Nelson Riis

[Petitions, February 20th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I present another petition with hundreds of names from the communities of Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminister, Port Coquitlam, Port Alberni, Hartsville, Nanaimo, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Vavenby, Avola, Red Lake, Paul Lake, Westwold, Pritchard, Chilliwack, Prince George, Terrace, Port Hardy and Grand Forks.

It is a long, complicated petition but fundamentally it says not to proceed at this point with the proposed seniors benefit package to be introduced sometime in March or April, and that adequate time be given for all Canadians to comment with the government on the kind of retirement system Canada ought to have in the distant future.

[Petitions, February 20th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 from residents of Kamloops, Celista, Chase, Anglemont, Clearwater, Logan Lake, Savona, Vanenby, Avola, Adams Lake, Blue River, Little Fort, Magna Bay, Falkland, Barriere, Tappen, Sorrento, Salmon Arm and Deadman's Creek. They draw to the attention of the House that the multilateral on investment is a direct attack on Canadian sovereignty.

They point out that it will expand and entrench the unprecedented rights of transnational corporations. It will severely limit national, provincial and regional governments' ability to promote social, economic and job creation strategies. It will give foreign corporations the right to sue Canadians governments, and it will lock us into the closet for 20 years.

They are calling on Parliament to direct the government not to sign the multilateral agreement on investment. There are hundreds of names attached to this petition.

[Child Poverty, February 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is not only my concern. Canada's catholic bishops had this to say “Canada's failure to eliminate child poverty is akin to child abuse”. They go on to say “If a parent denies a child food, clothing and social security, it is considered child abuse but when our government does the same, it is simply balancing the budget”. When will this government stop child abuse as declared by Canada's catholic bishops?

[Child Poverty, February 20th, 1998]

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

While we heard news today about the balanced budget, there are countries like Denmark where virtually no children are forced to live in poverty. As of this morning 1.5 million children in Canada are living in poverty. Has the Liberal government finally decided to stop forcing Canadian children to live in poverty? Is the government not embarrassed by this fact?

[Bill C-28, February 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, a few days ago, the Deputy Prime Minister said that Bill C-28 does not apply to Canada Steamship Lines. Later the executive director of the tax legislation division of the Department of Finance said yes, these provisions would be available to Canada Steamship Lines. Whose opinion is accurate in this case?

[Supply, February 18th, 1998]

No, it is because it has one of the hottest economies in Canada.

By the way, it was the first province to have a balanced budget. My friend forgot to mention that fact, as well as the fact that it has the lowest unemployment in Canada. These are realities that my friend forgot to mention.

The member said that tax cuts create jobs. I remember Ronald Reagan saying that when he was president of the United States. He gave tax cuts to the rich. It was the trickle down idea. Give the tax cuts to the richest families in the United States and eventually the benefits would trickle down to the regular folks. Regular folks got sick of being trickled upon. That is what happened. Unemployment went up. The debt load went up. The economy went down. It was an economic disaster. Ronald Reagan bankrupted the United States. I will let the facts speak for themselves.

My friend asks if government can play a role in job creation. Yes it can. I will give my friend an example.

In the city of Kamloops we have a program, like many other communities across the country, called community futures. It is sponsored by the federal government. It is one of the few federal programs which I think really works well. Basically it provides support for individuals on employment insurance to create small businesses. It provides loans of up to $75,000 to entrepreneurs who want to start a small business.

In the city of Kamloops alone, using this microcredit arm of the federal government, 850 new businesses have been created. Normally each business has two or three employees. The odd one will have more. These small businesses are thriving. Every loan has been paid back. There have been 850 new businesses and about 1,500 new jobs created in the city of Kamloops alone.

That is something which the federal government has done and has done really well. People appreciate that. We should be expanding those kinds of programs so people do not have to go begging to the banks for the $50,000 loan to start their small enterprise. That is something the federal government could do. It is doing it now, but it could expand the program to create thousands and thousands of new businesses and job opportunities across the country.

[Supply, February 18th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, my hon. friend probably knows this but Saskatchewan has the lowest unemployment levels in Canada.

[Supply, February 18th, 1998]

We have always been a small group at this end. Nothing changes particularly for us.

Then it changed and now it is Liberals. I suspect that when Brian Mulroney gets up in the morning and reads the newspaper he cannot believe what the Liberals have done. They have done things that he only dreamed of doing. Massive, massive cuts to education. Horrendous cuts to health care. They have almost completely wiped out all the major granting agencies. There have been huge cuts to social programs so that this morning we now have 1.5 million children living in poverty.

Other countries have no children living in poverty because their parents do not live in poverty. Countries such as Norway and Denmark do not have people living in poverty. They have no children waking up in the morning who live in poverty. We have 1.5 million.

We have 400,000 young people who do not even have a job. They should be working today. Since the Liberals took office, 200,000 young people have been added to these rolls. There are 1.5 million people without a job and another million people working at part time jobs. Yet the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister stand up and say that the economy is strong, that things are going well.

Somebody said the other day it is like having the Titanic economy. Remember that two-thirds of all the wealthy first class passengers were rescued and two-thirds of all the people in steerage were locked down below and drowned.

Yes, we have a recovery for bankers and banks, wealthy people, corporations and wealthy families. Things have probably never been better for them. However for the average person things are rough. For the unemployed things are rough.

I just came from a conference this morning sponsored by the Canadian Labour Congress, a special interest group I am told by my Liberal friends. It is interested in labour. What was the name of the conference? Jobs. Do we hear of the government having a three day conference on jobs in this country? No, we do not. The Canadian Labour Congress two blocks from here is having a conference on jobs, trying to find ways and means of getting people back to work.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance stand up here and say “Do not worry. Unemployment is down to eight point some per cent, to just under 9%”. It was at 9% for 87 consecutive months. Are we supposed to be joyous at the fact that it has come down a quarter of a percentage point? This is embarrassing. It is probably immoral that we stand here and accept this immorality of having so many people unemployed.

I want to relate a point that was raised at the conference this morning at the Chateau Laurier sponsored by the Canadian Labour Congress. They talked about a woman who a few months ago had a good job in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She had a condo and a car. She was doing well. Then they experienced layoffs in the business. She lost her car, lost her condo, lost her job and is essentially homeless. She has gone from being a productive citizen with a meaningful job living in a community to being homeless in a few months. That is how close most people are to that status.

I will sit down now because my time is finished. I cannot support this motion. It really fails to deal with the crucial issues confronting our country. Let us hope and pray that when the Minister of Finance stands up here next week on Tuesday afternoon he will have something to say that will actually address these serious problems of unemployment.

[Supply, February 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to participate in today's debate. The motion reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should lower the tax burden on Canadians and offer interest relief to student loan holders in order to address the brain drain crisis which is forcing Canadians to move to the United States where unemployment rates, income tax rates and student debt levels are lower and the standard of living is 25 per cent higher than in Canada.

When it comes to a vote we in the New Democratic Party will vote against the motion. To me it does not make much sense at all. I am not saying it is totally wrong but it does not make much sense.

First, the motion refers to the brain drain. Do we actually have a brain drain in this country? Interestingly enough Statistics Canada says that we do not. In a recent report from Statistics Canada, according to Mr. Ivan Fellegi, the so-called brain drain is in fact a brain gain. He acknowledges that Canadian skilled workers are leaving the country, with 11,000 knowledge workers having left Canada in 1995, 5,600 to the U.S. of which 1,600 were doctors and nurses. But evidence shows that there is a net brain gain if one considers that Canada has more immigration of skilled workers from the rest of the world than it loses to the United States and other countries.

That same year 34,300 knowledge workers came into the country from the rest of the world. In 1996, 42,600 knowledge workers came to Canada.

Participants in a recent C.D. Howe Institute conference examining this issue concluded that there was no particular problem in Canada with a brain drain.

It is fair to say that the evidence—and I think all of us will acknowledge that Statistics Canada is probably one of the best statistics gathering centres in the world—tells us that part of the premise of this motion is actually incorrect. So set that aside.

As my friend across the way indicated, student debt problems are certainly very serious for tens of thousands of young people, but access to higher education is probably even a greater issue that we should confront. We have to find ways and means of easing the debt burden so many young people have accumulated as a result of pursuing their higher education goals.

I wonder if it is not time for us as a nation to get bold and actually strike away the whole issue of having tuition fees at all. This is not a particularly unique idea. Sixteen of the OECD countries already are tuition free. The majority of OECD countries have tuition free colleges and universities.

A few years ago as a society we determined that a grade 12 education was what was required to be a contributing citizen in the economy of the time. I think all of us would agree that grade 12 is now the minimal standard. Probably grade 16 or grade 18 makes more sense in terms of what is required to become a contributing citizen in the knowledge based economy of the 21st century.

Why not have tuition free universities and colleges? I think my friends in the Reform Party—although I stand to be corrected—are proposing tax cuts to the tune of $2.6 billion. What is interesting is that that is the exact amount of money Canadians spend on tuition fees each year.

We have a choice. This is what the business of politics is all about. Do we give across the board tax cuts of $2.6 billion to everyone, rich as well, or do we invest it in education and training for Canadians? That is the fundamental question we have here between political parties.

We say we should invest it in young people. We should invest it in Canadians. We should invest it in the human resources of the country. It is fair to say it would be the best investment one could make, as other countries have already determined.

Another point however is that tuition fees account for about $2.7 billion annually. If we were to introduce an inheritance tax, which virtually every industrialized country in the world has with the exception of Canada and one or two others, and we exempted the first $1 million in inheritance and taxed only an inheritance above $1 million, we would collect on an annual basis $2.8 billion. This would cover the cost of tuition fees for every student in this country.

In other words, if we did what virtually every other industrialized nation does, if we collected money from the vast inheritances some people receive with the first $1 million being tax exempt, we would bring into the central government coffers the equivalent of all the tuition fees in Canada. It seems to me that would be worthy of some consideration.

We are going to have a budget in a few days. I hope the Minister of Finance sees the value of investing in young people and others who are pursuing better education and training opportunities, and takes this bold step and does away with tuition fees. Fund it from this new tax that virtually every other western industrialized nation has in place today.

It is rather interesting that this motion comes from my friends in the Conservative Party who Canadians totally rejected a few years ago for actually bringing this nation to its knees economically. There were massive cuts to education, massive cuts to health care, massive cuts to social programs, debts skyrocketing. Canadians said “We have had it with these guys. We are going to toss them out so far that we can hardly see them”. There used to be Tories packed into this place. Now there is a little group down at the far end. Then they were replaced.

[Point Of Order, February 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I listened to the government House leader. I think there has been some slight error in interpretation.

The reason that members of the opposition parties in the finance committee jointly introduced a motion asking for the opportunity to delve into the issue further was in an effort to clear any hint of wrongdoing by the Minister of Finance.

We recognize that for us to do our work in the House of Commons and in the finance committee the reputation of the Minister of Finance is paramount. Allegations have been made. Interpretations of various comments have been made, the fact that there may be a conflict of interest with the Minister of Finance on the eve of the budget.

This is an effort not to question necessarily the procedure in the finance committee but simply to find a way to clear the air once and for all so that there is no hint that a possible conflict of interest may occur with the Minister of Finance.