Bev Desjarlais

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, May 13th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the budget implementation bill. I want to talk about a couple of specific areas. First, and my colleague from the Bloc has already mentioned the disability tax credit. Second, I want to talk about the Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority and its funding through this budget. Third, I also want to discuss the funding of the Canadian television fund. We will see a number of those affected by the cuts within that program here today on the Hill as they raise issues. These are issues that affect each and every one of us as Canadians.

I want to start with the Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority which was a new program within the Canadian government in the last couple of years to deal with the issue of air transportation security. Air transportation security was supposed to deal with all transportation security but mostly air. It was a new authority that the government was going to fund through a new tax. The new GST from the Liberal government is a security tax that passengers have to pay when travelling by air.

As a New Democrat and a good number of Canadians, we have a real issue with this. That any one sector should have to pay for its security is like asking people who have their houses broken into to now pay for RCMP services. For that matter, people who have a murder or something even more dastardly happen in relation to their lives and then have to pay for the services of the RCMP to be there for further protection just does not seem acceptable in Canada.

However, the government forged ahead on the air transportation security tax preying on the hardship and fear that people had in relation to 9/11. It brought in this transportation security tax of $24 per travelling passenger. It broke it up into varying areas. For one way travel people got charged so much; coming back people got charged so much, and on top of that they had to pay GST. Talk about a real slap in the face for society. People were not only paying for their security, but they were being taxed on paying for that security as well. I guess it was not an essential service or the government thought it was totally acceptable to pay GST on essential services.

It brought in the security tax and a new authority, the Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority, to look after it. There have been numerous concerns raised that the security tax was part of an impact that was taking place on the air industry. The air industry was suffering greatly because of 9/11 and today there are issues related to SARS. There are just a whole conglomerate of reasons, but the air transportation security tax was part of it. The government brought in this new authority which was going to be funded from the tax.

The other day at the transport committee we heard witnesses from this authority with regard to the votes that they would need passed under this budget to get their funding. The minister said numerous times that anything related to the air transportation security association, and I am choosing names for it because I was so upset the other day about their whole attitude, anything related to CATSA should be referred to that authority. There is money coming out of the budget for it because there is no separate fund for this tax.

On top of that, this air transportation security tax being collected from passengers goes into the general revenue fund, that black hole where the Government of Canada has pension funds, the EI fund and now the air transportation security tax as well.

The minister told us numerous times to ask CATSA. CATSA witnesses came before us the other day. What did they say to us in committee when we questioned them on one of their expenditures? We did not ask what kind of security it had at Toronto International Airport. We did not ask what equipment was purchased. The question was, “How much had it paid for a contract with this company?” We did not ask what exactly was being delved into in that contract. We did not ask for the specifics.

We asked how much money was paid for that contract. In relation to all the situations the government is dealing with and the questions about the contracts it has become involved with and the patronage and issues of the government handing out contracts, it was a fair question. What did CATSA say? “We cannot tell you because of national security”. Imagine that. CATSA could not tell us how much it paid for that contract because of security issues. It is right in the act and how could members of Parliament want CATSA to break a legislative act?

If that is not the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. Committee members were frustrated. Our committee was responding to a position that the Auditor General had taken with parliamentarians in telling us that we have to question what is happening with taxpayers' dollars. We have to ask where the money is going in the different programs. As good members of Parliament we are doing what we have been asked to do, to follow through on accountability of government dollars and we were told “We cannot tell you unless the minister says so”.

The minister should stand before us in the House and account. If nobody can speak on his behalf without his permission, there is no point holding hands at the committee. The minister should be in the House to account for that. That is the issue on the transportation security tax.

I want to mention the disability tax credit. There is an impression out there that the government wants to give that disabled people should not get the disability tax credit unless they are literally crawling on the ground, and if they are crawling on the ground and they can still get food in their mouth, they probably should not get the disability tax credit.

Quite frankly, does anybody say to businesses when businesses have the tax deduction for their employees “We are sorry but you have made this much money so you do not need that tax credit or tax deduction”? Does anybody say to businesses that they cannot claim their executive boxes at hockey games or anything like that? No, there is no problem, but what is being said to the disabled? They have to get something signed by a doctor saying that they cannot do certain things or they will not get the disability tax credit.

It is unacceptable. The government's priorities are out of whack. Its attitude toward ordinary Canadians, and in a good many cases the most vulnerable of Canadians, is just not acceptable. The issue of the tax credit needs to be dealt with. We need to make sure that what minuscule amount of dollars the disabled are able to get as a credit should be there for them. It must be recognized that there are additional costs to being disabled and that Canadians see that and are saying it is okay to give the disabled a tax credit, the same as a good number of Canadians believe it is okay that when someone is working it is okay to claim child care as a tax credit. That is acceptable to Canadians.

The third issue I want to talk about is the unconscionable attack on Canadian programming. The government's lack of vision to bring this country together, to build industries that show us what it is like to be Canadian is unacceptable. It must represent those people who have given so much of their lives as actors, directors and producers to bring that programming to us each and every day of our lives on television and radio. The $25 million cut to the Canadian television fund is having dramatic consequences on our country and on that industry.

The lobbying group is here today and I ask members of Parliament to listen very clearly. The government needs to be taken to task. It needs to put back the dollars that are needed to support that industry, and make the legislative changes needed at the CRTC level to ensure that we have a program in Canada to support the upcoming producers, directors and actors. We do not want to import America, the U.S. We want something that is Canadian. We want young people growing up and viewing Canada through the eyes of Canadians.

We had that as young people. I would challenge any of us here, maybe the youngest of the young here in the House of Commons. We have seen great programming over the years: Don Messer, Tommy Hunter, Street Legal , and Da Vinci's Inquest . There is wonderful Canadian programming.

[Employment Insurance Act, May 2nd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the bill today from my colleague, the member for Acadie—Bathurst, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act.

I want to start by noting the comment made by my colleague from the Canadian Alliance. He made the comment that changing the name from unemployment insurance to employment insurance cost $5 million, and, as my colleague from Acadie--Bathurst has suggested, changing it again would maybe mean another $5 million.

From my perspective, if the name were the only issue and it would save $5 million, I am sure none of us would object. We would not change the name. We would keep the $5 million. We would make sure the workers and employers who paid into the plan would receive some benefit or, quite frankly, because the government uses the money for numerous other things, we would make sure it went into health care, into housing, which is needed throughout the country, and into infrastructure. There are certainly a lot of valuable uses for $5 million.

Therefore his comment that the name does not make a big difference is a point. However, as he was saying that, I was thinking that it really did not matter whether we called it unemployment insurance or employment insurance, it was kind of like calling it life insurance or death insurance. The reality is that if people receive that insurance because they are dead or they are unemployed they do not feel any better one way or the other. The name is really not the big issue here. Let us not get caught up in that.

However, I continued thinking about the name as he was speaking and I wondered what else we could call it. I thought about cash cow for the Liberal government or cash cow for finance ministers running for the leadership. One could call it a one-armed bandit because it takes in a lot more money than it gives out to the unemployed. There are lots of names out there if we ever decide to not get caught up with employment or unemployment.

My colleague brings up a number of issues related to the employment/unemployment insurance fund. I have dealt with most of the issues to which he has referred on an ongoing basis in my riding.

I want to take this opportunity to say that if it were not for the excellent work of the employees who work out of the northern employment insurance offices and the Brandon regional offices it would be a whole lot worse. They have been excellent to deal with. They have an excellent knowledge of the program. When we bring an issue to them they get back to us quickly. We have a good working relationship with them and we have been able to resolve a number of problems that have arisen as a result of employment insurance benefits being paid out.

Although those employees have been great to deal with, the bottom line is that we do have a number of problems. A lot of times the problems are directly related to the policies and rules that have been put in place by the department. The cards and the forms that have to be filled out are too darned convoluted.

I consider myself to be a relatively intelligent human being, as I consider are the staff of my offices, who are great individuals, but when we go through the process of trying to understand the cards and the forms, and everything it entails, it is not an easy system. I challenge anyone to try to fill out those cards with all the information that is required. It is hard for people who have lost their jobs and are trying to put food on the table for their family and get everything done. Sometimes there is some little clincher that they miss or they fill in the wrong box and then, because they have filled in the wrong box, God forbid, they have been fraudulent. This has happened. I am not joking. I say thank heaven for the excellent workers in those EI offices because we have been able to resolve some things.

Therefore, on top of being fraudulent, they have to pay back that employment insurance that they may have received, even though they really should have received it but EI says that they should not have. On top of that, EI fines them the equivalent amount of what they had to pay back. People must bear in mind that these are unemployed people making 55% of their salary, at the most, on employment insurance because it does not give the benefits that it used to give.

In the cases with which I have dealt it was rare, if ever, that anyone had been fraudulent. However they have been caught up in this whole convoluted process. There are a lot of issues related to that and I sometimes think it has been done deliberately.

The other thing is people in this position do not have recourse in the sense that they really do not have the right to go to court over any of this. People hope and pray that their member of Parliament or someone can advocate on their behalf, that they have a good regional office or that the people they are dealing with in their area can bring their issue forward, understand it and resolve it for them.

That does not happen in all cases throughout the country. There are people in certain regions who have ongoing problems because of the attitude some people take toward unemployed people.

Over the course of my lifetime I have been unemployed. As a high school student, and actually as an adult, I worked during the summers and then the employment was gone. I was a seasonal worker. I married and moved somewhere else and because I had worked the required period of time I was able to collect unemployment insurance.

Contrary to what my hon. colleague from the Alliance says, I did not relish the fact and say, “This is great. I do not have a job and I get to collect all this money on unemployment insurance”. I still wanted to get out there and work. This may shock the heck out of some people, but there was not always a job there, but I was lucky. I was able to find a job.

Over the course of my working life I also was on unemployment insurance because of maternity leave. As well, despite having a reasonably decent sick benefit plan in my workplace, in the course of one year I had the problem of having to have surgery and then had a sickness related to an injury. I used up all of my sick leave and I had to go on unemployment insurance.

I had been working all those years and paying into unemployment insurance and met all the criteria that used to be there and still had waiting periods. Quite frankly, why should people have to wait? They have paid the money into the insurance program.

This is probably one of the biggest bones of contention I have with my colleagues from the Alliance Party on the issue of pensions and insurance, mainly the Canada pension plan and employment insurance. I do not see it as a tax when I am paying it. I see it as an insurance. It is an insurance I pay as a worker. I do not begrudge paying employment insurance. Quite frankly, I consider the money I pay in employment insurance a very low cost insurance plan for a time when I might need it.

When I used that employment insurance plan it at least gave me a reasonable amount of money to survive on. Right now it does not do that. It has been cut so harshly by the Liberal government that it does not do the job any more.

When there is an insurance plan that 800,000 members of that insurance plan cannot ever collect from it when they meet the main criteria of the insurance plan, which is loss of employment, something is wrong. I go back to changing the name of the plan to a one armed bandit or a cash cow. Something is seriously wrong.

My house insurance covers a variety of different aspects. When things have happened, I have never had a problem collecting the money. The money has been there.

For unemployed people in this country it is a real problem not being able to collect.

I want to make a comment on behalf of workers. It has been mentioned a number of times in the last week or so in the House that workers in Toronto as a result of either being in a workplace that may have had SARS or in the hospitality industry which is not doing that well and workers have been laid off, because of the criteria behind employment insurance, those people cannot collect. Something is seriously wrong.

Another thing has been bothering me more and more over the last year or so and I do not want the government side to groan over this. Quite frankly I do not see myself as a pro-feminist kind of person but one thing that is becoming quite annoying to me and I am concerned about is that so many of the cuts and the changes the government has made have affected women in low income jobs and other areas far more greatly than anyone else. That bothers the heck out of me.

Obviously I could use much more time to speak to the problems associated with the employment insurance plan as it exists today. I support my colleague's recommendations. I hope the bill is passed by the House and goes to committee. If some fine tuning has to be done, as my Bloc colleague has mentioned, then let us do it.

Let us have an honest to goodness look at changing the plan so that it meets the needs of unemployed workers and of employers in this country.

[Employment Insurance Act, May 2nd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I want to start off by thanking my colleague for Acadie—Bathurst. Year after year, since we were both elected in 1997, he has been a tremendous advocate for the unemployed and for the injustice that the government has forced on workers in Canada.

He probably does not know this, but his grandson, Jonathan, is in the lobby and was staring up at the TV. He was totally enthralled. When he watches this in the future he should be proud of what his grandfather has done for the people and children of Canada. On the contrary, every member on the governing side should sit in shame for what the government has done to the unemployed.

I specifically want to ask my colleague a question regarding the waiting period for journeymen apprentices in carpentry, welding, and mechanics. The government had a two week waiting period for people who still had their job, but were going to take an apprenticeship program to get their upgrading. There was a waiting period before they could claim benefits.

The government talked about reducing this period. It may have reduced it to about a week. However, does the member think there should be a waiting period for apprentice workers? For people who want to continue their education, why should they have a waiting period before they collect employment insurance?

[Health, May 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank the mayor, councillors and citizens of Thompson. May 1, 2003 was proclaimed National Public Medicare Day in Thompson.

The citizens of Thompson, like those throughout Canada, call on the government to follow through on the Romanow report. The resolution supports Canada's publicly funded and delivered health care system and the principles of the Canada Health Act. It calls on the government to protect, restore and improve our public medicare system with the funding to do it.

The government needs to show leadership. It needs to take immediate action to implement the Romanow health report recommendations including a national public health strategy. The present concerns around SARS and the West Nile virus emphasize the urgent need for the government to act now.

The health minister's decision to minimize SARS screening and now to cut funding to West Nile crow testing shows her lack of commitment and disregard for the health of Canadians.

The government needs to act now, not tomorrow or the next day or the year after.

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to our colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, our NDP aboriginal affairs critic. Tirelessly and heroically, he has worked through the aboriginal affairs committee to fight the Liberal government's horrendously prejudiced first nations governance act.

Everyone recognizes that the current Indian Act has not worked. For generations, the Canadian government has dictated to first nations. It has broken our sacred treaties and treated first nations people as subjects rather than partners in this land.

First nations want change, not a repeat of past mistakes. The Liberal government has again refused to listen to first nations people. Of 189 individuals and groups that appeared before the committee, only 10 supported the bill, and that includes the minister and his staff. First nations people oppose this bill. It will force first nations into debt or to sell their land just to meet the basic housing needs and clean drinking water. It will strip them of their self-determination and give control of their lives and communities to Ottawa bureaucrats.

Today the AFN has given our colleague the name of Strong Voice of the Winged One in recognition of the outstanding work he has been doing. On behalf of our caucus and all--

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development bragged about his so-called consultation on Bill C-7. The fact is that out of 89 individuals and 175 organizations appearing before the standing committee on the FNGA, only 10 were in favour of the bill, and that includes the minister and his officials.

The minister ignored this consultation and ignored the thousands of protesters across the country yesterday whose signs of FNGA NFG clearly showed that first nations leaders and members do not want this legislation.

The minister says that the status quo is unacceptable. That status quo was a Canadian government plan. Why is the minister--

[Canada Airports Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize my colleague's point and acknowledge the fact that, yes, the Government of Canada made a certain statement prior to turning over the airport authority, suggesting that there would be some funding through capital programs but that there would not be changes to the fire regulations and then did make changes.

Does the member feel the safety of the passengers in those planes is important enough to make the changes? What really should happen is the Government of Canada should be offsetting the costs to ensure that those airports can operate.

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there is a critical shortage of housing on reserves in Canada. The Auditor General says it is a crisis: substandard housing, overcrowding, mould contamination, and a shortage of 8,500 homes. All this and what do we get from the government? The Indian and northern affairs minister says that first nations want a market process, that they want to have mortgages on their homes.

First nations do not want mortgages with huge interest going to banks. They need homes built to the same quality that all Canadians expect and deserve. When will the minister understand that he needs to listen to first nations, not dictate to them?

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have to admit this is the first time I have heard that Quebec has a registry or would support a registry within the province.

One of the points that a good number of us from out west in rural Canada submitted was that if individual provinces or even municipalities felt they needed a bylaw in place to keep track of the firearms, they could go that route but it should not be something imposed on the entire nation.

I am curious as to how the registry operates in Quebec and whether or not there is a cost in place for the registry.

[Petitions, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have another petition from Canadians throughout the country, and a good number of them from Ontario, recognizing that they obviously do not have a fair bit of representation in Ontario, which is something I hope they will change in the future. The petitioners recognize that the government's 84 hours of work for transport truck drivers is not acceptable and they ask the government to revisit that.