Nelson Riis

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, May 10th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to my friend's thoughtful presentation which he always gives.

I have a question for him regarding the GST. I know the GST is a friend of his and he likes the idea of the GST. However, would he not agree with what many tax people tell us? It was the introduction of the GST, setting aside the rationale, explanation and need for it, which was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to the underground economy? People said it was too much, a rotten tax and therefore moved as much of their operations underground as they could. I do not mean that to be a critical point directed to my friend.

Would my colleague agree that perhaps the people's perception of the GST, as accurate or inaccurate as it may be, was what lead to an acceptance of the reality of the underground economy as a reasonably legitimate way to do business in Canada?

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, May 10th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, what I am about to say I say with all the respect possible.

I think that those who are calling for a tax cut as the only element of major tax reform are being a bit narrow in their thinking, to be fair. I would like to use a harsher term than that, but I will just say narrow.

I believe that what we require in this country is tax reform. If we have decent tax reform that is fair and just and honest in approach we would find that most middle income Canadians would get a tax break. The taxes would be lowered for the average middle income earner and those at the higher end would perhaps be paying slightly more.

The reality is that we have to close some of these loopholes. I know the government has closed a few little ones, but if we close more of the large tax loopholes that exist, have a complete tax reform as we saw during the Carter Commission period, then we would have a better tax system and a fairer distribution to those who pay the taxes of Canada.

For decades and decades the system has become so out of whack, so convoluted, so biased, so unfair, so unjust that it has caused most Canadians to enter the underground economy whenever they have an opportunity. I know that what happens underground is illegal, by and large, but we understand why people do it. They do it because they know that their taxes are not being wisely invested. They know that a lot of people are getting tax breaks that they do not get and cannot get. Therefore, they get whatever tax breaks they can by operating in the underground economy.

The auditor general did us a service in his last report by suggesting that it is in the range of about $40 billion worth of transactions. I would guess that is very conservative. He is a conservative individual. His methodology is always conservative. I suspect it is much larger than $40 billion.

We could imagine that if that $40 billion was on top of the table, the amount of debt reduction and program expenditures that exist in our economy that could be financed just from that would be quite substantial.

I think it behoves us to go beyond our rhetoric and our discussion of simple tax cuts to talk more about a decent overhaul of our whole tax system.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, May 10th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, as usual I appreciate my friend's intervention. He always has a thoughtful point to make. Once again he has made a thoughtful point. I agree with him in part and I will explain the part.

All of us would agree that government expenditures in health care and education are probably tax dollars well invested. I do not think anyone would deny that. Tax dollars spent on canoe museums or dumb blond joke books and so on are probably moneys not well invested. Let us agree that there are useful public expenditures and unuseful public expenditures.

The point my hon. friend makes is if there is a tax cut, is this not good for the economy. There is a lot of talk about tax cuts these days in the provincial election in Ontario. The so-called winners of the Ontario provincial tax cuts which were introduced previously resulted in someone earning $15,000 will save $160 a year and someone earning $250,000 will save $5,000 a year. In other words someone making a lot of money is going to save a lot more.

We can call our economic system a capitalist system, a market driven system or whatever, but it depends on people buying goods or services. As long as people are buying a lot of goods and services our economy heats up. When those consumer dollars are not being used our economy weakens.

When we give a tax break to low or middle income earners, they will likely spend every nickel of that tax break. They will go out and spend it either on buying a new car, on clothing, on food, on whatever. They will spend all that extra money they have in their hands. An upper income earner will take that money and invest it in the international stock market. They may set money aside for investment at another time and they may even start a business.

The point I want to make is that it is more likely that middle and low income earners will spend their money than will a multimillionaire who gets a tax cut. They may not spend the money. They may, but they may not. They may not even spend it in Canada. They may prefer to buy a condo in Florida, the Cayman Islands or wherever.

If we want to get the maximum bang for our tax reduction, can I suggest to my hon. friend that we give some thought to cutting a tax that would be felt the next morning by every single citizen, from a child to the most elderly taxpayer or consumer, and that is a reduction in the GST. That would be felt from top to bottom. Every single person would benefit, as opposed to having selected tax cuts for the benefit of certain people.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, May 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite delighted to speak to Bill C-72 today in this closing round of debate.

My first question would be to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. What is it about bracket creep that he likes so much? We hear an awful lot about bracket creep. I know it is something that my friend feels very strongly about because he just refuses to let it up. He wants to hold it close to his chest as though this is his special bracket creep and no one is taking it from him. I will get back to this point in a moment.

In order to give a balanced approach, I have to say that there are a number of things in the legislation that are actually quite helpful; for example, the increase in tax breaks for caregivers. Who can stand in the House and say it is not a good idea for the government to come up with an extra $400 per year for people taking care of people in their homes? This is going to make a tremendous difference. Something like $35 will really be noticed by people who are caregivers. Quite frankly, it is the ultimate in baby steps in terms of tax reform but it is at least a slight lean in the right direction.

There have also been increases in the registered education savings plan, the homebuyers plan, the part time education deductions, the child care expense deductions, and, as I mentioned already, the caregiver tax credit which provides, as it states here, a new refundable tax credit up to $400 per caregiver. This will make a major difference.

There are a number of changes that we would support in principle. However, they are the most infinitesimal changes that one could imagine occurring to the tax act of Canada. If we sat down and asked what the absolute minimalist approach we could take to tax reform and what would be the least we could get away with and still sound like we are doing okay, that would be what Bill C-72 is all about. However, to say that none of this is worthwhile would obviously be silly. There are a number of important gestures. I perhaps would use the term gesture more than anything to indicate that we are moving in the right direction.

Having said that, what on earth am I going to say at report stage and third reading on this particular bill?

I got up early this morning and reread all the weekend papers to look at what they were saying about taxes, tax changes, tax reform and so on. We have all filled out our tax returns in the last few weeks.

We all have a sensitivity about the tax system. I was curious to know what the editorial writers, reporters and others were saying. The general theme was that the tax rate and the tax burden should be reduced.

I think we have seen this movie before. I remember reading in the newspapers a few years ago that the fundamental requirement to achieving economic prosperity in the country was to reduce the levels of inflation. The levels of inflation were simply too high. We had images of Prime Minister Trudeau wrestling this phantom inflation to the ground and pinning it down. Once this was done the economy would turn around. I can say with some pleasure that we did that. We wrestled the old inflation to the ground, pinned it down for three counts and it was down and out. Now, for all intents and purposes, we have no inflation.

Did that significantly change the way the economy was functioning? Did we become more productive? Did employment levels come down substantially? Unfortunately the answer is no. There was no significant shift.

The government then admitted it had made a mistake. It felt that if it could get interest rates down then that would stimulate the economy back into high gear. We went through all sorts of contortions and interest rates finally came down to relatively recent historic lows in the 4%, 5% and 6% range for people borrowing money. However, that did not have the big hit that we had anticipated either.

The government then said that it was not just inflation and interest rates, that it was really the size of government. The President of the Treasury Board then said that 55,000 federal civil servants would have to be laid off. The government laid off 55,000 people across the country, one of the largest layoffs ever in Canadian history. Did that achieve the results? No, that did not have much of an impact in the end either.

The government had laid off 55,000 people and inflation and interest rates had gone down but now the problem was the deficit. It then began cutting programs and the deficit went down. As a matter of fact it was wiped right out. The deficit is history. It went the way of the dodo bird.

Things, however, did not change a whole lot or turn things around. The government then said it had a new problem called tax cuts. It felt that if taxes were cut it would get the economy moving and into high gear. My friend from the Conservative Party agrees with me. It is a mantra for people to get up in the morning and say “Please God, lower tax rates and the economy will get into high gear”.

Who is going to say that we should not do that? I am not going to say we should not lower taxes. It would be almost suicidal to say that. However, I have seen this movie before. Getting inflation down, the deficit down, downsizing the government and cutting taxes does not work. It has not worked in the past. I am not sure this is the answer. Where is this call coming from? Is it widespread across the country?

I know my Conservative friend and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance will recall the questions we asked Canadians when we toured the country during our prebudget consultations. We asked Canadians what they thought should be done, and what their priorities were for the budget in terms of the economy.

I can say without any hesitation that some people said that tax cuts were not a priority. They said that health care, education and training were priorities, but that tax cuts should come after the health care system is back on its feet and after a decent educational system is in place from kindergarten to post-secondary. If some of my colleagues who were on the committee feel differently, then I think we should hear from them.

Sometimes people were pushed and pressed and said they wanted tax cuts, but when the question was asked whether they wanted to see tax cuts or health care left the way it was, the answer was no. The same answer came back when they were asked about education. Most of these people, who were experts in their field, admitted to our committee that they did not want tax cuts as a top priority.

Perhaps we should set that aside because it would appear that tax cuts are not really the top priority. It really is a major issue. When a poll was conducted recently asking Canadians what should be done in terms of the federal budget, 45% of Canadians felt that health care should be a priority and only 7% said that taxes were the most important issue facing Canadians. I wonder who those people are? We have heard some of them speak out. We heard Paul Desmarais say that taxes were too high, particularly for wealthy people. Jimmy Pattison, on the west coast, said that taxes were too high for wealthy people. We have heard others make the case that taxes are too high, resulting in a lot of Canada's best managers, high tech workers and scientists going to the United States.

There is no denying that many people are being attracted to the United States, but I suspect that the tax rate is only one of the attractive features. I suspect the offer of perhaps twice as much money to leave Canada and go to the United States to work in Texas, Michigan, Florida, or wherever is probably as crucial as any in the decision making.

What is perhaps even more important to some of the high tech workers and the scientific community is the fact that they will have decent lab supplies and decent labs to work in. Having the funds available for their research also attracts some of our best researchers to go to the United States. I suspect that taxation is far down on their list of points when they make that decision.

I am not saying that reduced taxes is something we should not be concerned about. We obviously should, but is it a priority?

I suspect that if we were to press the issue we would find that most Canadians are fed up with the taxes that they pay because of two things. I think most Canadians filling out their tax returns and either writing a cheque to the Receiver General of Canada or have been writing cheques over for the last year, depending on the nature of their income, are fed up with the high taxes they are paying because they think they are not getting a good deal for their taxes. They think their taxes are being spent on some questionable priorities of the government.

I do not think Canadians are that far out. I remember a big deal that happened in the House when we found out that $3.3 million was being spent to improve the image of the other place. Is it a national priority for Canadians to improve the image of the other place? Some people think it is, but I suspect that, other than a handful of senators, we would be hard-pressed to find a single Canadian who would say that he or she wants his or her tax money to go toward enhancing the image of the people who inhabit the other place across the hallway.

Does anyone remember the $98,000 spent for a book on dumb blonde jokes? I took that personally being somewhat of a blonde myself. Is it a national priority to give someone $98,000 to write and publish a joke book about blondes? Is this something that taxpayers want to see their hard-earned tax dollars going to pay for? I doubt it.

There is also the $500,000 canoe museum up in the Prime Minister's constituency. I know many of us are very fond of canoes. A lot of us have canoes and we paddle them. A canoe is a great Canadian image-maker, but I do not know if it was a priority to spend $500,000 of our hard-earned tax money on a little canoe museum in the Prime Minister's riding. I will listen to my Liberal friends opposite as they stand up and say that having a dumb blonde joke book funded by the taxpayers was a good way to use taxpayers money, or whatever. Let us face it, the list is endless.

The point I am trying to make is that most Canadians do not begrudge the fact that they have to pay taxes. That is why in the past we have had a very good health care system. That is why we have a whole variety of programs that differentiate us as a country from most other countries of the world. However, there is a feeling that their taxes are not being wisely invested or wisely spent, that there is a lot of frivolous and unnecessary spending going on without a proper accounting. As parliamentarians, I think we all have to admit that there is not a proper accounting.

I remember that when I was first elected the big time of the year was when we went through the estimates. We would sit down in our committees, whether it was the agriculture committee, the foreign affairs committee, the finance committee, or the health committee, and spend days and days going through the estimates so that members of parliament would at least have some inclination as to what the department was spending the money on. The minister and the parliamentary secretary would be grilled. The secretaries of state and the departmental representatives would also be grilled. At the end of the process we had a general feeling that the moneys being invested were at least identified as to where they were going.

Whether we agreed with them or not, we at least knew they were being spent here and being invested there, they were going to build this or they were going to try to get that thing happening in that part of Canada, et cetera.

Now the whole process of dealing with the estimates has essentially been thrown out the window. Committees really do not deal with the estimates in the same vigilant way they did in the past. In many cases they do not go over the estimates at all. They are deemed to have been discussed, deemed to have been passed and that is the end of it.

When taxpayers feel that their elected representatives do not represent them in going through how taxes are being used it is absolutely true. There is a good reason the taxpayers of Canada feel a little uneasy at this time of the year when they are writing their cheques to the Receiver General of Canada.

It is fair to say that most Canadians, may I say all Canadians, feel that some people get a better deal than others because of our tax system. Some people benefit from our tax system where other people pay too much. Let us face it. Some are in a category where they can hire a tax accountant, or they have a good tax adviser or lawyer, and they use the part of the tax act of Canada, the Income Tax Act which is annotated with explanations beside some of the points.

My guess is that if they can afford a tax lawyer, or their affairs are in such a way that they have a good tax accountant or a good tax adviser, they can probably take advantage of provisions in the act that will enable them to either pay very little income tax or in some cases pay absolutely no income tax in spite of the fact that they might have had substantial income during that year.

It is a fact of life that a lot of people pay very little income tax. As a matter of fact I know lots of people in this country who are proud of the fact that they have used this book. They have good advisers and have arranged their financial affairs in certain ways that they do not pay any income tax all. That is the way it is. They are not doing anything wrong. They are not doing anything illegal or unethical. They are simply using the provisions of the tax act that most Canadians are unable to use because their income tax is deducted at source. For Canadians who work in a plant or a factory, or in an office, somebody deducts their income tax and that is it. They do not have any real deductions that other people obviously have.

There is this feeling that the tax act is haywire, unfair, unjust and that it is biased in favour of certain Canadians who tend to be wealthy, and larger corporations, compared to the average small business. That is simply a fact of life.

I am going ask that we pause for a moment or two while I read from the bible of taxation. It has come that time of the day when it behoves us all to set aside a few quiet moments to contemplate what the tax act actually says. I will not read much.

I have chosen for today's reading chapter 127, verse 11, subsection (b)(vi). I think all members of parliament will get quite a thrill when they listen to this part of the bible. It may even be inspiring. Let us put ourselves into a state of meditation for a moment or two while I read from section 127, verse 11 of the tax act. It goes like this:

Application of ss. (9) after November 16, 1978.—In applying subsection (9) in respect of

(a) a qualified property or qualified transportation equipment acquired after November 16, 1978, or qualified construction equipment acquired after April 19, 1983, the references in paragraph (a) and (b) thereof to “5%” shall be read as references to “7%”, the references in paragraphs (a.1) and (b.1) thereof to “5%” shall be read as references to “13%” and the references in paragraphs (a.2) and (b.2) thereof to “2.5%” shall be read as references to “3%”,

(b) a qualified expenditure incurred by a taxpayer after November 16, 1978 and before his taxation year that includes November 1, 1983, or a qualified expenditure incurred by him in that taxation year or a subsequent taxation year if he deducted an amount under section 37.1 in computing his income for the year,

(i) where the expenditure was incurred by a Canadian-controlled private corporation in a taxation year of the corporation in which it is or would, if it had sufficient taxable income for the year, be entitled to a deduction under section 125 in computing its tax payable under this Part for the year, the references in paragraphs (a) and (b) thereof to “5%” shall be read as references to “25%” and the references in paragraphs (a.1), (a.2), (b.1) and (b.2) thereof to “2.5%” or “5%”, as the case may be, shall be read as references to “0%”, and

(ii) in any other case, the references in paragraphs (a), (a.1), (b) and (b.1) thereof to “5%” shall be read as references to “10%” and the references in paragraphs (a.2) and (b.2) thereof to “2.5%” shall be read as references to “0%”; and

(c) a qualified expenditure incurred by a taxpayer in his taxation year that includes November 1, 1983 or a subsequent taxation year, other then a qualified expenditure referred to in paragraph (b), the references in paragraphs (a) and (b) thereof to “5%” shall be read as references to “20%”, the references in paragraphs (a.1) and (b.1) thereof to “5%” shall be read as references to “10%” and the references in paragraphs (a.2) and (b.2) thereof to “2.5%” shall be read as references to “0%”.

That is from the tax act, section 127, verse 11(b)(vi).

I could read some more of the fascinating passages but I think the case is clear. Who in their right mind could understand what the hell that is all about? Nobody. I doubt if there is a tax expert in this country who could honestly say they know what that is all about. They practise the grey area of taxation.

Back in the sixties the Carter commission went from coast to coast and spent a great deal of time analysing the tax act of that period. It made a number of recommendations. Now is the time to have Carter commission two and to re-evaluate our tax act from top to bottom to ensure for the future that it is a fair and just piece of taxation.

[Competition Act, May 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words to this bill that my hon. friend has been trying to have passed for some time.

We will all remember that this process started when a lot of Canadians were shocked by the fact that cable television charges had been increased and Canadians had not approved the increase. They were shocked to find that the cable stations had every right to impose a new set of costs and a new range of services. If we do not like what they do, then we have to notify them. This seems to be kind of an odd way to go about business. It is certainly in favour of the cable companies. I remember, and I am sure other members remember the incredible response that we received as elected members: the faxes, the e-mails, the letters and the visits from delegations and all sorts of very disgruntled people in terms of wondering how it was that we were allowing this to occur.

The question is: What do we do about it? I am therefore pleased to speak to today's bill because the hon. member has brought forward a proposal that would make this kind of back door increase impossible.

This is the second time this has moved through the House. The last time it was scuttled in committee. I hope this time it will have a better chance to pass in the House. Today is the last day of debate. In a matter of minutes we will have the final round of discussion and then we will move to a vote on the bill. We in the New Democratic Party who are here will be supporting it.

I realize this is a private member's initiative and not a party initiative. It is being brought forward once again by the hon. member who was quite outraged, as we all were, when he learned about the initiative taken by the cable companies. I am not certain if this applies to other organizations or not, but even if it does, the fact that the cable companies have misused this initiative would probably justify our speaking and voting against it because it certainly is not in the best interests of their subscribers.

This tells us that the cable companies assume that Canadians are not very smart and that they really cannot think for themselves. It is either that or they are able to be manipulated quite easily. I am not sure what the assumption would be. However, I do not think we can accept that. We want to say that Canadians have the right to decide for themselves, as individuals, as families, and so on, as to what combination of programming they would like to have.

[National Housing Act, May 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is tough to constrain myself. I appreciate the fact that I should not have torn up that bill, but I am fed up. I am fed up with this government. I am fed up with its lack of attention to housing and I am fed up when I talk to people who cannot find decent housing for their families.

We are talking about Bill C-66, which would change the housing act and the CMHC, but we are not doing anything about housing. We are making it worse. Imagine that. This bill will make housing worse in the country. What are we doing here? We should all run out of here before this bill proceeds any further, but I know we are not going to do that. We have to hang in here, so I will say a couple of words.

What is so depressing is that governments are elected to serve Canadians. We have a very serious housing problem facing our country. I am looking particularly at a number of groups. I will identify two that immediately spring to mind. One group is the young people of this country; the young people who have worked hard to get decent training and education, who have hustled to get work, who are working often at two or three part time jobs, although some have decent jobs. They are trying to save money. They cannot afford to put a down payment on a house. They cannot afford housing. One would think that there must be some program we could introduce to assist them.

That is to say nothing about the aboriginal peoples of the country. If there is an embarrassment, it is that. We should hang our heads in shame and say we are disgusted and ashamed that we have allowed this situation to develop in terms of aboriginal housing in virtually every part of the country. There is something wrong. It is a disgrace.

The homeless issue is sad. There are people living under bridges by the thousands in this country. It is an embarrassment in one of the richest countries in the world. We should be doing something about it, but we are not. We are making it worse.

We are not alone in this. Back in 1993 the government said “we're outta here”. It said that it was out of housing and that it would not do anything more for housing, that it would not put another cent into housing, that it would not put a new nickel or quarter into social housing. In 1993 that was the big announcement. It was embarrassing that the Liberals cheered this announcement. They said, “Hey, great news. We are cutting back on social housing”. I remember that day. There was applause in here when they announced that they were not going to spend any more money helping people get into social housing. Members across the way applauded. I think most members would find that there is something very seriously wrong with this picture.

The Liberals then said, “We are out of here. We are not going to put another new nickel into social housing. As a matter of fact, we are going to get out of the business completely. We are going to fob it off to the provinces. We are going to download it onto the provinces so that they can carry the can on social housing”. They did download it onto the provinces over the last number of years and are still doing it.

What are the provinces doing? Are they any better? They are worse. They are not doing anything either with a couple of exceptions, to be fair. To our friends here who are representing the province of Quebec, Quebec has programs in social housing. I am pleased to say that the province that I represent, British Columbia, is doing something in social housing. As a matter of fact it just announced an increase in hundreds of units of social housing.

The provincial government alone says, “We are out here all on our own. We get no help from the federal government, not one whit. We need social housing in British Columbia and if we have to do it we are going to expand with hundreds and hundreds of new social housing units”. We should be cheering the province of British Columbia for at least picking up that initiative.

We have the province of British Columbia, not only maintaining its social housing but expanding its social housing, we have the province of Quebec and that is about it. That is all the social housing we are seeing by and large across the country.

We have a serious problem. That is why we were hoping that when we looked at Bill C-66 dealing with housing that we would see some initiatives.

We heard some very eloquent speakers before me comment about a variety of issues on why they are concerned about this. I want to identify clause 38 of this legislation. This is a pathetic clause. Under clause 38, it allows the CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, to waive provisions of existing agreements. What does that mean? It means that under this clause an agreement between CMHC and a housing co-op or non-profit corporation could be ripped up and people living in co-ops or social housing could see their homes sold out from under them. That is what this little clause means about provisions regarding existing agreements.

We tried to get a clarification in committee whether this means that if the government deems it appropriate it can say to co-operative housing organizations across the country, “Too bad, we're getting out of it”. We have not received a decent answer.

That is why we are opposing this legislation so strongly. We tried it at second reading but it did not work. We tried it in the committee. We tried to get the Liberals to understand that we have to do something about housing. They said, “No. We are not going to do anything about housing. We are out of housing. We don't even like social housing”. They probably did not say that, but I guess that is what they were really meaning.

So here we are at third reading, the last gasp. We are just going down the tube here. This is it. At the end of the day the government is gone and that will be it for social housing from coast to coast to coast. It will be a sad day not only for people who are looking for homes today, not only for people who are living in shabby, dastardly housing conditions, but more importantly a bad day for Canada generally.

[National Housing Act, May 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, with your permission I would like to split my time with the hon. member for Churchill.

I rise today to say a few words regarding Bill C-66, an act to amend the National Housing Act and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act.

The impression we get is that the government is actually doing something about housing in the country. Perhaps this comes as a surprise to people. When we think that the government is going to change the National Housing Act and the CMHC act, it could be implied that it has decided to take some initiative to improve the housing situation in Canada.

We know, without any question, that there are tens of thousands of people in the country who do not have a home, period. They are living on the streets, in parks, under bridges and so on around the country. We heard earlier today the government whip indicating that the government had appointed a cabinet minister, the Minister of Labour, to co-ordinate some activity to deal with this issue of homelessness in Canada. We would assume that when we are dealing with Bill C-66, an act that deals with housing in Canada, there would be some reference or some indication that the government is actually going to do something about the homeless situation, but in fact the answer is that it is doing absolutely nothing. This is not a good day for the people who are living under bridges and the homeless in the country.

Let us agree, among ourselves at least, that to have a housing problem in Canada is rather unusual. We have more land available than every single country in the entire world, except one. We have land from coast to coast to coast. We have billions and billions of hectares of land.

We have trees in every single province and territory. When we fly across the country we see that we have trees from coast to coast. We have millions of hectares of trees, except for Nunavut which does not have any trees, but we could always ship a few up to those people if they need some. For most people, we have trees coming out of our ying yang. We have trees everywhere.

Think about it. Our banks are filled with money. We have an unbelievable amount of land at our disposal. We have lumber from coast to coast to coast. To have a housing problem, we have to work at it. We have to really work at it. There is not a single reason there should be a housing problem in this country. We hardly have any people compared with most other countries. We have housing technology and everything else. There must be a reason for this problem.

The problem is sitting right over there. That is the problem. We do not have a government with any inclination to improve the housing situation in this country. We should take this legislation, tear it up, throw it away and say enough—

[Employment, May 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, just three months ago the Minister of Human Resources Development said that job prospects for young Canadians are brighter than they have been in years. This morning we find that in Ontario more than 50,000 people have been added to the rolls looking for work. More than half of those are young people, bringing it up to 15.7%.

Earlier today we heard about the summer career placement program and the funding it has received. If the government wants to do something about youth unemployment, would it consider adding funds to that program so at least people coming out of the colleges and universities will have a chance for a decent summer job?

[Employment, May 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.

I am sure he joined all members of parliament this morning who were both shocked and disappointed to see the reversal in the downward trend in the unemployment figures. Was the Deputy Prime Minister surprised at this reversal this morning? Is it serious enough for the government to take some steps to bring the downward pattern back into play again?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1999, May 6th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, there he goes, the Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance making sense again. I must say he is right when he says that there have been some good changes and some appropriate changes. I acknowledge that the elimination of the 3% surtax was a good step. Next we have to work on bracket creep, which I think he would agree was overlooked in the budget.

I think he would also agree that I said there was an increase in funding for health care which would eventually bring the federal portion up to the 1995 level. If we could clap with one hand, I suspect that is what we should do for that. It is a step in the right direction, but taking it up to 1995 levels is hardly something we should get too excited about. However he is correct on that point.

I challenge my hon. friend when he says there are no net federal taxes for people living on social assistance. The one tax change we have been advocating is a reduction in the GST. My friend would know that people on social assistance certainly pay the GST. They probably buy stuff with every dollar they collect. They buy services and they buy goods and therefore pay the GST. I realize they get some returns on that, but we can debate these issues in terms of the need for more refundable tax credits and so on.

Let me go on to a point my friend makes in terms of families making under $30,000 and not paying net federal taxes. My dad asked me to raise a question the next time I was speaking in the House of Commons, which I guess is today. My dad is 94 years old and he is on a pension, an extremely modest pension. He gets by, to be fair. He had to fill out his income tax forms. He could not see very well so he got my ex-brother-in-law to fill them out for them. He ended up paying a few hundred dollars in income tax.

He asked me to ask a question of the Minister of Finance who unfortunately is not here at the moment but will be here later. Why should a 94 year old man who worked hard all his life, paid taxes all his life and was never out of work, have to pay income tax on a very modest pension income? He was frustrated. I guess I am asking it rhetorically, but perhaps the parliamentary secretary could respond in place of the Minister of Finance in case my father is listening at the moment.