It happens all the time.
Lost his last election, in 2004, with 41% of the vote.
Canada Small Business Financing Act November 23rd, 1998
It happens all the time.
Canada Small Business Financing Act November 23rd, 1998
The hon. member for Elk Island is asking a question. Why are we amending the legislation? This is the nature of this place. We are constantly amending, updating and refining laws. This is the Small Business Loans Act. This is a bill which normally all members of parliament in all parties get behind. This is the first time in the history of this bill where we have the Reform Party using a delaying tactic.
In the end the bill will go through. The Minister of Industry and his parliamentary secretary have done a great job in listening to witnesses and in listening to literally thousands of small businessmen and women who participated in the Small Business Loans Act. Anything the government has done in the bill in consultation with opposition members and with the small business sector is a result of that listening experience. Yet here we are today and Reform Party members are almost being obstructionists. We should put the bill through with a snap of our fingers.
If there is one thing we have done in this House in the last 10 years—and I believe we have done it with the help of all parties—it is that we have created a sense of importance and a sense of urgency that we all must get behind the small business community.
Here we are on the eve of Christmas and they are doubting and questioning. I have heard remarks from members of the Reform Party on the bill over the past couple of weeks. They are wondering whether or not small business deserves the legislation. We have heard them say that the legislation is essentially no different from another tax on all Canadians.
There is nothing further from reality than that assertion. The loan loss provision in the Small Business Loans Act is absolutely minuscule in comparison to the number of jobs that are being created which are generating billions of dollars worth of income tax revenue for the treasuries of Canada, the provinces and the municipalities. That activity emerging from the small business community is something we can all be proud of.
The notion that the Reform Party would try to take us off focus by proposing amendments and distractions linked to tax reform is going in the wrong way. We will lose some of the momentum we have been building in the House. Over the last 10 years we have been a fist in support of small business. It does not matter whether it was the Reform critic of Industry, the NDP, the Bloc or the Conservative Party. We have all worked together. We have all been in unison. This legislation was one of the prize pieces that managed to go from first reading to third reading in no time flat.
I hope members of the Reform Party would reflect on whether it is good to be seen as breaking rank from the special collegial approach we have always had in terms of the Small Business Loans Act. Before they drag out the debate much longer maybe we could say they have some concerns and made their points, but it is time to put the legislation through the House and obtain royal assent so that all financial institutions in Canada use the Small Business Loans Act to keep the focus, to keep the morale and to keep the energy of small business moving forward.
I appeal to members of the Reform Party to end the debate so that the bill will go through all readings and bring the act up to date.
Canada Small Business Financing Act November 23rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to speak to the motions and to speak to the bill.
I return to the remarks of the member for Elk Island. When we were in opposition, which is almost 10 years ago, this bill was on the floor of the House of Commons. At that time Minister Tom Hockin from London, Ontario, was responsible for amending the Small Business Loans Act, amending the legislation, and we decided that the bill was so important for activating entrepreneurial spirit that we supported the government's bill.
I must say that it was not perfect. I have never seen an absolutely perfect piece of legislation in the House in the 10 years I have been elected or in the previous 10 years that I was a minister's assistant or a prime minister's assistant. The reality is that legislation is never perfect but we try. The art of politics is to try to design something that is doable and something we can activate as soon as possible. At the time when we were in opposition we put the legislation through the House in one day. We supported the government and in fact—
Canada Small Business Financing Act November 17th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to put it on the record that what I said I believed to be the truth. I apologize to the Reform Party. I did not realize that its support of the mergers had a whole list of qualifications. I am sorry I did not add that list of “maybe”, “could be”, “might be able to support”—
Canada Small Business Financing Act November 17th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, there is a member of the Reform Party saying “Tax, tax, tax”.
Let me say to the Reform Party that we are three weeks away from the Christmas adjournment. We are about five weeks away from the budget of Canada being locked in, which will be presented during the first part of next February.
I am a passionate believer in comprehensive tax reform. I was hoping that the Reform Party would focus and get some constructive debate going in the House on tax reform. Where have those members been? They stand up the odd time and say “tax reform”, but when was the last time they had an opposition day in the House on tax reform? When was the last time in question period they put 8 or 10 questions together on tax reform? They hit it now and again, sporadically.
Those people over there are not interested in tax reform in a substantive way. They throw it out now and again as though it were some kind of policy gimmick.
To talk about tax reform when debating an amendment to the Small Business Loans Act is a diversion and we will not be suckered by it. The legislation will go forward.
Do not mix tax reform with the Small Business Loans Act. Any day that the Reform Party of Canada wants to have an opposition day, or any kind of debate on comprehensive tax reform, I will stand in the House and support that type of debate.
To mix tax reform with the Small Business Loans Act amendment, when this is the backbone of the economy of this country, is just wrong. I stand here proudly and happily behind my parliamentary secretary in amending this act.
Canada Small Business Financing Act November 17th, 1998
I can say it with a straight face. It is the same with bank mergers. I hear today that the Reform Party is now supporting the bank mergers. Can it honestly believe that a further concentration of power for banks will be beneficial to small business?
The Reform Party is now supporting the bank mergers.
The reason we had to get into the Small Business Loans Act in this country was because the banks were not taking on the challenge of helping young people with ideas to create new businesses. That is the purpose of the Small Business Loans Act.
It is a risk loan. There is no doubt about it. But look at the loan loss in the Small Business Loans Act file for the Government of Canada. In relation to the number of jobs created and the benefits, it is minimal. Yet today we hear Reform members saying that they will stand in their communities and say to all the small businessmen and women that they do not support the Small Business Loans Act. I cannot believe it, but that is the position that party has taken.
When the Reform Party came to the House I will never forget the opening remarks of the leader. He said “We are going to bring a new sense of decorum to the House of Commons. If we see legislation that we feel is constructive, we are not going to oppose for the sake of opposing. We will get up, we will support it and we will speak about that legislation in a positive way”.
This is a piece of no-brainer legislation. It is legislation that is very much motherhood, and the Reform Party, for the sake of political expediency, is slowing down the process of putting Bill C-53 through the House of Commons. This bill should have been through the House of Commons, all three readings, a month ago, but instead we have the Reform Party slowing it down. The Reform Party is putting a drag on small business in this country.
The Liberal Party will continue to be the warriors for small business in this country.
Canada Small Business Financing Act November 17th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy having the opportunity to speak in the House on this bill. It was the first or second small business bill that I ever spoke on when I was in opposition.
When I was a member of the opposition it was the first time that our party supported the Conservative government's amendments to the Small Business Loans Act. Support was unanimous at that time and we put the bill through the House in a day. When I listen to the Reform Party saying it is not supporting this bill, I am absolutely mystified.
A Reform Party member said in his speech concerning the realm of taxes that taxes are so repressive in this country. That is the issue. On that point I support the member. If the Reform Party had any consistency or any real commitment to some of its core public policy thoughts it would help create a real debate on the issue of tax reform. It has been the most inconsistent, on again, off again attempt to try to advance the debate on tax reform that I have ever seen in the House. To try to weave something to do with tax reform into a small business act is a non-starter.
Eighty per cent of the new jobs created today come from small business men and women. This is the entrepreneurial energy, this is the realm where we get people rolling up their sleeves and doing a hard, honest day's work. This is not the realm of paper pushing. This is not the realm of speculating on our dollar. This is the small business realm which is carrying the country right now. Any attempt to reinforce the small business realm has to be supported.
I am happy to see the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservatives and the NDP member for Kamloops, who is responsible for building linkage with the business community, supporting this program; everybody in the House but the Reform Party.
The Liberal Party founded this legislation some 26 years ago under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. We are happy to continue to be the warriors for small business.
Canada Small Business Financing Act November 17th, 1998
What is wrong with that?
Supply October 20th, 1998
It is common sense. I put that question to the hon. member.
Supply October 20th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for Palliser attentively. I do not want to get into all of the details of his supposed recording of the minister's comments on the plane, but I would like to deal with one specific part of the so-called written transcript.
Apparently the minister said something about this RCMP officer looking a bit excessive. We have watched the CBC treatment of the pepper spraying 1,000 times. Would that not be just sort of a natural, common sense reaction of any member in this House of Commons if he saw that clip on television? Did it not seem that the RCMP used a little—