one generation must show a leadership role for the next generation? How can they be shown to prepare for the future, whether it is financial responsibility or responsibility for one's own life?

Could she provide leadership, direction and guidance to the people who are coming up so that they will live a better life and not be the Ponzis as has been the case in the past?

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, October 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I found the speech very interesting, and I would like to commend the hon. member. However, I found the last two or three sentences not only disturbing but literally frightening. I think the comment made was that the plan that is being presented is there for my children and my grandchildren.

I would like to ask the member to explain in detail just exactly how it is that this is going to happen when the premiums go up to about 9.9 percent, and I believe that is supposed to last forever. We know where that kind of promise went the last time. It went all over the place. However, what is more significant is that there is no corresponding increase in the benefits that will be paid to the people who will actually benefit from the CPP.

We have a 73 percent increase in the premiums but no change in the benefits. How can that be a benefit to children and grandchildren?

[Supply, September 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have listened to that speech and yet I am terribly disappointed in some of the content of the speech.

The hon. member for Durham and the hon. member opposite should listen more carefully and I would have enjoyed the whole speech.

It was when I began listening with great interest that I began to recognize that something did not make sense. There is a lot of stuff that does not make sense in that speech.

I think the suggestion was made somehow that people who cut taxes do not necessarily increase the employment of people. I would like to refer the member to some statistics that I have put together here with certain American states. In fact, there are about 10 of them that have increased taxes in the years between 1990 and 1995. During that time period we also have about the same number of states that have cut taxes. We have two groups here, one group that increased taxes and another group that decreased taxes.

It was very interesting to note that for the tax hikers over that 10 year period, the total revenue that the states collected was increased by 27%. They hiked their taxes in order to increase their revenue. They did by 27%. The tax cutters cut their taxes and their revenues increased 32.6%. That is very interesting. They cut their taxes but increased their total revenues.

Let us look at job creation. The tax hikers increased employment, percentage wise, zero. The tax cutters over that same five year period increased their employment by 10.8 percent. That is very significant. These are not numbers that I made up or that somebody manufactured for this speech. These are numbers that exist. The hon. member can find those numbers himself. They are very significant.

The member then suggested that when people get jobs all they do is spend the money, suggesting that somehow spending money is a bad thing. Mr. Speaker, I know you are a businessman and I know that much of the business you have done in your lifetime has been spending dollars that have come from other people. You, Mr. Speaker, have become a wealthy man because you invested that money.

The hon. member opposite has had exactly the same kind of experience. He has become wealthy because people spent their money. The suggestion that is being made here is that when people spend money is disappears. Investment money comes back.

How it is that tax hikers had no increase in jobs but the tax cutters had an increase in jobs? Let him explain to us that spending actually hurts the economy.

[Supply, September 30th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I guess the admiration is mutual. I have a lot of respect for the hon. member opposite. The important thing about human capital is what do we want to create?

If he would read the Beyond a Balanced Budget document the hon. member will discover that there will be 1.2 million Canadians who will be off the tax roll. They will have the money that they are now paying in taxes. These are low income people who earn less than $30,000 a year. That is very significant.

The reason some of these people do not have jobs is because of payroll taxes. Many business people to whom I have talked, and the hon. member is a business man, know only too well how many people have not expanded their businesses because of the proposed increase in the CPP and employment insurance premiums.

[Supply, September 30th, 1997]

Tax relief, that is what we are talking about.

[Supply, September 30th, 1997]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The only difficulty is the contrast. Whenever the minister makes an announcement, and he has probably made about 40 or 50 announcements about these various partnership programs, he says it is repayable. Not a subsidy, not a grant, this is a loan or an equity position. It is very interesting that there is absolutely no reference to what the provisions of the contract are, what the partnership shall actually achieve and what schedule there will be of the repayment of the grant, subsidy or loan. If it is not to be repaid, if it is an equity position, what are the dividends that will be paid on the investment?

If the contract is a secret one, this does not prove anything. There is no accountability here. That is very serious.

The DIPP, the defence industry productivity program, went essentially to the defence industry. The son of the DIPP, the technology partnerships Canada program, is going to exactly the same people. The first $150 million of that was to carry over and pay for some of the programs that have not been taken care of under the DIPP.

If this is what is going to happen, then we will have a DIPP and a TPC program which have not been paid for. I think we have to say that the DIPP has become tipsy.

I think we have to be very serious about exactly what is going on here. Where is the truth in what is happening here?

We need to become serious about cutting our taxes so that the people can spend money where they want to spend it and spend it wisely. The only way we can find that out is to ask the people where they think a surplus should be spent once we have a balanced budget and there is extra money in the treasury. They will tell us far better than a bureaucrat or we sitting in this House. Let the people speak and we will all be better off.

[Supply, September 30th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, this is very interesting. Now we have another man in on this. Now we really have a balance. That is what the House is really all about.

I want to move into the technology partnerships Canada program. This program is supposed to help build innovation, research and development in Canada.

[Supply, September 30th, 1997]

Is that not a wonderful comment, Madam Speaker? You have order in this place and another member said it is okay. I am a man who said the right thing. That is a fantastic way to live in this old world.

I want to go back to research and development.

[Supply, September 30th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, since this is my first formal speech in this 36th Parliament, I would like to thank you and congratulate you on your appointment. I would also like to express thankfulness to the constituents of Kelowna who saw fit to re-elect me, giving me the opportunity to represent them in this House. It is an honour to be able to do so.

The constituents of Kelowna live in probably one of the most beautiful parts of this country. Some people say there is at least one other part of British Columbia that is better than that. It happens to be the place where they live, and of course I disagree with that because I think that Kelowna is the absolute most beautiful spot in which to live.

I wish at this point to refer back to a question that was asked by one of my hon. colleagues from the Conservative Party. I unfortunately do not know which constituency he represents. He asked probably one of the most poignant question that has been asked on this day in the debate of this particular motion, and that question was to the hon. member for St. Paul's.

The question was did she think that the taxpayer would be able to spend money more wisely or would a politician or a bureaucrat spend money more wisely.

For a moment I thought for sure it was one of my Reform colleagues because that is exactly the kind of questions we have been asking. We have discovered over and over again that it is the taxpayer who is probably in the best position to determine how best to spend his dollars. I am absolutely convinced that is true.

The hon. member for St. Paul's could not answer that question. She is prepared to take her money and let somebody else spend it for her more wisely than she is able to spend it. I do not believe that she even believes that particular answer.

I want to get to the substance of this debate. The substance of this debate centers around adequate public debate about what should happen after a surplus has been created in the budget.

That is an absolutely critical point because we believe so fervently that it is the people of Canada, the taxpayers, the people who voted us into these chairs, who own these chairs, who own this House who would say now that we have a surplus, where should that money be spent. That is critical and that is really what this debate is all about.

I am going to address my remarks pretty well to the business of reducing taxes and cutting taxes. There is a brief reference. It is not even a complete sentence. There is just one tiny little phrase in the Speech from the Throne that refers to a cut in taxes.

As individuals we are tired of the tax burden that we carry. As families, we are tired of the tax burden that we are carrying. It does not matter what business person you talk to, it does not matter what individual you talk to, whether they are married, whether they are senior citizens, every person comes back with the answer that their taxes are too high.

Recently I read about an Asian centre that is being built in Surrey. These people are considering that this may be their first and only investment until the tax structure changes in Canada to do any further development in this country. That would be a very serious blow to that part of our country.

The average family today has real problems. It is spending $3,000 less per year—that is all it has—on food, clothing and shelter, the very basic things we need. Families are unable to spend that money because it has been taken from them by the taxes.

There is another point and it has to do directly with the individual tax level, the brain drain.

In this part of the country alone, here in Ottawa, recently 11 scientists out of 17 of that group have moved out of the country, most of them to the United States. Why? The personal tax burden is to high and also because there is no money available to support the infrastructure necessary to conduct research.

There are two difficulties with the infrastucture. Some of the material is worn out and cannot be used anymore and other new machines have to be brought in to do some of the more recent research.

Our high tax burden is a very serious detriment to retaining strong people. It is at the point now that in some sectors we are missing the skills and the professional ability to carry forward the research application that needs to be done.

My hon. colleague from North Vancouver alluded to a survey in the Financial Post . There is a very interesting observation here. So many people argue that tax cuts are really not the thing that women want to support and that it is something men want to support. Women want social programs more than they want tax cuts. This is very interesting. There is a marked difference here. Women actually supported tax cuts to a greater degree than did men. It would appear that protecting the financial interests of families may be more important that protecting government abilities to fund programs.

That is very significant. The women have it right. They understand what matters. They can spend money very wisely. They think they can spend it more wisely than the government. Congratulations. It is about time we got some balance into this society of ours.

[Supply, September 30th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member. She is a very learned and well educated individual who understands her profession extremely well. She fully recognizes the implications of the cuts made by her government to the health program of Canada.

However my question focuses on another area. I believe she will agree that major contributors to her profession are scientists, researchers and people who have worked to find new ways of dealing with and preventing various diseases.

There is considerable evidence that people who cut taxes bring about an attractiveness in a country for people to come and conduct research partly because of lower taxes and strong money for infrastructure.

The history of the government has been to decrease moneys given to research and development to the tune of approximately $700,000 in the last budget.

Would the member tell us how not cutting taxes will attract researchers to this country?