David Anderson

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

The hon. member simply should listen closely, because there is at present in China a massive construction boom and when it has finished building the factories, apartment buildings, office towers, dock facilities and railroads, then it is likely to go back to a more stable state. The current situation is not necessarily a graph line which goes straight up into the future and he should understand that well. If he does not, he is not serving his constituents well, which of course is meant to be his major responsibility here. In particular, a British Columbia member should know better than to make the kind of remark that he just made.

We have the possibility of changes in revenues to the government and we have the changes in the economy that could take place, yet in this particular legislation we have that kind of restriction on what can be done.

I can see that people, after seven years of this so-called forecasting error, which we have heard a lot about today, think that it is going to go on forever, but why has this occurred? It has occurred because in every year the government took the average of the private sector forecasters and used a private sector forecast. This is not something on which the government itself made the mistake. We shared the mistake of everyone who is an expert in the field. Of course they are all economists and it may be that those who are not economists would say that proves they must be wrong.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, when I first looked at the bill and thought about taking part in this debate, I was somewhat hesitant. I am no economist, but this morning has persuaded me that I am in good company in that regard.

I would like to agree with the hon. Minister of Finance on his list of economic successes of the last 12 years. This is one of the most remarkable performances by any economy anywhere in the world and certainly every member in the House has reason to be proud of it. Every Canadian taxpayer has reason to be proud of it.

We have done well and the reason is, of course, that we had a Prime Minister who supported the Minister of Finance of the day and the other cabinet ministers who were required to cut their departmental activities, personnel and budgets. It was not easy. It meant that Canadians also did not receive what they had sometimes been receiving before and sometimes provinces did not receive what they had been receiving before.

I would simply remind people that we never cut any program to provinces any more than we cut federal programs. We always made sure we maintained that balance. In fact, the balance was tipped, so that we had to do more than they had to do, but it was necessary. It was necessary because of the economic circumstances we faced at that time. From today's debate and comments from the opposition parties, it appears that the memory of the battle we fought to get our finances in shape has been forgotten.

While I congratulate the minister and his predecessor, now the Prime Minister, and indeed John Manley, the former finance minister between them, and while we can all take pride in what has taken place, that does not necessarily mean that the bill the minister has produced is therefore automatic and obvious, and should be accepted by the House without questioning some of its provisions.

Indeed, I was almost persuaded by the minister's speech, but when he turned to the member for Medicine Hat, the chief financial critic of the official opposition, and said that the member for Medicine Hat said almost exactly what is in his bill, that is when I had serious doubts about whether the minister might have gotten the bill right, giving credit for its authorship or at least its paternity to another member of the House. I think we have to look at it quite closely.

What does it do? I have a copy of the bill and it has been explained. It is essentially to split any unanticipated surplus three ways. One-third is for tax relief, tax cuts. One-third is for spending programs related to the previous budget or, as the minister mentioned today, that I thought was an interesting comment and I checked the bill to find out whether it is there, anything he might like to bring into the House and put forward as he might identify. It could be a statement tabled in the House of Commons by the Minister of Finance. In other words, it might indeed not even be in the budget presentation. Then of course one-third is for the reduction of the national debt, which currently stands I believe at approximately $505 billion.

I would like to re-emphasize to the members of the opposition, on a per capita basis, on the basis of actual ability to generate revenue, the federal government has about twice the debt or accumulated deficit in that $505 billion figure that the provinces have in theirs. That is to be born in mind when we talk about transfers from the federal government to the provinces or transfers from the federal government elsewhere. The fact is we have double the debt burden, double the problem of interest rates to be paid, and double the problem that the other levels of government may have.

We have then the proposal put forward by the minister. I was a little uncertain, and I hope the minister or the parliamentary secretary in summing up this bill will explain this, whether or not the minister was actually saying that the government was going to wait until the end of the fiscal year, March 31, and then if there is a surplus, it would bring in a proposal for expenditure and that would be confirmed, I think he said, in September when the books for the year are finally closed.

I am not sure whether he can bring in any expenditure proposal for an anticipated surplus before March 31. I would like that explained because this would be quite an interesting variation, if in fact what I thought I heard turns out to be the case. I checked the bill in the hour I have had since the minister spoke, but I have not been able to determine that myself from the bill.

The proposal is to make this in fact law. Why I have concerns and why I raise them at this time is this. As pointed out by the previous speaker, we have had a substantial paydown of the national debt, which is a good thing. She seems to think that when the debt is paid down, it sort of disappears, it is gone, it is money that cannot be spent and it is gone forever. That is not so. In fact, it simply gives us borrowing power, so that in the future, if we want, we can spend the same amount of money again and still not exceed our debt level. I think everybody understands that who has ever had a credit card and found difficulty paying it at the end of the month.

If we pay down, we have the opportunity of course of doing it again, so it does not just disappear. If we pay down the debt, we are doing good things for Canadians. It gives them flexibility, so that if there may be some change of circumstances, that flexibility, that cushion, is available to them. So let us get away from this idea that paying down the debt is somehow money that disappears, is gone, is useless, and somehow is to the detriment of Canadians. It is very much in their interest to pay down the debt.

What has happened in the past seven years is that we have had these unanticipated surpluses which is a good thing and it is in everybody's interest. That should be understood. All three finance ministers who made these decisions made the right decisions to use that money for debt retirement and debt reduction. We should continue to ensure that this is high on our agenda.

I do not really like the word surplus, although it is used and it is even used in the bill, because it refers to something that is extra and in excess, something that is not really fundamental. In this so-called surplus, every dollar that comes in, in other words a dollar not spent or transferred to someone, immediately goes to ensuring that the debt goes down.

That keeps interest rates low in this country. That allows the private sector to have a bigger capital pool at lower interest rates for its expansion than would otherwise be the case, so it is not a bad thing. It is a good thing and I hope the point that I am trying to make is well understood by Canadians and in fact by others in this House who have spoken or who may be speaking in this particular debate.

I do not like the word surplus. Let us call it automatic debt reduction, or even better, let us look at that word debt and recognize what it is and which the bill itself explains. The bill talks about this as an “accumulated deficit”.

The bill talks about the accumulated deficit. That is what is important. They speak about debt as if it were something very different, something we do not need to worry about. But the deficit, that is really important. A lot has been said over the last 12 or 13 years about the word “deficit”, but not much about the word “debt”.

I think that really is important to stress and underline. The fact is, as is pointed out in clause 5 of the bill, that it is “accumulated deficit”, and that is what we should continue to pay down. It is just as bad for us as a deficit in a current year. It is just as damaging to our overall accounts, our overall ability to handle the national accounts or, indeed, for the private sector.

That is how we should be regarding this. It is not something apart, something that happened in the past that we can forget about. We are responsible for debts run up in the past, just as every Canadian homeowner understands a mortgage and understands the importance of paying it down.

Coming back to the bill specifically, it only gives one-third of any so-called surplus, any unanticipated surplus, to debt reduction. I am not sure if we can determine at this time in advance that this is the split that makes the most sense for next year, the year following or the year following that.

Setting in legislation that this is exactly how it will be broken down forgets certain things. What does it forget? It forgets that interest rates may rise. We have had two interest rate increases in the last two months. The Governor of the Bank of Canada spoke to the Senate Standing Committee on National Finance yesterday. It is clear that in his mind there is a possibility that at some time in the future, under certain circumstances, yet more increases could take place. We have this issue, where it may be very important to pay down the debt at a greater rate.

On the other hand, at some time in the future we may have a hurricane on the coast of Nova Scotia, with devastation. We may have another ice storm, with devastation. We may have a tornado on the Prairies, with devastation. We may have an economic problem such as mad cow. We may have a problem with softwood lumber. At that time suddenly we will realize that we need more federal help, federal assistance and federal expenditure. That is a time when we may want to look at this so-called surplus or excess and determine that this year is the appropriate place to put it.

It is no good then saying that we passed legislation two, three or four years before and we are restricted to only using a third of it to help the farmers, a third of it to help the lumber industry or a third of it to help the people who have had their houses destroyed by weather and climate problems. This legislation takes away that flexibility.

On the issue of tax cuts, there are times when tax cuts are vital. There are times when the economy is slowing, we want to use the tool of taxation to increase economic activity in the private sector and tax cuts make a lot of sense, and we want big tax cuts. Yet in this particular bill, only one-third will go to tax cuts, because of course the bill divides it up in this firm way of 33 1/3% for each one of these three areas. It may be that we will have different circumstances in the future which will require an adjustment of that type.

People can easily say that it can be done under the normal course of events, that we would allocate the money before the surplus was determined so it would not affect the surplus. That is wrong, because as the minister said today, the books close on March 31, and it is between then and September that we will be analyzing what to do with the surplus. What happens if we have one of those conditions that occur in that period of summer and fall? If that is the case, we seem to be handcuffed with this legislation.

I wonder if the minister or his parliamentary secretary would like to offer me some enlightening, convincing, and comforting responses to this concern that I have expressed.

It is clear that in the discussion we have had in the House--I almost feel like mentioning that there is no NDP member present, but I will not--people have assumed that we are going to have good times and they are going to continue. The minister talked about anticipation, and I think he used the term from now until 2010, but things go wrong. We have had unanticipated and better than expected times. Equally, we could have less than expected economic conditions, less than booming tax revenues and more than low unemployment.

We could have a change in economic circumstances, and let us face it, we are so dependent on the American market and we are now becoming so dependent on a secondary economy to the American market, the Chinese economy, which is dependent on its $180 billion surplus to the United States. We are getting so dependent on that kind of economy that conditions elsewhere could cause us trouble.

Let us look at the American deficits, the phenomenal deficits of a neo-conservative government, the model for the Conservative Party of Canada, which does not know how to run the economy and is having major concerns with enormous deficits, ballooning deficits and a declining dollar.

That is the Americans' choice. If they want Reaganomics or neo-conservative economics, that is their choice. We are not that kind of people. We see that there may be trouble in that kind of economic approach and we know that it could have reverberations in Canada, when 85% of our exports go to the United States.

Sure, we are going great guns now, but to a certain degree it is based on American deficit financing. When that stops or we get a major economic problem in the United States, wow, we are going to have to watch it because we will not have the same good economic circumstances that we have now.

It is no good pointing the finger at the Americans. I am trying not to do that. It is no good to say simply that they are wrong and we are right. It is not that. We are dependent on that economy and we are benefiting from what they are doing, but it is not sustainable. It cannot continue. When the changes come, we are going to have reverberations on our revenue side here in Canada. That is why I do not think we can assume that things are going to forever be so great.

It is similar to the China market, based on resource exports, on coal, the coking coal for iron and steel, and based on other exports. We hope our lumber exports in the future will increase as well. We have a substantial resource based export market and it may not--

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have explained to the hon. member from the NDP that I was here. I sit quite close to her. She could see me. She heard me speak. To repeat such an untrue statement, which she knew was not accurate, particularly after being corrected on the floor of the House, is not the type of courtesy to members that we would expect in the House.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member who just spoke said there were no Liberals in the House. He did not look hard enough, because I was in the House. I was next to you, and we even shared a few words. I was here the whole time, and I do not want it said that I was not in the House at that time.

He might say so of others, perhaps, but if what he said was that there were no Liberal members here, he was wrong.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the House generously gave unanimous consent to extend the question and comment period of the minister by five minutes. Instead, the generosity of the House is being abused by the hon. member who succeeds in making a speech on a series of subjects, none of which are directly related to the bill.

I suggest if he has no question that we move on to another questioner.

[Energy Costs Assistance Measures Act, October 26th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, the first objective of the bill is to give financial assistance to low income seniors and low income families with children. Its second objective is to help families to reduce their heating bills and accelerate the transfer of funds to municipalities. Its third objective is to increase transparency and accountability on the market.

Those are the three basic objectives of the bill. As outlined in a number of news releases prepared by the committee that presented us with the legislation, the total bill for this would be $2.438 billion and, of that, we find that new funding is marked down as $1.333 billion. In other words, there is a substantial amount from existing systems that would go into this particular legislation.

With respect to the issue of who should receive the energy cost benefit of almost $600 million, that is being discussed at length. Obviously some people feel that it should be a wider net. Some people feel that this is the most appropriate one given the difficulty of getting out such cheques in a short time before the winter. That debate can go on forever depending on the number of constituents one would like to add into the mix, but it is clearly designed for low income Canadians, particularly those with families, and seniors who happen to be on the government assistance program.

Putting aside that large chunk of money, which is a successful approach, I should simply point out that this is in anticipation of future costs in the coming year and is essentially an increase in their disposable income of that $250 and is something they can spend as they wish. It is essentially an increase in the payment by the Government of Canada to these individuals. It is not linked to them producing receipts, for example, for energy payments. I think it is important and it is a good thing that we allow them that freedom of choice.

When we get into some of the other elements of the program, low income retrofit and public transit, we get into areas where money has been promised before. What we are really doing in these areas is advancing that larger context that was discussed in the budget and also by the Minister of the Environment in the months gone by. This is essentially putting forward a little more in the area of giving energy efficiency for public buildings, private homes, public transit, et cetera.

It is quite important to have a look at this. If we look at the numbers we realize that we are still dealing with very small numbers of, let us say, the public buildings in Canada, the buildings of municipalities, universities, schools, hospitals and things of that nature. I doubt whether 5% of those buildings will be aided by this program.

Similarly, if we look at the commercial buildings that are in the program, I think we will find a similar figure. It may be greater than 5% but it would not be a great deal more.

The number of homes expected to benefit is still substantially below 10% of the 11.5 million apartments or detached dwellings that we have in Canada. The issue that I put--

[Telecommunications Act, October 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's speech was very interesting. He spoke a great deal about the issue of cost. It is a very important issue that affects every hon. member and all Canadians.

However, he did not say what cost he would find acceptable: $2 million? $10 million? $100 million? From his speech, I have no idea. Although I agree with him that the cost should not be too high, I have no idea what he would consider a reasonable cost. He is the one who used the term “reasonable”.

[Queensway Carleton Hospital, October 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I take part in this debate as someone who does not live in Ottawa and whose constituency is far from Ottawa, because of my concern about the clear unfairness this proposal presents to all of us in this country, to members from Ottawa as well as elsewhere.

The proposal is that in communities where there is a lot of federal land the federal government inevitably will be turning land over to the province for hospitals. That, we know, will be the result of allowing this particular area, the capital of Canada, to have this kind of benefit which will not be available to the rest of us who have constituencies that may not have federal land.

What will be the result of this? The result will be that the constituencies that have the federal land--and let us face it, Ottawa is likely to be the area of the country where there is the most for such purposes--will of course be able to get, as the member suggests, very, very low cost land. The 50 acres will come down to $1.

By contrast, other parts of a province and the rest of the country will not have that opportunity. They will have to go elsewhere to find the land for their hospitals.

What will be the response? First of all, provinces, which will be responsible for deciding where hospitals go, will say, “Hey, we will get a real benefit if we put hospitals in areas where there is federal land because there is no cost for the land”. The province can get the feds to put up the money, it can put in the hospital, it can take federal money to build it and therefore it will be cheaper there than elsewhere in the province.

That is a logical position for a province to take. I am not suggesting that it is not logical, but the result for the citizens of Canada will be that some communities get far more in the way of medical services than others. They will get it with federal dollars and that is not fair.

Whether we are from the Prairies or the Maritimes, the Pacific coast or central Canada, Quebec or the north, we should have systems that treat us with some basis of fairness. The result of the proposal put forward will inevitably be the precedent for making sure that hospitals are clustered in communities that now have federal lands.

Of course there are other hospitals that may have been on federal land. We all know about veterans hospitals. Most of us have at least some memory of the turning over of some of those hospitals to provincial or regional hospital boards. Of course there will be anomalies in the system, as no system is perfect, but we are being asked to create an anomaly which will have a major future impact to give less fair medical systems to the population at large.

I would just like that point to be clear to members here when they consider this bill, to members on all sides, opposition and government. Are they going to vote for something that is so much in the self-interest of people who have federal land in their ridings and so much to the disadvantage of the rest of us constituents who may not have such federal land available for hospital purposes? I ask members not to forget that if it is for hospital purposes, the same principle will be used for other facilities as well, for schools, for example, and other public facilities of that nature.

The other thing I would like to quickly comment on is the way the member proposes to do it. On the one hand, here we have the law, as was carefully explained by the member for Ottawa West—Nepean who sits behind me in the House. She explained the law that the National Capital Commission must follow. But the member's suggestion is that the government can tell a crown corporation to ignore the law and ignore the contract and just do what the government wants. I do not think a government should do that.

That may be the way the Tories think government should operate. That is the way they operated in Canada during the Mulroney period and that is the way they operated in the province of Ontario with Premier Harris, but that is not the way they should act. They should not direct crown corporations to ignore contractual obligations that ignore the law. That is wrong. I think that is another important point for voting against this particular bill.

The final point I would like to make is about the nature of the land itself. This land was purchased by all the citizens of Canada as greenbelt. Furthermore, there were many farmers and others in this area who had their land expropriated for the greenbelt and then were paid by the citizens of Canada according to the expropriation price. Those people had their land taken away from them for a specific purpose.

We can argue back and forth about whether it was the right purpose. That is long gone, decades and decades ago. There is a long history to that. Now, though, we can ask if it is right to have the purpose changed to something else entirely in the manner that is being proposed. Or whether, where there is the use of the land for the hospital under that contract signed in the 1970s, I believe, there should indeed be, in accordance with the contract, a commercial price paid.

That is another important question of fairness. It is the issue that the public of Canada paid for those lands. It is only fair that in this process they continue to be treated in a commercial way so that in fact the public of Canada and its dollars get treated fairly, not favouring a particular part of the country over any other.

I do not wish to go on about this, but I will say that when the vote on his motion comes to the House, we are going to be looking closely at those who vote for such a clearly preferential bill to aid just a few people in the nation's capital to the disadvantage of everybody else who lives elsewhere in this country. We are all Canadians, not just the people who live in the hon. member's riding.

[Workplace Psychological Harassment Prevention Act, September 30th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Terrebonne—Blainville for her bill, Bill C-360, An Act to prevent psychological harassment in the workplace and to amend the Canada Labour Code.

Having said that, I have some reservations concerning this bill that I want to talk about today.

This is an issue which is of considerable importance to everyone in this chamber and I do appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on it.

I certainly share, as have other speakers this afternoon, the concerns of the hon. member for Terrebonne--Blainville, but the approach of this bill, in my mind, has certain questionable aspects. Let me explain.

The target group of Bill C-360 is the federal public service. Treasury Board already has in place policies and programs which address the issue of psychological harassment in the workplace. That aspect of the bill has been discussed this afternoon at some length by hon. members who have preceded me. At this stage of the debate I will address the element of the bill that would modify part III of the Canada Labour Code.

First, bringing forward new legislation on psychological harassment at this time would conflict with other major policy work that is already well under way with respect to the Canada Labour Code. As members know, part III of the code deals with employment standards, such as family benefits, parental leave, vacation entitlements and also issues such as sexual harassment. Part III governs workplace standards in the federal labour jurisdiction that comprise sectors of key importance to the Canadian economy, such as international and interprovincial railways, shipping, trucking, airlines, airports, telecommunications, broadcasting, banking, port operations and federal crown corporations. It does not extend, of course, into the provincial jurisdiction, which is by far the greatest area of labour responsibility jurisdiction in this country. This leads me to the key point that I want to underline today.

As referred to earlier, the target group of Bill C-360, the Public Service of Canada, is not in actuality covered under part III of the Canada Labour Code. Instead, it is regulated by Treasury Board policies. Let us have a look at those Treasury Board policies.

Twenty years ago Treasury Board implemented a policy regarding workplace harassment. The policy included personal harassment and abuse of authority in its definition. Similar policies exist within other organizations in the public sector to address this issue.

I said that there was policy work going on, so let me describe what that is.

Part III of the Canada Labour Code is a complex piece of legislation. We have to consider all elements of it and how they work together before making any significant changes to it. It is also very important when proposing changes to this legislation to consider the concerns of employers, unions and workers that would be affected by any such changes.

That is why the Minister of Labour announced a complete and holistic review of part III of the Canada Labour Code in December 2004. At that time he named Professor Harry Arthurs, who is an eminent labour expert, to be the commissioner of the review. Professor Arthurs will be assisted by a panel of experts and representatives of business and labour at the same time. Professor Arthurs has a very broad mandate and will be able to address the whole array of issues that are impacting or affecting the Canadian workplace. He will consider the issue of psychological harassment in that wide-ranging review.

The commission was set up by the Minister of Labour to examine the current labour standards as described in part III of the labour code. Labour standards are a key tool to ensure fairness in the workplace, to protect employees and to provide them with satisfactory conditions of work. This review will cover such issues as the changing nature of work, the growth of the knowledge based economy, competition in the global marketplace, and increased work life pressures referred to earlier by my colleagues.

Part III of the Canada Labour Code has not been reviewed for the past 40 years and this review will take into account the issues that I just mentioned and other factors, and it will lead to recommendations for legislative change with a view to modernizing and improving the relevance and effectiveness of federal labour standards.

The review will take in such things as changing demographics, including the aging workforce, increasing diversity as well as new forms of workplace structures and employment relationships. Included in this last point are issues such as work-life balance and evolving family structures. To broaden our understanding of these issues, research projects have been launched by the commission which are wide ranging and will be made public in order for appropriate comment to be made on them by Canadians who are interested or affected.

An important aspect of Professor Arthurs' work will be consensus building among the stakeholders who will be affected by any changes to Part III of the Canada Labour Code. It is through consultation, discussion and debate among those affected and the stakeholders and government that effective legislation will be developed but that process is lacking in the proposed bill. Therefore I do not feel that it is appropriate at this time for Bill C-360 to be accepted by the House because I believe it might in fact undermine the collaborative process already underway.

I suggest instead that we allow the process already underway, the collaborative and consultative process, to work its way through and in this way we will continue to move forward with the development and improvement of the systemic ways to address the important issue of harassment in the workplace.

[Civil Marriage Act, June 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just taken his seat frequently asked why we are here. He went on to refer to the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister six years ago. What he failed to point out was a series of court decisions that dealt with the issue of marriage in seven provinces and one territory, all of which, based on the charter, said that it was discriminatory to deny the institution of marriage to same sex couples.

First, is the member aware of that cause for the change? Second, is he aware of the fact that at the present time, thanks to these court decisions, the vast majority of Canadians already live in jurisdictions where same sex marriages are legal. Is he aware of those two facts, and if so, why did he not tell the House when he was asking why we are here?

The government is attempting to have a uniform policy across the country so there is no difference between the provinces. I am sure he is well aware of that but if he is not, perhaps he would like to inform the House.