Gurmant Grewal

[Multiculturalism, March 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the multiculturalism minister made no mistake when she delivered a rehearsed answer to a rehearsed question. She claimed that the mayor of Prince George himself told her that there were cross burnings. She told the reporters “I have a letter from the mayor”.

That is not true. The mayor said no such thing. If the Prime Minister will not fire her for her intolerance, will he fire her for lying?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we are here, in the highest chamber of the country, to serve Canadians. We should treat them equally. They have the right to be treated equally, irrespective of the province they live in. They should have equal access to the important government services.

However, the way our system works, different provinces have different sources of revenue. They have different volumes of revenue. Their incomes, in layman's terms, are not equal. The amount of money left for spending on the services, particularly the social services, may not be equal. Rich provinces have more money to spend on social services than the poorer provinces. That will lead to unequal services being offered to the citizens of the provinces. This is not right. Canada is a wonderful country. It is our moral responsibility to see that all Canadians, wherever they live, have equal access to important government services.

Therefore, one innovative or workable way, although it does not work at the moment, is the equalization payment formula. However, at the moment this formula is biased, unfair and unreasonable. It does not measure the different elements which compose or contribute to the equalization formula. That is why it is important that we sincerely put all our efforts into working on the equalization formula so that it provides a fair and equitable means to all provinces and Canadians from coast to coast.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the people of Surrey Central to participate in the debate on second reading of Bill C-18, an act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act. Earlier the finance critic of the Canadian Alliance, the hon. member for Calgary Southeast, highlighted very beautifully our position and the weaknesses in the bill.

For the benefit of the folks at home I would like to tell them that for fiscal year 1999-2000 the bill removes the ceiling that would otherwise apply to equalization payments.

We recognize that different provinces and regions of Canada have different levels of wealth. All wish to provide similar services to their residents. We are committed to the constitutional principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide their residents with reasonably comparable levels of basic services at a reasonably comparable level of taxation. It will allow all Canadians from coast to coast to enjoy a comparable quality of important government services.

The bill implements a commitment by the Prime Minister to the first ministers to lift the cap on the first year of a five year cycle of equalization payments. Bill C-18 would increase equalization transfers by $792 million with over 50% going to Quebec, a per capita increase of $67.

The increase results from growth beyond the $10 billion ceiling. It was done to accommodate the demands of provinces made during negotiations with the premiers over the $21.1 billion CHST transfer package which was concluded in September 2000.

While the Canadian Alliance is open to exploring a new equalization system, that does not penalize poorer provinces that benefit from unexpected growth or new resource royalties, we believe the equalization formula should be consistently applied.

The official opposition has consistently called for reform of the equalization system to allow the poorer provinces to benefit from their economic development. Nova Scotia's Conservative Premier John Hamm is calling for equalization reform as part of his campaign for fairness. When he was premier of Newfoundland the industry minister also spoke in favour of equalization reform. There is a need for equalization reform and everyone is talking about it.

For every dollar a province gains in royalties, the federal government reduces its equalization payments by about 75 cents. The current equalization formula actually prevents the equalization of economic opportunity among the provinces. The bill merely touches on one aspect of the problem. There are many other aspects that I will be talking about in detail a little later.

Rather than address the issue of equalization payments on a piecemeal basis, a full and thorough debate is needed in the House. The equalization ceiling exists to protect federal taxpayers from excess growth in payments.

The Canadian Alliance supported the $21.1 billion increase in the 2000 CHST fiscal accord. We also supported reviewing the application of the formula to stop penalizing provinces that experience strong growth or increases in the non-renewable resource revenues. We believe that maintaining the ceiling is necessary for the overall integrity of the program.

We also believe that the equalization system should serve the longer term purpose of equalizing economic opportunity and autonomy in all regions and should not create incentives for perverse economic policies on the part of provincial governments.

The lifting of the cap is a one time ad hoc reaction that fails to address the bigger and longer term problems. It was promised for purely political reasons. It may be good politics, but is it a good policy? The fact that this one time band aid solution is even being proposed indicates a need for open disclosure in parliament, in the provinces and among levels of government to come up with ways to prevent the necessity of applying such band aid solutions time after time.

I will describe the equalization payment system that the government operates. Every five years since 1957 the federal government through the finance department reviewed the equalization program. The purpose of the equalization program is to equalize provincial revenue raising capacity. In theory, this enables provinces to provide reasonably comparable levels of public service at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

Without equalization payments Canada's wealthier provinces would be able to provide more services to their residents than the poor provinces could at the same level of taxation. The equalization formula is important to the Canadian federation.

The program is only as good as the processes that allow it to keep pace with the provincial tax system. The key element in the equalization formula is the representative tax system called RTS. The RTS is a hypothetical tax system that is supposed to be representative of the actual systems of the separate provinces. The key to success rests on how well the RTS reflects provincial tax systems. The RTS should be comprehensive, representative, accurate and appropriately categorized.

The RTS should include all revenue sources used to support public services comprehensively. Partial coverage of the revenue sources yields a biased picture of the relative fiscal capacity of the provinces. The RTS should use definitions of tax bases that reflect the tax structure actually used by the provinces to reflect what governments actually do. It should not represent imaginary, unfair and unrealistic measures. It should be representative of the actual tax systems used in the provinces or in the country. The data used to measure the various tax bases must be as accurate as possible for it to be a reliable measure.

The items in the RTS that make up a category or revenue source should have common characteristics, the ability to be taxed at a similar rate and should be appropriately categorized. The finance department currently uses such criteria for its assessment of the RTS, but nowhere is it explicitly set out.

The finance department has not formalized the set of principles to guide its review of the RTS. The need for a formalized set of principles is necessary if we are to arrive at a common way of estimating the tax base for the provinces. For many of the 33 revenue sources used by the department as measurements, the bases are not straightforward and no consensus exists.

We on this side of the House have been trying to force this weak Liberal government, that lacks vision, to do the work necessary to fix the system.

I spoke to the bill in the last parliament when the five year time period expired. As I mentioned earlier, the House debated the details of the equalization program and how it would operate for the next five years. At that time the government had given the House only a matter of days to deal with a bill that it was passing, the one that has to be passed every five years for the purpose of the operation of the equalization plan.

It was really an outrage. The government did not want the opposition parties in the House to have very much time to talk about equalization payments. It held back the bill for three days and then there were only a few days left before the calendar year deadline approached. The Liberals said that they had to rush the bill because the clock was ticking. That was because they would not put the puck on the ice until five minutes was left in the game.

Today we are debating a bill that is tinkering with the nation's equalization program, a program that we all support and that we all want to operate in the best possible manner. The Liberals do not want to do that work. The bill touches only one aspect of the problem, ceilings. How about the other related and more serious and complicated problems that the bill does not address at all? The Liberals are pretending that other problems do not exist. Maybe the problem will go away by pretending that the problems do not exist.

I will give six examples to prove what I am saying.

First, some provinces calculate their payroll taxes on the total payroll of business, while other provinces tax only a portion above certain thresholds. Still other provinces charge no tax at all. For the purpose of RTS, the base chosen across all provinces must be common.

Second, for sales taxes, the base used in the RTS is no longer representative of the tax structure used by all provinces. The four provinces that account for a third of Canada's population use a common sales tax base, the GST, which is different from the one used in the RTS. We are comparing apples to oranges. They are not equivalent. There is a need to review the way the sales tax base is currently measured.

Third, there are user fees which are not part of the current federal-provincial discussions for the 1999 renewal. it is very important to mention that governments at every level are resorting to alternative revenue sources such as user fees. It is a tax with only a semantic distinction.

Provincial and local government receipts from user fees doubled from $6 billion in 1984 to $12 billion in 1994. It doubled in 10 years.

How these revenues are treated in the equalization formula can have a significant effect on overall equalization payments. User fees imposed by the provinces have been part of the equalization of the RTS since 1967.

Similar fees imposed by the municipalities were brought in with the 1982 renewal. They are currently included under the miscellaneous revenue category of the RTS. It is a category that is altogether different and impacts on the calculations of the complicated equalization formula.

Fourth, since 1977 lottery revenues have been treated as a separate revenue source in the RTS, with gross revenues from the sale of lottery tickets constituting the lottery base. It worked well until the provincial gaming sector became significantly transformed. Today, provinces are operating video games, casinos, bingos, VLTs, break-open tickets and other games of chance.

The RTS base does not cover these newer gaming activities. This is unfair. The revenues are treated differently for equalization purposes. Where a casino is operated by a provincial lottery corporation, profits are equalized under the lottery revenue source. If the casino is operated by a government department, the gross revenues of the casino are equalized under the miscellaneous revenue source in the RTS. Again, the weak Liberal government allows mixing apples with oranges. Similar inequities arise in the treatment of revenues from other games. That is unfair.

The RTS has become less representative of the provincial taxing policy. We will see if the government is addressing these gaming inequities in the bill. It has its chance. It needs to look at it.

Fifth, is resource taxation which is an area where the ground is always shifting. The resource revenue type bases in the RTS are measured on the basis of the value or volume of production.

Ideally they would be measured on the basis of economic rent or the value of the resource over its cost of production. Rent is a measure of taxable potential, not actual but potential. It consists of a value that can be taxed without affecting production because natural resources in different locations can differ in quality and production costs. Rent associated with them can also differ significantly. These differences are not captured by the value or volume of production.

There are many flaws in the present equalization program. It should be completely reformed. We know the equalization provision has limited the cumulative growth of total equalization payments to the cumulative growth of GNP, gross national product, from the base.

Sixth, the ceiling and floor levels were introduced. I will not elaborate on that much but it does not work favourably. Rather it would make it difficult for the provinces, particularly those close to the floor level, to plan their budgets.

There is asymmetrical treatment of underpayments and overpayments. The overpayments are treated as non-interest bearing loans to the provinces. This is an important one. In the last year or so, it cost the federal government $38 million.

Free use of federal funds is not necessarily shared equally by all of the receiving provinces. The federal government does not charge interest on the underpayment. So the government has manipulated the program for political favours. The former premier of Newfoundland, who is Minister of Industry, was given a gift before the election. That is the kind of favours I am talking about. That is how the government can manipulate because the system is not fair.

Evolving over many decades, every five years the traditional political parties have given us an extremely convoluted and complex process. If the design is so archaic and cryptic that it defies logic and reason. It is not fair that our system is such a conundrum. Equalization as it is structured is divisive. It pits one Canadian against another. That is not right. The measurements should be accurate, reliable and sound. In this case, they are not.

The Reform Party of Canada, now the Canadian Alliance, advanced the new Canada act which sought to improve the Canadian political and economic system. There is a need for a single social union agreement on transfers from the federal government to the provinces.

Since we are debating the bill, I ask the government members to please look into the whole issue and make a serious attempt to reform our equalization program.

[Modernization Of House Of Commons Procedure, March 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his comments and compliments. He is a very articulate member of the House when he speaks. I always look forward to listening to him and to learning from him when he speaks.

Talking about other parliaments in the world, even smaller democratic countries have made lots of progress.

When I was the co-chair of the scrutiny of regulations committee I noticed that the regulations in Canada that had been disallowed, were in the pipeline for the last 25 years. When the committee contacted the ministers and other members of the government, they stonewalled the committee. Those regulations have been in the pipeline for 25 years. The number of those regulations is about 800. That is one example of how the government stonewalls its own committee.

Talking about private members' business in other parliaments, I have visited parliaments in other countries. I was amazed at how conducive the environment in other parliaments was when free debate took place. I even think the environment in Quebec's national assembly is more conducive for reasonable debate compared to any other legislature in this country. The committees have also made a lot of progress in that field.

I concur with the hon. member when he says that the government should allow free debate in the House.

[Modernization Of House Of Commons Procedure, March 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member, who works very hard, like a few the other members in the House, for his valid question and valid concern. It is not only of concern to members of the House, it is also of concern to the public.

This is the highest Chamber in the nation and we are honoured and privileged to be here to represent our constituents. However, when we are muted not to say what our constituents are telling us to say in this Chamber, that is an affront to democracy. In my opinion, it is not only anti-democratic, it is a dictatorship in the House.

The hon. member noted one particular occasion where members were given talking points and could not talk outside those talking points. That is a shame. We need parliamentary reform in the House so that members are able to speak their mind in the House.

[Modernization Of House Of Commons Procedure, March 21st, 2001]

Absolutely. The government prevents the House from dealing properly with the expenditures of the government. The supplementary and interim supply budgets are hardly dealt with at all. Even the scrutiny of money spent by the government, the real purpose of being here, does not occur in the House most of the time.

With the large number of MPs being re-elected and returning to the 37th parliament, the time is ripe for change. MPs should be considered as a resource, capable of adding value to the legislation introduced by the government.

Committees should be used to test the soundness of policies in different parts of Canada. This could help to bridge the gap between regional differences that we saw in the last election. Strengthening committees could also result in a more public or transparent legislative process. It could also contribute to a diffusing of the confrontational environment in our parliament. This in turn would enhance the public's image of parliament.

The present parliamentary system is an assault on the rights of the elected representatives of the Canadian people in the House. This government must wake up to the needs of people in the new millennium.

[Modernization Of House Of Commons Procedure, March 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the intervention. I will take your advice. The purpose I was trying to communicate was that debate should be meaningful and more members should be listening and participating in debate in a meaningful way.

Nothing in the contributions during debate changes what cabinet has decided. The ministers adopt none of the recommendations made by members of parliament in debate in the House.

The outcome of the votes in the House can be predetermined because there are no free votes allowed by the government. Not everything has to be a vote of confidence. In other words, what I am saying is parliament has become a rubber stamp for the agenda of the Prime Minister's Office and the passage of legislation is reduced to a formality or a constitutional requirement.

All MPs are in the House for question period anyway. Why will the government not allow scheduled votes to take place immediately following question period? It would save some time.

Speaking of question period, the defining moment each day in the House is question period and it has become a circus. There are virtually no informative answers given even to important questions asked during question period.

Private members' business is another example of where the influence of individual members of parliament has been diminished. Virtually none of the private members' bills or motions are passed by the House. The very few that are passed are usually killed in the Senate. All private members' business should be votable.

The resources available at the House of Commons to assist private members' business have either shrunk or dried up. This includes legislative drafting lawyers. Private members' business is just like a pacifier given to a baby. The baby quietly keeps on working with it, in the hope that something will come out of it. Despite a lot of hard work, nothing comes out of it. That is what private members' business has become in the House. Nothing comes out of it.

The committee system in this place has become more important than the work in the House because that is where the field of action has moved. Even the committees are stifled because of the partisan nature in which they operate. Their membership is dominated by a majority of government members who tightly control the work of the committees. Government members often gang up on opposition members.

The chairs of the committees are appointed or designated by the PMO. They are not elected. Future business of the committee and witnesses to appear before the committee are decided in a partisan manner.

The government is also fighting to prevent committee hearings from being televised. It knows that the way it runs committees is a farce. Ministers just go there to introduce bills but do not hear the witnesses, the debates or the amendments to legislation with which the committees deal. Debates in committees also become redundant and meaningless most of the time.

Canadians engage in a great deal of time and effort preparing petitions. After the submission of petitions in the House by their representatives, the petitions are put on a shelf and a small reply, which is meaningless most of the time, is issued after a few months. The government takes no effective action on petitions. Since I have been elected I have not seen any significant action being taken by the government on petitions.

Whenever delegations from the Parliament of Canada travel abroad, it should be a team effort. Many times opposition MPs are denied briefings and are left out of some of the events and meetings abroad.

The ethics counsellor should be appointed by parliament instead of by the Prime Minister and only reporting to the Prime Minister.

An additional standing committee should be created and chaired by the opposition. Its mandate should be to review and report to the House on all aspects of acts and reports of the privacy and access commissioners and of the ethics counsellor.

The appointment of the clerk of the House, with due respect to the clerk who is a very nice person, by the Prime Minister defeats the purpose of election of the Speaker by the House. The appointment of officers of parliament, for example the privacy and access to information commissioners and auditor general, et cetera, should receive a committee review before the motion is presented to the House.

Most of the time too many government bills are empty of content. They do not go far enough and are only window dressing. I am talking about many bills. Too many government bills are followed by a large number of regulations which are not debated in the House. I consider that to be governing through the back door because regulations which control the whole intent of bills are not debated in the House.

[Modernization Of House Of Commons Procedure, March 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the people of Surrey Central to participate in the debate.

Members of parliament are supposed to be elected to come to this place, to provide solutions to problems and to contribute to the improvement of our nation's policies. What we have seen over the last decade more than ever before is a significant growth in the concentration of political power in the Prime Minister's Office.

As the executive branch of parliament gets stronger, our legislative branch, the House, gets weaker. MPs find themselves with less meaningful roles to play in our legislative process. The opportunities for members of parliament to improve legislation and participate in policy development is decreasing. Members of parliament and Canadians become frustrated.

The long term objective of political parties is success in elections. It is at the expense of or to the detriment of the work we are supposed to do here. The government often chooses to pass legislation as fast as possible. This thwarts the efforts of the opposition parties to ensure that the House passes the best possible legislation.

Opposition parties are not willing to let legislation pass quickly for the sake of passing it, so they tend to slow down the passage of legislation for the purpose of improving it. The government uses time allocation and closure to curtail or even shut down debate in the House to prevent the efforts of opposition parties.

The weak Liberal government has an abysmal record when it comes to using closure and time allocation to limit debate on the business of the House. This results in a less co-operative atmosphere and produces a more confrontational environment in the House. The media dramatize and promote that confrontation. This parliamentary battlefield prevents the House from pursuing its mandate to be a forum that improves legislation and forms or tests new policies. It causes debate to be redundant and meaningless many times.

Very few members of parliament attend the daily debate in the House. Most MPs leave the Chamber immediately after question period. Debate in the House should allow for passionate arguments to provide political persuasion. Debate should be free, open, fair and not subject to arbitrary limitations.

The proceedings of the House have become no more than a formal exercise. Members of parliament, the media and the public in general pay very little attention to debate in the House. On the government side most of those speeches are scripted anyway.

The Prime Minister never attends debate in the House, while cabinet ministers also very rarely—

[Fuel Tax Rebate, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the cold-hearted Liberal government has been keeping Canadians shivering all winter.

My Surrey Central office is flooded with angry calls about the government's mismanagement of the fuel tax rebate.

The government should have worked with the gas companies so the rebate cheques could have gone to those who pay the heating bills. Instead, the Liberals have sent cheques to prisoners, deceased Canadians and snowbirds.

The heat rebate was announced just before the election. It turned into a $1.3 billion scheme to buy votes.

The Liberals are to blame for failing to foresee and prepare for the natural gas price hike this winter. Canadians should not have to choose between prescription drugs, what they eat or whether they heat.

Why do the Liberals allow Canadian seniors and those on fixed incomes to suffer, keeping their thermostats as low as possible? Are the Liberals prepared to show a compassionate heart? They should reduce the GST and excise tax.

[Species At Risk Act, March 16th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by my hon. colleague and friend from Edmonton Southwest and thank him for his flattering remarks.

I rise on behalf of the people of Surrey Central to participate in the debate on Bill C-5, the Liberal government's proposed endangered species protection act.

I would like to point out at the outset that I am currently seeking the input of the people of Surrey Central concerning this controversial bill. I am certain that the people I represent are in full support of protecting our environment and endangered species at risk, but I am not certain that we will support this legislation as is.

The government's previous attempt at passing this kind of legislation was a discriminatory and punitive bill, Bill C-33. It was very unfair to Canadian landowners. In the previous parliament I wanted to support that weak and confused legislation because of its intent, but I had such serious reservations about the strong arm tactics the government was using against Canadian landowners and farmers in order to protect species that I did not support the bill. The government was playing politics with our endangered species. It was not paying attention to the science involved and it was not going to properly compensate Canadians who also wanted to protect our endangered species.

In the new bill it seems that most of the flaws of the old bill are still in place. In anticipation of that, I have sent a message to my constituents asking them to advise me whether we will hold our noses and support this smelly bill or oppose it because of its undemocratic nature.

I have decided to oppose it until after the committee hearings. In the meantime we will see if the Liberals adopt any of the suggestions from the witnesses appearing before the committee or from the official opposition and the other opposition parties. We will see if the government conducts hearings on this bill once it has passed second reading and if witnesses will be given enough chances to come forward and express their positions.

I will briefly outline the chief concerns I have about the bill so far. First, we want to see effective legislation. That means we want to see a full review of the bill by the House and the committee. We do not want the Liberals to resort to using closure or to stifling debate so they can have the legislation passed by June.

Second, we need to see an emphasis on voluntary initiatives and partnerships. While the current bill is a slight improvement over the punitive American endangered species act, it can be made better. We know the American legislation has failed miserably. We need our legislation to be not only better but much better than the American legislation, which the Liberals are using as a template for what they are offering Canadians with the bill.

Third, we need to see science, not politics, used as the basis of the legal list of endangered species. The legal list must be left not to the discretion of the cabinet but to scientists.

Fourth, we need to see compensation regulations that are fair. These compensation regulations must be clearly spelled out in the bill. There should be provisions for full compensation, not just the 50% or the formula promised by the Liberals so far.

Fifth, we need to make sure the bill recognizes that protecting spaces is critical for protecting species, and species recovery action plans must consider socio-economic studies before recovery plans are developed.

Sixth, we need to see that transparency and accountability are improved, through the suggested round table in the bill being truly representative of all stakeholders and through equal application of the law to all Canadians regardless of race or creed.

Finally, we need to see that there are mechanisms in the bill to resolve disputes with the provinces. The Liberal government has never paid attention to developing relationships with provincial governments.

All Canadians want to help the environment. They want to protect biodiversity. We in the Canadian Alliance care about protecting species at risk and protecting or recovering critical habitat. Canadians recognize that we need a proactive approach to protect species at risk, one that is based on respect, respect for the species that inhabit our lands and waters and respect for those who own those lands. We want a common sense policy that considers the needs of all stakeholders.

The Canadian Alliance is committed to protecting and preserving Canada's natural environment and endangered species and to the sustainable development of our abundant natural resources for use by current and future generations. The Canadian Alliance maintains that for any endangered species legislation to be effective, it must respect the fundamental rights of private property owners.

The people of Surrey Central, whom I represent, are from largely metropolitan or suburban areas. While we are not running the risk of having our land confiscated without compensation or without reimbursement of fair market value, we do not want any Canadian subjected to such unjust treatment.

In fact, far from working in a democratic way to help Canada's ranchers contribute to our nation's efforts to save our endangered species, the Liberals are promising punishment for those ranchers. My heart goes out to the farmers and ranchers, who are already overtaxed by the government and who are already suffering. They have huge input costs that are the fault of the government and its lack of vision. They have to compete at a disadvantage on world markets thanks to the government's poor record on international trade.

From what I have been told, the Liberals are now planning to take sometimes thousands of acres of land from individual Canadians without a fair process of compensation and under the threat of criminal charges.

In conclusion, the Canadian Alliance has two main concerns to be addressed in regard to the bill. The first is scientific integrity. Species listing must be determined by scientists, not by politicians. It should be determined by scientists and based on scientific fact. Our second concern deals with fair compensation. The Canadian Alliance believes there are a number of areas that can be strengthened in the bill in order to make it more accountable and transparent to the public.

At this time I feel strongly that the government has more work to do on the bill and I would like to see that work done before I support it, but again, I am not above voting the way my constituents want me to vote on this bill on their behalf.