Dennis Mills

[Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984, October 17th, 1995]

I will not vote against the government on a bill that could bring the government down.

[Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984, October 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is my responsibility to speak on these amendments because for seven years in the House I have been trying to generate debate on behalf of my constituents and

others across Canada who believe the current tax system is not fair, not efficient and complex.

For years we have been amending the tax act of Canada. We have made amendments to amendments that have generated a complexity. Most tax lawyers and most tax accountants when speaking privately say that the current tax act is an unmitigated disaster.

After the last election when the Reform Party came to the House I was hopeful we could generate real solid debate on comprehensive tax reform. Granted it takes a couple of years to get our feet wet in this place. Most Reform Party members would admit that governance of a country like ours is complex. We cannot come here on day one and expect our ideas to be totally understood. There are all kinds of variables and difficulties that make implementing legislation difficult in comparison with the view we had in the private sector. I have certainly learned the hard way that it is difficult. I respect the fact that the Reform Party took a couple of years before it began the debate on total tax reform.

I will support my government on the bill. I would never vote against a money bill because it is a confidence bill. The hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls and I are not saying that we want an election over the bill. However we are trying to illustrate what I have been saying in the House for seven years. The bill is another example of how amendments to amendments of the tax act can be brought forward.

I do not mean to be disrespectful but probably 85 per cent to 90 per cent of the members of the House do not know the full ramifications of the bill. We expect the opposition to challenge bills like this one. If I were in opposition right now, quite frankly as I forced debate on the bill, I probably would have put a lot more heat on the government and asked when we would move the debate forward on total tax reform. But no, they wanted to let it go through.

The difficulty I have with the bill is that we are giving tax reform. We are harmonizing with the United States. The bill harmonizes Canada with certain aspects of U.S. tax law. The one great feature about the bill is that when the United States of America wants to amend its tax act we move quickly to be in harmony with it.

We can reflect on the ongoing debate in the United States in terms of single tax, flat tax and all the various democrats, republicans and independents who are talking about total tax reform. If it gets to the front burner of their agenda hopefully Canada will not be far behind. Obviously we will move in a micro second. Part of the reason we are moving in the bill is that the Americans want it to be done quickly.

One positive feature is that we move quickly to harmonize, but the difficulty is that it only gives tax reform to the elite in Canada. I have immense respect for my colleague from Winnipeg, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, and I will support him in the bill. However I would not call people who have residences in Florida ordinary Canadians. They are wealthy. I consider someone who has $600,000 worth of property in Florida or in some other place in the United States to be fairly wealthy.

I also have great concerns about article XI. Essentially once the bill is passed, and it will be passed, it will affect Canadians who want to send their children to an ivy league school such as Harvard, Yale, Cornell or Rice. I have nothing against ivy league schools in the United States. I am proud of Canadian universities but I would have liked to have gone to UCLA or one of those big ivy league universities. It costs $25,000 or $30,000 a year for four or five years. Under the bill Canadians who can afford to send their children to the ivy league schools will get a tax credit. I have great difficulty when essentially the bill will create a market for wealthy Canadians.

If I were the president of Notre Dame or one of those places I would take out an ad in all Canadian universities. I would go to Upper Canada College in my community in Toronto, go to Bishop Strachan or take out a flyer telling parents about the tax credit they would get for all the money they spend sending their son or daughter there.

We listened to the member for Yukon last night give her closing remarks. I have had immense respect for the member for Yukon since I came here seven years ago. She said that we were here for people who cannot always speak for themselves. It is obvious the people who can afford to speak for themselves certainly have the ability to get the bill through the agenda in the first two years of our mandate. Quite frankly I think it is a question of priorities, but in this bill we are forgetting a bit of our Liberal tradition.

[Employment Equity Act, October 17th, 1995]

This has nothing to do with principles. I want to repeat clause 6 for Canadians from coast to coast. I will even go to the person who hates me most in my riding, the biggest Reform Party supporter in my riding who will never vote for me. I will look him in the eye and hold up clause 6 of this bill:

1. The obligation to implement employment equity does not require an employer

(a) to take a particular measure to implement employment equity where the taking of that measure would cause undue hardship to the employer;

I am a businessman; my background is in business. That is all I need as a business person. If I can prove for my small business that it will cause undue hardship, then I am fine.

I am a passionate believer in the government's policy on multiculturalism. I am also one of the few believers in the vision for the country that Pierre Trudeau put forth. He was so far ahead of his time as a Prime Minister that the Reform Party does not even understand it. In 1971 Pierre Trudeau stood in the House and said: "We will have a policy on multiculturalism in which no culture is less than or greater than another culture". I know the member supports that.

We have spent taxpayers' money to encourage people who came here, whether they were from Germany, Italy or Austria, to keep their language and culture of origin. We have become a globally trading nation. Today the greatest trading advantage this country has is that there are Canadians who have preserved their language and culture of origin. They can go back to their country or that of their parents and talk about doing deals.

I will give a concrete example. Last week during our recess I spent four days in Austria with my former employer, Frank Stronach, chairman of Magna International. In the last 18 months he has returned to spend a lot of time in his country of origin. Part of this was because of our rotten tax system; the government has to get up to speed on changing the tax system.

I will go back to the notion of multiculturalism. Last week I saw Frank Stronach doing deals in Canadian technology in the automotive industry. He was selling that Canadian technology in Austria. We all think that the Europeans are far ahead of us but they are not. Canadian automobile manufacturing technology is much further advanced than in many parts of Europe. He was over there with Canadians doing deals. Because he has preserved his language and feels comfortable with his country of origin, he is doing deals left, right and centre. Is he doing this just for the Austrian community? No, he is exporting Canadian jobs and Canadian manufacturing.

That is why I am so passionately committed to the notion of multiculturalism. It is the greatest trading strength our country has. I do not give a darn what anybody says about Pierre Trudeau's being a centralist. I am a centralist. People knock him for building a strong national government. I think our government is dismantling too much too fast.

I call this multiculturalism, phase two. With this bill on employment equity we are further sensitizing our communities, especially our business communities which build on the policy of multiculturalism. Wake up people, because if we can have a business organization that is sensitive to all cultures, all communities of the world, then the chances for our survival will be far greater than if we lived in a cocoon.

There may be one or two minor flaws in the bill but I have absolutely no problem supporting the bill. I will have even less problem going door to door selling it. I will take on any Reformer who wants to go with me, street to street. In the end the Liberal policy will win, if it is properly explained by the words in the act and not by spinning little aspects of it that make it look as if we are trying to punish white Anglo Saxon males. This bill is not about that.

[Employment Equity Act, October 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I was intending to ask the member a question. I have immense respect for the member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley. In her opening remarks she said the bill was enshrining quotas and numerical targets and I immediately became concerned and consulted with my colleague, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of human resources.

It is very important that the House and the people of Canada specifically understand clause 6 of Bill C-64 because it basically abolishes the entire premise of the member's speech:

1. The obligation to implement employment equity does not require an employer

(a) to take a particular measure to implement employment equity where the taking of that measure would cause undue hardship to the employer;

(b) to hire or promote unqualified persons;

(c) with respect to the public sector, to hire or promote persons without basing the hiring or promotion on selection according to merit in cases where the Public Service Employment Act requires that hiring or promotion be based on selection according to merit; or

(d) to create new positions in its workforce.

With respect to the member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley, the premise of her entire speech goes right down the chute when we read the exact wording. It is not a written speech where people want to take partisan, political gimmick shots. They know there is a current in the community right now which thinks that a bill like this is designed to tell the senior management of business that it must hire 15 people from this country or that country, that it must hire 20 per cent of people of this colour or that colour, or this language or that language, or with this disability or that disability.

That is what the Reform Party is trying to spin on this bill. Quite frankly I find it distasteful. I find it distasteful because the very first day the leader of the Reform Party stood in the House of Commons he said they would not come into the House and take cheap, political, partisan shots. If they saw something good coming from the government, they would not get into political gimmickry, they would support the government. What we have today is a beautiful example of Reform Party gimmickry.

[Access To Information Act, October 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I should like to speak for a few minutes in support of the private member's bill of the hon. member for Red Deer who has done some excellent work on the issue.

In 1980-81 I had the privilege of working on the original access to information bill. I believed then and I still believe now the intention of the government at that time was to do the very thing the private member's bill suggests.

In the last 13 years to 14 years the whole access to information process has become locked in a system I call the bureaucratic MAD treatment, maximum administrative delay. As a government member I have had great difficulty on more than one occasion in getting the access to information system to work for me.

The objective of the hon. member for Red Deer is to refer the bill to committee. He has not asked the House to accept the bill line by line, comma for comma. If small amendments are required I believe they can be accommodated in committee.

The whole discussion on access to information is something that would serve the government and serve the House well. What the member is saying in the bill is very much a part of our government's red book wherein we were committed to operating a much more transparent, a much more accountable, a much more open government.

Day after day the Prime Minister lives a life of transparency. We all know that these polls are being conducted and there are the results of the polls. We have nothing to hide when we conduct polls. They are done to advance public policy in a more refined and better way for all Canadians.

We on this side of the House celebrate that members of Parliament should work hard at developing and thinking some of their own ideas. This example very much fits that description. The member for Red Deer has put forward the idea that all public opinion polls should be much more accountable to Parliament and I support him in that regard.

[Immigration Act, September 28th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, before I get into the specifics of the bill I would like to take a minute to talk about my colleague, the member for Cambridge.

Many of you who sat in the previous Parliament or two Parliaments ago would remember that the member for Cambridge, Mr. Chris Speyer, Conservative member of Parliament, devoted most of his time to issues related to securing safety in the streets and law and order in this country. In fact he distinguished himself in this House working on such issues and later he was appointed to the Federal Court of Canada.

Our colleague, when he was elected in the last election, had a tremendous challenge in front of him, quite frankly, to fill those shoes. It is obvious that in less than two years he has already, on behalf of the community of Cambridge, filled those shoes and gone beyond. I think that today's bill is not only representative of the feelings and views a lot of his own community has, but it is also a representation of what I know most of the people in my community in downtown Toronto feel. It is a bill that my community would want supported.

I salute my colleague from Cambridge for a tremendous effort in bringing this private member's bill before the House.

It is great to see that the Reform Party members are getting behind this bill. It is very rare that a member can bring to the House of Commons a bill and achieve such all-party consensus. That is a great achievement for a member of Parliament in his first term.

Bill C-316 has a personal appeal to me because the parents and a lot of the relatives of Georgina Leimonis lived in my riding. In my downtown Toronto riding there are more members of the Greek community than any other community outside of Athens. Our community was deeply disturbed by the tragic death of Georgina. This is a very specific example of why this bill must be passed, must go to committee, must be properly amended and made the law of the land.

Bill C-316 enables the court, in addition to any other sentence, to order the removal of a non-citizen convicted of an offence punishable by 10 or more years. It accelerates the deportation process and would save Canadian taxpayers money, because two separate hearings, immigration and sentencing, would not be needed. This bill does not apply to anyone who arrived in Canada prior to 16 years of age.

Today in our correctional service system, our prisons, there are non-citizens who are using this defect in our current law, and it is costing the taxpayers of Canada close to $50 million a year. Conceivably, for the same group who are in our prisons today, that same group, without any increase, over the term of a government we would be talking $250 million.

When the fiscal framework of this country is in such tough condition and we are all trying to the best of our ability to be frugal and to cut and eliminate waste and duplication, it seems to me that alongside the basic justice in the bill there is also an economic factor that has to be looked at.

If we did not support this bill it is not inconceivable that within two or three years it could cost the taxpayers of Canada $150 million a year to look after non-Canadians who have criminal offences as part of their record and who are abusing our laws. I believe this is another factor in the equation.

Another thing I believe we must understand is that the member for Cambridge did not just listen to his own community and members here; he went to other organizations. I want to quote specifically from a letter he received from Victims of Violence, the Canadian Centre for Missing Children: "Mr. Peric's bill focuses on those immigrants who have committed serious criminal offences, sometimes violent. His bill distinguishes the criminals from the

overwhelming majority of law-abiding immigrants. Those convicted of offences punishable by 10 years or more should be deported from Canada as quickly as possible. Victims of Violence would like to congratulate Mr. Peric on his efforts. On behalf of the Canadian public and the many crime victims we serve throughout Canada, we would like to thank him."

CAVEAT has written a similar endorsement. The Canadian Police Association has written to support the bill of the member for Cambridge.

I urge all members to look into the bill. We have a unique opportunity to get behind it in committee. As the member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley, the immigration critic for the Reform Party, stated earlier, the bill has some flaws that can be amended in committee. However the overall thrust or the overall approach is right. I urge all members of the House to get behind the member's bill.

[Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984, September 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for Kamloops for his commitment to total comprehensive personal and corporate tax reform. I too share with the member and also the member from Calgary Centre the view-and there are many other Liberals on this side of the House who share their view-that this is an issue the people of Canada want us to address. Canadians are hoping we address this issue of personal and corporate income tax reform in the next little while.

The Minister of Finance over the next 90 days will be preparing a budget statement and preparing for a budget obviously early next spring. This will be our window. This will be the time for all of us in this House to deal with this very important issue.

I am not going to get into a long debate on this. I do not think that is where I am coming from today, but I would like to ask the member from Kamloops a very specific question. Over the next 60 days, could we count on the support of the member and the New Democratic Party to roll up their sleeves and work with us to see if we could, as a bipartisan effort in this House, come up with a package that deals with the whole notion of comprehensive tax reform, both on the personal and the corporate side?

[Business Development Bank Of Canada Act, June 22nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, the industry critic for the Bloc Quebecois, and the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest who is the industry critic for the Reform Party that the government appreciates the co-operation on this bill. If we were not able to get this bill through today, it would have had an adverse impact not just on the bank as we know it but also on meeting the objectives of helping small and medium sized business over the next three or four months as we adjourn this House of Commons.

As we have debated over the last couple of days, the new Business Development Bank of Canada has been given a new mandate. This new mandate allows the capital of the bank to increase substantially to close to $18 billion. It also means that the bank can be a real force in this country in a complementary way in supporting other financial institutions.

We also have to acknowledge that the bank is not just there to help in making loans to small business. It is also there as a counselling assistance bank. Very few Canadians realize that one of the unique features of the Business Development Bank of Canada is that it has one of the most sophisticated counselling assistance programs in any financial institution right across Canada.

We have given an undertaking that by allowing this bill to proceed quickly today with swift passage, that we on this side of the House will not accelerate the activity of the bank in the province of Quebec before the referendum unless the Bloc changes its mind and wants the bank to be much more aggressive in its lending activities and its presence. That option is there for the Bloc to decide whether or not it wants more activity by the bank before the referendum or if it would like us to wait until after. That decision is with the Bloc and we will honour that commitment.

On behalf of all government members and of course all of our members on the industry committee we have worked as a team in designing this bill and putting it through the House of Commons. Without the opposition's co-operation we could not have had such swift passage. This is an example where all of us are working together to get this economy going.

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 22nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, it was not my intention to participate in this debate but as I was listening to Reform members I could not believe they were not discussing some of the other relevant factors in the debate.

Before the member for Calgary Centre leaves I would like to make sure I understood his quote accurately that the person who wrote the article said members of Parliament should receive a salary commensurate with what they would receive in the private sector. The member nodded that is what this article stated.

That is an interesting point to debate. From the same Financial Post last week we saw a list of the top 100 executives in Canada and what they made. For members who did not see the article I will give some highlights. The top executive in Canada, my former employer Mr. Stronach from Magna, made approxi-

mately $14 million. The last one on the list received approximately $1 million.

Of the top 100 executives in Canada, the men and women given judgment by their peers to be the top 100 in terms of their business accomplishments, achievements and contributions to the community, the lowest paid makes $1 million and the highest approximately $14 million.

In no way, shape or form do I want to suggest the salaries in the House should be commensurate with the top 100 executives in Canada. However, I believe the work we do in this board room is every bit as important as the work those executives do in the private sector. Our responsibilities are as great. There are a lot of men and women in the country who if they were in the private sector would probably be in that top 100.

There are men and women in the Chamber whom I have watched in committee and in the House. I have watched them travel the country and the world. They work harder than a lot of the top 100 executives. A lot of the top 100 executives could not keep up with most members of Parliament.

The Reform Party is trying to depreciate the contribution the men and women of the Chamber make on behalf of their constituents and on behalf of their country. The member for Calgary Centre said let us have integrity, let us be transparent. He talked about free rail passes, that we have plane tickets to travel Canada and that we have a telephone code in order to make long distance calls. He tried to spin that these are perks.

These are not perks. These are tools the men and women in the Chamber need to do their job. How many of us in the Chamber have ever used our rail passes? This is my second term as an MP and I think I have used my rail pass once to go from Ottawa to Toronto. I would like to get on the train instead of taking a fast ride to Vancouver to give a speech. I would love to have the luxury of taking a week to get there and a week to get back on our rail system, what is left of it. However, a lot of us do not have the luxury to enjoy the rail pass the way the member for Calgary Centre tried to insinuate.

This whole notion of depreciating the work members of Parliament do is really not fair. It is fair to debate the notion the pension plan might be perceived as too high or too generous but I do not when we consider the whole package involved.

On the notion in the Financial Post which someone in the private sector wrote to the member about salaries being commensurate with the private sector's, what member of Parliament will lead the campaign that we want $.5 million a year for all members of Parliament? They would be dead.

I have had a lot of experience in the private sector and I have met most of those people in the top 100. A lot of members of Parliament are worth every nickel of the $.5 million a year if we want to compare them to the contributions those top 100 executives make.

If we are to be fair and constructive in this debate we should include all factors and we should not mislead Canadians. Rail passes and plane passes are not there as perks. They are there for us to go out and give speeches, listen to people in all parts of the country. We do not serve only our own communities in the Chamber, we serve coast to coast. That is why we have those instruments. To spin them as perks I do not think is responsible.

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 22nd, 1995]

I am going to get to the pensions, just bear with me. I have a couple of minutes here.

Members of Parliament make approximately $14 an hour. By the way, I for one happen to support the member from Calgary, and I say this with no shame, who believes that we are worth $30 an hour. I support that position. But what the Reform Party is missing is that most members of Parliament do not retire from this place. They are defeated.

When you are a defeated member of Parliament, you are usually defeated because you took on causes, went against the wind, and there are a lot of people in your own community after you are defeated, with all your education and previous experience, who will not readily hire you.

I for one have seen many good men and women who have served this House who have been defeated brutally, not through their own work but through party work, and who are out there walking the streets with absolutely no income. I believe that Canadians do not want to see members of Parliament who have served this House well go on welfare after they are defeated. I do not think they want that to happen.

I am all for reviewing the pension fund, but if the Reform Party is going to be straight with Canadians its members have to include, as the member from Calgary has included, in this debate the fact that maybe this plan in some respects could be perceived to be a little generous, but when you take all factors into account after you have been defeated, what bank in Canada or business doing business with a bank would want to hire you after you are defeated in this House?

Being a good member of Parliament in this House means you have to take on causes and go against the wind. The Reform Party, in fairness to this debate, is not including all factors.