Ted White

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 3rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, to make sure that my question is clear, I hope the hon. member has seen the news reports in the Vancouver area where up to 80 Honduran drug traffickers are being arrested at one time. Eighty of them. They are taken to the court in Vancouver, charged and then they are immediately released. They all live on welfare. They all have free medical care. They acknowledge that they are illegal refugees.

I am not talking about the genuine refugees who come from genuine refugee screening camps around the world. People as young as 12 years old are using the system to come here to abuse our laws and deal in drugs. They know they can be here for 10 to 12 years before they are deported and it is all because of the minister over there who will do nothing about the problem.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 3rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, listening to the speech by the hon. member brought to mind the fact that I am an immigrant and had to go through the immigration process in 1979 to get into Canada. It took about two years. We first applied and we were automatically turned down. We asked why we were turned down. We applied a second time. It took three applications to come here.

My wife and I had money to buy a home. We had jobs guaranteed. We felt we had earned the right to come here. We had earned it. We truly felt like Canadians and that is the way we have behaved since, as Canadians.

I personally see nothing wrong with having a high standard. That is the same message I get in my riding from all of the immigrants who have come in through the legitimate process.

I have two questions for the member. She does not object to requiring reasonably high standards. The second point has to do with criminal refugees.

The real problem in the major centres has nothing to do with immigration as such. But it is the problem which the minister is not addressing which is the one of criminal refugees.

In a TV interview last week with BCTV, a reporter basically demolished the minister over the issue of not deporting criminal refugees and allowing them to enter our borders holus-bolus. She has done absolutely nothing.

In the last three to four months in Vancouver there have been multiple arrests of up to 80 criminal Honduran drug dealers who are all illegal entries. Up to half of the arrests every night in Vancouver are criminal non-residents, aliens who have crossed the border as criminal refugees.

Has the member thought about that problem in the big cities? Like most of the people of Vancouver, does she agree that there should be a better way of getting rid of those bad people quickly instead of having them hang around for 10 or 12 years?

[First Nations Land Management Act, February 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I must say the speaker who just spoke obviously has never been to B.C. where we have the potential for 50-plus different sets of governments with different rules if there is not some sort of conformity in the way that municipalities relate to one another.

Also I was astounded to hear a member of the NDP, and woman at that, standing and defending the right of bands to deprive women of their matrimonial property rights on the basis of culture. It is absolutely amazing that position would be taken.

That same speaker also mentioned there was an agreement in place with the B.C. Union of Municipalities for consultation with band members. That is simply not the case. There was an agreement on a draft for a possible proposal which had to be submitted to the chiefs. Since November there has been no confirmation from the chiefs that they have accepted that draft. There is still great uncertainty in terms of consultation.

The main reason I am taking part in the debate by discussing these motions is the pressure from the three municipalities in my riding affected by the bill that have no communication of any meaningful level with the band which will have the power to develop its reserve in my riding. In addition, I have had a tremendous amount of submissions from rank and file Squamish band members.

During the early debates which took place at the beginning of December I was approached by a delegation of 18 Squamish band members who came to my office to urge me to oppose the bill. These are the very people who are supposed to be beneficiaries of the bill. They came to me to complain about it. Why? I will read one of the petitions they sent today. About 150 signatures came in on petitions today alone from Squamish band members in my riding. Let us listen to what they say:

We urge you to vote no to Bill C-49. We are status members of the Squamish Nation. Our band council did not inform us about Bill C-49. We did not know that council signed a framework agreement on February 12, 1996. We did not know that the Squamish Nation made representations on our behalf in Ottawa in December of 1998. We are concerned that the manner in which this information has not been provided to us is completely contrary to the openness protocol for treaty negotiations that the Squamish Nation, Canada and British Columbia entered into on October 27, 1995, which we were informed about. We are concerned that the power that can be legislated to council pursuant to some sections of Bill C-49 will supersede the provisions of the band's own land code. We are concerned that if Bill C-49 is passed our ability to participate in a democratic process will fail to be realized and we will not be able to define the future of the Squamish Nation.

This is an example of input from people who are supposed to benefiting from the bill. There is something wrong if more than 100 people in one day sign a petition on that reserve saying that they do not want the legislation.

I have an obligation to represent their interest in this place. Their most serious complaint is obviously the lack of involvement, the lack of consultation with band members, which is the same complaint the municipalities are raising. Despite what the NDP member said there is no agreement in place. There is no process for communication.

The reserve in my riding probably has the most valuable land in the entire country. It is a strip of land along the foreshore of the harbour of North Vancouver with spectacular views of downtown Vancouver. The concept that is contained in the bill is tremendous: to allow the people who live there to develop those lands without the constant bureaucracy of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

However the way it is being done is upsetting and causing fear for band members who do not know what the chiefs will do with this land. The main objection or concern raised by band members was from those who hold what are called certificates of possession. These are like our equivalent of fee simple titles to houses.

Band members can hand down these certificates of possession to their children and grandchildren. However the provisions of section 28 of the bill state that the band council for no other reason than the council's deciding it is in the interest of the band can expropriate anything on that reserve. People who have lived their entire lives on this land could have their homes expropriated.

The rumour on the Squamish reserve in North Vancouver is that the members will be uprooted and moved to Porteau Cove, which is on Howe Sound where there is another part of the reserve, so so that the entire piece of reserve on the foreshore of North Vancouver can be cleared and developed.

That is where it runs into the problem with the surrounding municipalities. The bill permits the band to develop its land code with no consultation whatsoever with the surrounding municipalities. There is no requirement, not even the basics that are present in the municipal act of B.C. It does not even apply. In an urban setting in the middle of Vancouver we have this little entity that does not even have to consult with its neighbours and that can do anything it likes in its land code.

A delegation of 18 members came to my office to meet with me. They told me they were terrified that even the voting on the land code would not be democratic. It only requires 50% plus one of the band members to vote and only 50% of them have to approve the land code, which is about 25% of the total voting membership. That 25% in the Squamish nation approximates roughly to the members who work for the band council, the actual employees of the band council. The fear being expressed to me as their member of parliament is that this means one family can basically control what is in the land code on this reserve. The lack of consultation being expressed is a serious concern that we need to address.

I have encouraged the chief to be involved in more consultations in the community. It would help things go much more smoothly if there were a feeling of good will. If the band and municipalities knew what was going on we could work together to make this a really successful bill.

As my colleague from Skeena and I have already said, the concept of the bill is good. We want it to proceed but surely we need to put a few checks and balances in there to make sure certain processes take place.

The bill says that the land code must be developed by band members themselves. I have discussed this point at length with the band members who have approached me. Many of them, more than three dozen, have personally phoned me or come in to see me. I have tried to convince them that they must take some responsibility for their own future. They must get together, be proactive and take part in the process. I cannot change that for them. I urge those who are watching the debate to be active in the development of the land code.

The bill will pass. We know it will pass because of the way the House works. I urge members to listen to what I have said tonight. I have not talked about ideologies. I have talked about input from the people the bill is supposed to be helping. They are expressing their concerns to me. We should listen to the words they are passing on.

I urge members to support the amendment that at least requires some consultation in accordance with the provisions of the municipal act in the province in which a reserve is located. It is not unreasonable for an urban riding smack bang in the middle of Vancouver at least to have discussions with surrounding municipalities about how to provide traffic access, how to provide water, electricity, sewage services and all the infrastructure needed to make it work properly. It cannot be done in isolation. It has to be done with co-operation and consultation.

Let us put incentive in the bill to make it happen. Then let us support the measures so the bill can be effective in helping these first nation Indian bands develop their own land holdings.

I guess I have enough material here to speak for about 20 minutes. I know you are calling time, Mr. Speaker, but I will stand on subsequent motions to this bill and add a little more information about the input that I am receiving from rank and file band members of the Squamish Nation.

[Questions On The Order Paper, December 10th, 1998]

With regard to persons who have illegally entered Canada: ( a ) what is the detected total number, as well as the estimate undetected total number, of persons who have illegally entered Canada in the period from January 1, 1996, to September 30, 1998, using passports containing IMM 1000 forms previously issued to landed immigrants to Canada; ( b ) what portion of those totals is associated with ports of entry in British Columbia; ( c ) what are the five countries for which such altered passports are most commonly detected along with the numbers involved; ( d ) which are the three municipalities in British Columbia where it is estimated that the greatest numbers of foreign passports containing IMM 1000 forms are being sold, altered or forged?

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to comment on the opening remarks of the member opposite.

In terms of the things that I identified which should be in the bill and the changes that should be made to Revenue Canada, yes this is true, these are changes that everyone feels should be made. We feel that this bill does not go far enough in establishing the criteria that should be taken into account. We want to see democratic consideration of what the people out there in the world want in this new tax agency. In just a moment I will come back to some specific points on that.

What I would like to mention first is in connection with the percentages of people who vote for one thing or another. I made no judgments whatsoever about whether the Nisga'a vote being 60% to 40% was an appropriate percentage to create a country within a country or to break up a country. I made no judgments about that at all.

The point I made was that 40% of the Nisga'a people voted against what the politically correct government over there thinks is a wonderful treaty. My point was why not ask the 40% who are not being asked why they did not like it. Maybe that 40% had some critical reasons why they did not like it. I can tell the member why they do not. It is because they are afraid that the power and the benefits will flow to a few at the top. If the member does not recognize that scenario from his own party, then he needs more lessons on the topic.

It has absolutely nothing to do with whether 50% plus 1% is appropriate for Quebec separation, or whether 60% is appropriate for the Nisga'a to separate. They certainly are separating if that treaty goes ahead because there will be a new country within a country. There is absolutely no doubt about that.

Since the member opposite does not appear to have read the document that the official opposition put out called “Protecting the Rights of Canadians—The Office for Taxpayer Protection”, I will give him a few points from it.

The office for taxpayer protection under the chief advocate would be responsible for assisting taxpayers in resolving disputes or problems where the mechanism within the agency itself was not being helpful. They could propose changes to administrative practices within the new agency in order to minimize problems that are encountered by taxpayers. Sometimes those close to the action do not always see the best way to proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I see you are cutting me off again. This is really bad news. There is such a lot to discuss here but I will take your ruling and I will sit down.

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to have you in the chair again. It seems to becoming habitual that you happen to be on shift just at the time I am giving my speeches. It is nice to have you trapped there. Even if the House is empty you are forced to listen to my speech, so I thank you very much for that.

I will be splitting my time with the member for New Westminister—Coquitlam—Burnaby.

The member who just spoke mentioned the new millennium. It made me think of the fact that the new millennium actually starts at the end of the year 2000, that is December 31, 2000, not at the end of 1999 when the government will waste huge amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, on meaningless millennium celebrations. It is typical of the government to be totally out of touch with reality.

The Swiss apparently are not going to celebrate the change of the millennium until the correct time which is the end of 2000, typical Swiss punctuality. They make good watches so they know how to measure time.

Somebody asked me what New Zealanders are doing and I am not really sure. I could get myself into trouble with that.

One other thing I wanted to mention in relation to this before getting into the meat of Bill C-43 is that the government has moved time allocation on every stage of the bill. This is the government that when it was in opposition screamed like crazy every time the Mulroney government moved closure or time allocation. When we look at its record in the 35th parliament it moved time allocation 32 times and closure times. In this parliament, just less than a year, it has moved time allocation 10 times.

The total since it took office in 1993-94 is time allocation 42 times and closure 3 times. I can see the government is shocked at that.

I know when it was in opposition it was shocked at Mulroney for doing it at about half that rate. This government is actually worse than the one that preceded it.

It seems any discussion about this bill, an act to establish the Canada customs and revenue agency, must of necessity involve the detailed consideration of the need for accountability and for transparency of operations in such a new agency.

Plenty of Canadians consider the existing Revenue Canada to be less than appropriately accountable. It is important that we address their concerns when we are considering this whole application of Bill C-43.

To illustrate the point, how many members have actually tried to call Revenue Canada to ask about a tax problem, but not as members of parliament? Members have have secret telephone numbers that are not published and we can get through directly to real people.

I hope they have tried to do that because it is an incredibly frustrating and upsetting experience. Not only is it rare to reach a real person by telephone but when someone does, it is virtually impossible to get the name of the person.

If the person ever has to call back, my goodness, it is almost guaranteed that they will get someone completely different and they will have to explain the entire problem all over again.

If someone tries to make a personal visit to the place from which emanate these notices of taxes due or the ones that contain all sorts of errors that we are constantly trying to fix, they would be in for a surprise.

Many of those offices do not actually seem to have real people there. Some tax offices whose addresses are shown on the envelopes that we receive in the mail from these places do not even have a public reception area.

A visitor to the building gets the distinct impression the employees sneak in the back door so that they can avoid recognition. Even for MPs, though, with this special and privileged access through these unpublished numbers, it is not always easy to get answers or to get action.

There is a great and pressing need for a better level of service along with the greater efficiency that would flow from allowing taxpayers to at least speak to the same person each time they call. This alone would surely invoke enormous efficiencies and I hope the government would consider that.

Imagine not having to explain one's tax problem story all over again to a different person every time they call Revenue Canada. What a pleasure it would be to be given the name and direct contact number for a Revenue Canada employee who looks after a certain set of accounts. Problems surely could be dealt with more efficiently if that sort of system were in place.

The well documented experience with the existing agency demands of us that we build into Bill C-43 some accountability. Some sort of taxpayer bill of rights is a great idea. I know my colleagues have mentioned this in their speeches as well as establishing an independent ombudsman type of office for taxpayer protection.

Such an office would have the right to demand accountability and would obviously have access to all the files in the new agency. It would have to be directly accountable to parliament, something that must happen with the new Revenue Canada agency anyway.

We cannot allow a government created agency that touches on the lives of each and every taxpayer or potential taxpayer to operate without direct accountability to parliament and to the members of parliament. It is simply not good enough to establish accountability to the minister. There must be a greater amount of transparency and accountability than simply to the minister.

The present agency and the proposed new one would come in for far less criticism and attack if this government would take steps to reduce the taxes presently collected from citizens.

People are so financially stressed by the tax load imposed on them that they are going into the underground economy. Some small businesses are not able to pay their instalments and people are getting into difficulties with Revenue Canada simply because they are overtaxed.

They are taking on more and more of a personal debt load as a result of that income shortfall and the ministers of taxation, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Revenue, live high on the hog as multimillionaires as we know.

What do they know of the pressures being felt by the small business operators and the average wage earners across the country? I would say little or nothing. As we know, they live in a dream world of parliamentary receptions, state dinners, holiday residences in the country and international travel.

Perhaps like the Prime Minister they get their advice from imaginary homeless people. There is no doubt, though, that they are hopelessly out of touch with the real world of the average wage earner.

It reminds me of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development who is out in B.C. at the moment travelling around trying to promote the Nisga'a treaty even though 40% of the Nisga'a themselves rejected it. Nobody has asked why 40%, almost half, of the Nisga'a rejected this treaty. Maybe the government and the minister should do that but they do not want to listen.

It is just like this bill. The government will not listen to input that comes from the average person. Eighty per cent of B.C. residents have expressed displeasure with the treaty and all they hear from this government is that they have a racist attitude when it is in fact genuine concern.

The minister lives in a dream world of political correctness. She applauds Nelson Mandela but here she is trying to set up an identical sort of apartheid like system in B.C. with these types of treaties where we could have as many as 50 different governments in B.C. each with its own set of laws and no protection whatsoever for the rank and file members on the reserves to have the money and benefits flow to them.

We have so many bands in B.C. that are not democratically structured where there are high ranking chiefs in place who are taking all the benefits and flowthrough that come from these types of treaties.

I have a Squamish band in my riding. In the last week alone five different band members have called, urging me to vote against Bill C-49 they are afraid that all the benefits will flow to the chiefs. On the Squamish band reserve in North Vancouver there are 16 different chiefs. It is all hierarchal with no democracy in place.

It is not just for this bill but for all the measures this government is looking at, it really needs to get a little more down to the grassroots and start listening to the average person and the input that comes from them.

Unfortunately, because we are running out of time, I cannot go through all this other wonderful stuff that I have down here which I know would amuse some of the members opposite, but I will try to get another chance to get up later in questions and comments.

I finish by urging the government side to listen to the input that has come from my colleagues on this side regarding a taxpayer bill of rights. There is really a good logical reason to have at least a set of principles by which the new agency should act.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, November 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment with respect to the speech that was just made. The Liberal government claims that it has had to force closure on this bill because it is so interested in helping business that it actually has to take away our right to speak on the bill. But I think government members are just paying lip service to this whole process. As long as they do not actually physically have to do something to help business, it is very easy for them to give away other people's money.

There is a group from British Columbia here in Ottawa this week from the forest industry. It is a broadly based group of unions and businesses which is trying to meet with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Labour to ask for help in countering a Greenpeace attack on the British Columbia forest industry. It is eco-terrorism. Greenpeacers are boarding vessels in Los Angeles. They are chaining themselves to the doors of Home Depots in the United States. This is a more broadly based group than one could find. It is desperately trying to meet with the government to ask for help, internationally, to save businesses and jobs in British Columbia and the government will not meet with them.

The government has done everything it can to fob them off, to make excuses and to cancel meetings. It has been impossible for a broadly based group of business interests and union interests to meet with the government.

If the Liberals are so concerned about small business, why do they not actually do something physically and go into a meeting with this group to discuss its concerns and to see what the government can actually do? We have made many suggestions about how government can help businesses by getting out of their lives, by cutting their taxes and by cutting down on regulations. Here is a role for government play.

In international aspects of trade, the government has a role and this government is refusing to fulfil its role.

I would ask the parliamentary secretary why the government is refusing to meet with the delegation from B.C.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, November 17th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, we are talking about Motion Nos. 2 and 3.

Anyone who has ever applied for loans probably found it disappointing if they were turned down. It would be unusual if at some time in our lives when we applied for a loan we were not been turned down. It is not always because the idea was not good or the product we wanted to buy was not a decent product but it could just be because the proposal or our income was not sufficient to support the loan.

This does not remove the disappointment but one of the things this bill does is facilitate dependency by groups of businesses that cannot qualify through the normal lending channels. That is one of the thrusts we have been talking about today.

The government is going about financing small business the wrong way. What the government is doing is building a dependency where people who cannot get money through a regular bank can go through the back door by having taxpayers guarantee the loan.

Earlier today when I was speaking on the first group of amendments, I was talking about the alternatives that can be used to get around that. It is not a problem that these businesses cannot get money. Businesses can always get money. But it is the problem of there being a price to be paid for it. Sometimes these people do not want to pay the price.

When it is a new business, a risky venture, it may be a good idea but the banks have never seen it before. Individuals approach various banks and the banks say they have never seen any history of this type of business and do not think they can make it and they do not qualify.

Those individuals are not satisfied that they cannot get the money from the banks. But there are alternatives out there if they pay a bit more in interest.

We have had examples today from some of my colleagues of businesses that were started with borrowed money from friends or from a venture capitalist. I explained that my business, prior to being a member of parliament, was specializing in the financing of home based businesses. Certainly we lent the money out at an interest premium to the banks because we were filling that niche of handling that risky area of business.

The biggest problem we had as a small company involved in that financing sector was that when we used mortgages as a guarantee the government considered us to be in an investment business and it taxed us at a 50% rate on our profits. That took away our ability to reinvest in these people. Yet we were willing to make all sorts of creative financing options for people that made it possible for them to get into business. In the five years we ran the leasing business prior to my becoming a member of parliament we never had a single loss.

Yet we always took on businesses that could not get financing at the regular places. All it took was a little creativity. Instead of going through the normal procedure a bank might go through of making people fill out pages and pages of information about their personal financial history and being unable to prove they had a previous background, we would look instead for stability and trustworthiness.

We did that in a very simple way. We had five telephone directories in our office that went back five years. The first thing we did when a person called and asked for lease financing was look in those telephone directories to see if the person had lived in the same place for five years. If they had, that gave us the first good clue that the person was stable, reliable and would be there.

Second, we asked applicants for their job histories. Had they worked at the same place for a good length of time, four or five years? A second clue that they were trustworthy, reliable and would not run away would be if they had the same job for five years, had just been laid off and thought they would get into business for themselves. If we leased them a fax machine or a photocopier they would not just run away and disappear out of sight.

Third, we asked if we could do a credit check on their credit cards to find out if they were up to their limit. If the people going into business were not up to their credit card limits, that indicated they were not yet under financial stress.

Those were all good signs, being in the phone book for five years, having a good steady job prior to going into business for themselves and having credit cards that were not maxed. If these criteria were met they got their loans. That is all we did. There was no indepth financial investigation of their pasts. We just looked for reliability, trustworthiness and a sense these people would not run away if something went wrong.

Of course a portion of the loans we made started to go bad. People would miss payments. Because these people were trustworthy and believed in their ideas we could approach them, talk with them and make arrangements for them to catch up. They could find alternative positions, to sell the equipment or to make adjustments to their portfolios.

That sort of creativity is possible but because the government taxed away so much of what we made from this exercise we were robbed of capital to expand. The demand for what we could do was much greater than what we could ever fill.

The government response is to build dependency by providing money at a bank market rate by making taxpayers carry the can on any defaults. It was mentioned earlier that only a small percentage are in default. It is about 5.6% to 6%. The aggregate amount that can be paid out under this program is $1.5 billion. A default rate of 5.6% amounts to about $75 million under default at any particular time. That is a significant chunk of money. We should be pretty concerned about the liability faced by taxpayers when they are guaranteeing these sorts of loans.

That is why the amendments proposed in Group No. 2 are being put forward. Motion No. 2 makes sure no loans are made to relatives of the initial borrower to put more money into the same business. It is not right to use a loophole to get around the intent of the act. If we have decided a business can borrow a certain amount it is not right to allow relatives working in the same business to borrow their share and to increase the total amount being risked on a particular business. That was the reason we introduced this amendment stating the loan must not be in addition to other loans made under this act to persons related to the borrower for the operation of the same small business. More than two of my colleagues have given examples found by the auditor general of abuse in this area.

The other amendment we put forward is that the amount given to the borrower does not exceed $100,000. Industry officials had to admit that the average loan size was $65,000, which is still a reasonable chunk of change for people starting a small business.

Borrowing $250,000 for the average person is a lot of money. That is more than starting a small business. There really is no need to go to that level. Restricting it to $100,000 is quite enough, especially if the minister will not agree to preventing this multiple borrowing we are trying to correct with Motion No. 2.

I urge members to support the Reform motions and if they do they will significantly improve the bill.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, November 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this first motion, but I must say I cannot support it because the whole premise of this bill is wrong. It represents a transfer of wealth from successful businesses and workers to people who want to be successful businesses and workers perhaps even in competition with the people who are providing the funding through their guarantees for the loan program to proceed.

The auditor general in his report has already proved that it does not work to create jobs that way. We do not create jobs by trying to take away jobs from someone else by robbing them of income and capital to expand their businesses. So it is just the wrong way completely to go about the whole financing for small business.

I do not deny for a moment that small businesses are a source of most of the jobs in Canada. Like my colleague from the Kootenays who was speaking earlier, I have been a small business entrepreneur since the time I arrived in Canada in 1979. I too had to find financing to start a business and to begin employing people.

In 1980 when I was first starting up my business in Canada I had a new idea in telecommunications. Because it was a new idea that the banks had never seen before they would not lend me any money to get started. But never for a moment did it cross my mind that I should somehow lobby government to provide some sort of taxpayer funded protection for me to start my new idea. That never even crossed my mind as an entrepreneur.

I found other ways to raise the money through private venture capital and people who would grant me a lease on a new business and so on. I was able to get started without the banks. My business was extremely successful. It grew very well and I began to employ people. When it had grown to the size of about 12 employees I sold the business and I moved into another area of business which relates to this bill very well. That business was financing small home based businesses through lease programs. I actually filled through my small business one of the niches that the banks would not fill, to help small fledgling businesses with financing, in particular the ones that worked from home.

A lot of businesses these days are started at home. They have difficulty getting financing to buy their first fax machine, computer, office desks and all the equipment they need to be in business for the first time. My company filled the gap by providing financing to that area.

The problem was that sometimes in order to finance the company we would have to put a mortgage on the person's home. As soon as we did that in my company it became an investment, not a business, and we were taxed at 50%. That was 50% tax on a business. As a direct result of the government stealing away 50% of what we made by helping that small business it prevented us from investing in more businesses. The government took so much off we did not have the capital to help more businesses.

What I am illustrating here is a very effective way for the government to help small businesses to get financing. It should not tax so heavily the venture capitalists and the people providing leases and mortgages to help small business. It should cut the taxes for that group and then that group is left with more capital in its businesses to help the fledgling businesses get started. We are then not taking taxes from other successful businesses for these new ones to start being in competition.

Frankly, small businesses can always find financing if they have a good idea but it is the price of financing that becomes the issue. What happens with this type of bill is that taxpayers end up subsidizing the price by providing guarantees to the banks in order to take more risks. Is that really a just sort of thing to do, to cause taxpayers to subsidize the price of money that people want to borrow for their good ideas? I do not think it is a just way to approach the problem.

Accessing capital is the problem. It should not be done through this type of bill where we use taxpayer funded guarantees.

I think the member for Broadview—Greenwood mentioned that the loan losses were minimal. That may well be the case. I believe about 6% of the loans are in default at the moment. However, that is really not the question. The issue is not how many of these loans are in default. It is whether it is the right way to go about lending money to small businesses.

The point is who should absorb these losses. Should it be the taxpayers, the entrepreneurs, the venture capitalists or the creative financiers out there? I think it should be the entrepreneurs, the venture capitalists and the financiers. It should not be the taxpayers who absorb the losses. That is the whole point. This bill is the wrong way to go about helping small businesses with their finances. All it does is use other people's money.

As we have said hundreds of times over the past five years in the House, it is so easy for members on the other side of the House to take other people's money and hand it out to other people because it does not come out of their pockets. The question I have to ask all members on the other side is if they had to finance a small business asking for money, would they give it the money out of their pockets. That is what it comes down to in the end.

We would be much better off encouraging the private venture capitalists and small lease companies like the one I ran before I came to this House. We should help those companies by lowering their taxation in order to have more capital available to help these small businesses get started. That is certainly the way to go about it.

We talked about bank mergers a bit this morning. Government members all went ballistic that maybe Reform would support the bank mergers if we got a few conditions imposed. Why not make one of the conditions for a successful bank merger for them to provide some sort of venture capital at a higher risk management level for small businesses? We have a magnificent opportunity here to talk with the banks and start bartering some conditions without having to ever put a single dollar of taxpayer guarantee on the line. We could do it by bartering conditions with the banks.

There are plenty of good ideas out there. I hear them from my constituents all of the time. There are other ways to approach this which is really why the Reform Party is opposed to this bill. We really believe it is the wrong way to go about it. All that will happen in the long term is that the amount of guarantees and the size of the portfolios will continue to increase until we end up with the taxpayer on the hook for more and more. It could be completely avoided by approaching it from a different position.

When banks take a look at these proposals that come before them from small business it is not because they could not care less. That is a common idea that we put forward but if I use my own example in 1980 when I was trying to get financing for my telecommunications business, I could tell that the bank would have liked to have lent me the money if it could have found some way to make it fit its profile and if it had the confidence that my idea was one that would work.

I am not going to make the banks out to be ogres because they turned me down. They made a sound business decision on the basis of the criteria on which they lend. It is a loan officer's job to lend out money. That is what they are there for. They keep their jobs by lending out money. They want to lend money.

I certainly do not hold a grudge against the banks for turning me down. It actually missed out on making a tremendous amount of income because I took my business to someone else, to a private financier who made all the interest from the start-up costs as I got my business off the ground. The profit went to other than the banks.

It is not always that they could not care less. I do not believe loans officers have that attitude. I think they do their best to lend if they can.

As a member of parliament I have had people approach me from time to time who were upset that their loans were turned down or the loan applications were turned down or they had been to the federal business development bank and could not get financing. When I took a look at their situation, I would not have given them the money either.

There are some people on the other side who think that entrepreneurs starting a new business should not have to take any risk, that somehow everybody else should take the risk but not the person with the idea. We have to get a balance. Some of the suggestions I made earlier in my speech would be good, practical ways to handle the situation and that is why I am voting against the amendment.

[Questions On The Order Paper, November 2nd, 1998]

Of the 2,224 minister's permits issued by the immigration department in 1997 to individuals who would otherwise have been inadmissible to Canada for technical reasons, the 1,797 inadmissible for criminal reasons, and the 275 inadmissible for medical reasons, could the government please indicate the 10 most common reasons for the issuance of a ministers' permit for each of these three categories?