Nelson Riis

[Petitions, February 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the first petition I have the honour to present is from a number of petitioners from various communities throughout British Columbia who are concerned about their future retirement. These are people who are not yet at the retirement age but who are concerned about what they are hearing about the government's intention to change the pension system. They are simply asking that a thorough review is done which I understand is now basically in the works.

[Petitions, February 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36. The petitioners point out that other countries use their taxes in a very creative way. Ireland requires no income tax from artists in an effort to promote the artistic community in that country. In Taiwan teachers pay no income tax. Again this indicates the importance placed on teachers and young children.

They suggest that Canada should undertake changes to its tax system in order to encourage certain sectors. They point out the small business sector and those people who have launched self-conducting businesses, people running businesses on their own, home based businesses and that sort of thing.

I support the point they are making here, that tax reform is highly overdue.

[Banking, February 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, not sufficient funds is how the banks describe their inability to compete globally. They say that size matters and that is how they justify this monster merger proposal. Many financial analysts say today that the fixation with size is absurd. Will the minister reject this monster merger and stamp it NSF, no such fixation?

[Banking, February 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. I am sure he will agree with me when I say that many young Canadians concerned about their future were driven to occupy one of the chartered banks last weeks, banks that show little concern for the well-being of our young people. In consideration of their future, will the Minister of Finance stamp the monster merger as NSF and tell the banks that the deal has no serious future in Canada?

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, February 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. friend's response to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. The question I would put to my hon. friend is, was it the Conservative government which actually introduced cuts to the transfer payments which had they continued as planned would have meant that eventually there would be no cash transfers to the provinces for health care?

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, February 2nd, 1998]

My friends across the way say shame, and so they should.

On the weekend I was walking up a street in Kamloops when a fellow ran out of a little Chinese restaurant and said “Mr. Riis, come and have a tea with my friend and I” I said I would be glad to. We went in and poured out some Chinese tea; it was just after Chinese new year.

He said “I want you to explain why the government has done what it has to me”. I said “What is that?” He told me his name was Russell and his friend's name was Gary. They were probably in their mid-forties. They had both lost their families through divorce and their kids were living with their mothers. They were living on their own and were both on disability pensions of some kind. They were former drivers of Greyhound buses before it was changed. They had lost their jobs, were on disability pensions and were both living on just under $800 a month.

They asked “How can a family live on $800 a month?” How could they as individuals live on $800 a month? They said “When you get back to Ottawa ask the Minister of Finance that question”. Rhetorically I am asking the Minister of Finance to explain to Canadians who are left with $800 a month to live on how he would recommend they do that.

It is impossible to live a life of dignity with an income of $800 a month. It is impossible to provide adequately for oneself or one's family on $800 month. Yet that is what these two individuals, as an example of tens of thousands of others, are forced to do these days.

When Reform Party members say that transfer payments should be cut back even more I wonder what planet these folks are living on. Do they actually mean we should be cutting more transfers to provincial governments for health care, education and social programs? Perhaps my friends will answer that later today.

Do they actually think we should cut more to the Medical Research Council? Basically 85% of the requests for funding for pure research are now simply rejected. Of the few funded, the funding accounts for less than 75% of the funds required to do the job.

What is happening is that we have a brain drain. Some of our best scientists in the medical field feel they have to go elsewhere if they want to continue their careers as scientists and researchers. This is pure science that will lead inevitably not only to better health and health opportunities for Canadians but to jobs in Canada. Pure science inevitably leads then to further research and development that results in jobs being created, businesses being struck and so on.

The government has drastically cut that area back and members of the Reform Party are saying that it should be cut even more. This scalpel knife approach to trying to do something for the people of Canada has to come to an end.

Then Reformers talk about needing more tax cuts. I listened carefully to what my friends in the Reform Party suggested. They said that people who made money by capital gains should get a better deal and should not be taxed as much on their capital gains. I guess they are really saying that we should tax working people but if someone makes money in the stock market or speculates on real estate they should get a tax break. It is an interesting view but I certainly do not share it.

If we are to give a tax break to Canadians, which I feel is overdue, let us give a tax break that will benefit everybody and not just the people who receive incomes from capital gains. For example, let us cut back on the GST. It was introduced because we had a deficit problem. Now that we do not have a deficit problem, presumably, we should start cutting back on the GST, which would put money into the pockets of Canadians the next day. If Canadians had extra money in their pockets they would go out and spend that money, which at the same time would assist the local neighbourhood economy, increase economic development and create jobs.

If we are to have a tax cut, let us have a tax cut that will actually result in some action as opposed to assisting people who speculate on the stock market or in land.

Today when we go into a bookstore the most popular books we see are those advising us on how to avoid paying taxes. Canadians know that our tax system is corrupt. It is blatantly unfair. It is unjust. It is biased. Some people do not pay any tax and other people pay more than they should. Big corporations are not paying what they should and small businesses are paying more than they should.

Let us get back to building integrity into our tax system rather than having 464 pages of legislation dealing with tax tinkering. Will that restore confidence in our tax system? No, it will not. It will make it more convoluted, more complex and more biased.

We have to reform our tax system. We have to sit down and look at every tax exemption on the books and ask one fundamental question: Is it in the best interests of Canada? Most tax exemptions and loopholes will not be viewed as beneficial to Canadians generally and therefore should be scrapped. Those which make sense should be kept.

Let us get away from simply tinkering year after year with a word, deleting a word or adding a phrase to an already complicated system. It is so complex it is beyond comprehension.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, February 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in wishing you a Happy New Year. It is great to be back after the recess, and we are back right into it with this tax bill, Bill C-28. Mr. Speaker, I suspect that over the holidays you read this bill carefully just as the rest of us did. It is a very complicated bill but a very important one which sends an interesting signal.

I listened with interest to my friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance when he made his presentation today on Bill C-28. He began with an interesting comment. He said that Bill C-28 is being introduced today under the umbrella of a prosperous, dynamic and strong economy. I wonder where he has been in the last six or seven weeks. He obviously has not been in Canada but in some other country.

Just today the financial pages talk about how the increasing interest rates will cut off any hint of economic recovery. The papers talk about the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Canada. They point out that 42% of young families today are living in poverty. Think of that. As Parliament resumes its work today, 42% of young families in Canada are starting out their lives in poverty. Two out of five young families start their lives out in poverty. The papers say that 400,000 young people in Canada do not even have jobs period. Many more have two or three crummy part time jobs as they try to make a go of it but there are 400,000 young people without jobs at all.

Today's papers talk about the student debt load. They say that for those students who are in debt, which is now about half of all students, the average debt load at the end of this year will be about $25,000. What a wonderful way to start off in life. You graduate, you seek out a job to begin your career and the folks in the program who are here with us today will know what I am talking about. A $25,000 debt load is a huge albatross. It is like walking around with a big rock on your shoulders the minute you step out into the workforce.

The papers go on to tell us that the unemployment rate is about 9%. This is the 88th consecutive month that the rate has been 9% or worse. The papers talk about the dollar which is at historic lows, a reflection of what other people think of Canada in real terms. They want to get their money out of here and buy American dollars. They look around and say that this does not look too good. Our dollar is at historic lows.

Bankruptcies are now running at just under 10,000 a month. These are bankruptcies, when all else fails and you have to declare bankruptcy. There are 10,000 a month, year after year, month after month.

Then there is this whole merger mania. I noticed that not too many people talked about the merger mania that has taken over. Our two great big banks want to become one monster mega bank. This is going to be helpful to Canadian consumers and the small business entrepreneurs?

When my friendly parliamentary secretary says the economy is strong, I wonder where the hell he has been. He sure has not been in this country. He is obviously talking of some foreign country and I am not sure which one. He is on the finance committee as have been the other speakers.

When the finance committee toured Canada prior to Christmas, we did not hear glory reports from people about the strong economy. We heard stories of misery and of pain. There were people before those very formal hearings with tears running down their faces because they had to describe the kind of torment they were living in trying to raise their families with no jobs and no hope of a job.

We in this place should be embarrassed. All of us should be standing up and saying we are embarrassed that we have allowed the economy of the strongest most dynamic country in the world to end up in this bloody mess. For the minister to say it is great news, that everything is fine reminds me of the worst drunk, the person who suffers from mega alcoholism and tells people time and time again “I do not have drinking problem”. We have some serious problems.

As my leader said the other day, it is sort of like a

Titanic economy. Remember when the old Titanic

went down, two-thirds of all those folks in first class passage got off in lifeboats. They got preferential treatment and they did okay. But two-thirds of the people who were in the steerage compartments were actually locked down below so they could not get to the deck. They drowned. They were not rescued.

It is a

Titanic

economy. Some people are doing very well naturally. I can imagine how Mr. Matthew Barrett of the Bank of Montreal is feeling these days. He has pulled off the con of a lifetime. He has told the Minister of Finance “I do not care, I know you will cave in”. He knows full well that in spite of all the talk the Minister of Finance is doing about being concerned about this and that and we should feel challenged by this, the government will cave in and will give those banks the old nod. After all, it just signed the WTO financial agreement that facilitates this process. It facilitates the merger takeover business.

I want to start off my comments today on Bill C-28 by saying we are not enthusiastic about this legislation. I am not going to stand here and say there is nothing good in this legislation. Some provisions are very helpful to a lot of Canadian families.

For example there are the changes to the RESP to assist families to provide for their children's education. It does reflect the fact that the present government has abandoned much of its traditional support for education. We have been encouraged by some recent comments, but by and large it reflects the fact that the government has backed out of funding universities and colleges and the research facilities across this country, as has been done in the past. We now have simply transferred our debt issue into the hands of those families trying to afford their children's education.

It is easy to solve the debt load, to stand up and say we are almost deficit free, that we have won this war against the deficit when it is simply handed off to students so they have $25,000 in debt. It is handed off to our families, to the jobless, to the provinces so they have to shut down provincial health care systems and so on. It is easy, but have we really solved the thing? That is the question. RESP is a good step but it reflects the government's abandonment of education to a certain extent.

Increasing the encouragement for charitable giving is a good step. But let us also acknowledge the fact that again the government has essentially abandoned huge sectors of the economy that traditionally have looked to the federal government for leadership and for support. I am thinking particularly of the cultural industry or the granting agencies like the Medical Research Council. They have traditionally expected that Canada would provide global leadership on things like supporting pure research in those areas. This has not only a job benefit but it encourages those people who are in those fields to stay in Canada and work for future generations.

The rules relating to transfer of pricing are long overdue and are a positive step. The tax loss transfers from crown corporations will be helpful in building more fairness into the system. The minor support for the folks who are disabled is a good step.

The real irritant in the legislation is the CHST mentioned by the parliamentary secretary, the transfer payments for health care and education. Somehow in his convoluted mumbo-jumbo he tried to give the impression that the government was actually increasing spending and support in the areas of education and health care.

That is a bit like going down the street and being mugged. The robber sticks you up and says “Hand over your money”. You hand over $100 which is all you have in your wallet. Then he asks where you are from and you say “Alberta”. He says “Shucks, you have to get back there. Here is 10 bucks back for your bus fare”. You are supposed to be delighted that the robber gave you 10 bucks after stealing 100 from you.

That is what these folks have done. They have taken billions and billions and billions of dollars out of the transfers to provinces for health care and education and now say they will establish a floor of $12.5 billion. Somehow we are supposed to be joyful at the news. It is a bit of a con job, a smokescreen, a magic act that I do not think anyone will believe. I could not believe my hon. friend actually had the courage to say it but he did.

Let us be clear that after years of cutting, cutting and cutting, almost to the point of destroying our a universal health care system, the government is putting on a ceiling. Every cloud has a silver lining. If there is a good side to the issue I suppose it is the fact that the government has at least put a bottom line on cash transfers. We remember the way it was going, that in a few years there would be no cash transfers and the federal government would not have any leverage at all in terms of national standards for health care.

There is an element of encouragement here. At least there will be a bottom line below which we will not go in terms of transfers to the provinces for health care. This would be helpful in the future to allow us to ensure once again that we do not have a patchwork health care system across the country and that health care is the same from coast to coast. Under the present system that would not take place.

The parliamentary secretary said we had to remember that with tax points revenues will grow as the economy grows. The economy will grow stronger in some parts of Canada than it will in others. That means our patchwork quilt health care system will be emphasized. It will be better in some provinces where there will be better access to health care compared to other provinces.

That is not what Canada is all about. That is not what a country is all about. We do not want a different health care system between the provinces and the territories. We have to guard against that.

I quote from someone with whom we are all extremely familiar, Mr. Tom Kent, a senior policy aid to Lester Pearson when he was in opposition and later when he became prime minister. He was really the inspiration and brains behind the federal Liberal Party's shift toward a more active role in social policies in the 1960s. He was one of the major proponents of the health care system that distinguishes our country from the United States and from most countries in the world by having the kind of health care system we have developed over the years.

What did he have to say? Tom Kent made a blistering critique of the Liberal government's betrayal of medicare. It went on and on and on. He accused the federal government of putting medicare at a crucial crossroads by neglecting to properly fund it. The slashing of transfer payments for provincial social programs like medicare from $19.3 billion annually down to now $12.5 billion has placed medicare at a crucial crossroads.

Never before has it been attacked by such a senior and well respected person from Liberal history. He went on at some length. I could quote at some length all the comments he made the other day.

Tom Kent, a person we all respect for his sophistication, knowledge, views and dedication to the country, the health care system and the Liberal Party, publicly criticized the Liberal government of today by saying that what it was doing was absolutely wrong. He said that hopefully this would stimulate a debate which would move the Liberal Party back toward a more social reformist stance. Then he would be very delighted.

Let us get the facts on the table. When the government says that it is restoring funding for health care, we are a long way from what it needs to be. We have to take strong steps in that direction.

I want to comment on the speeches made by the Reform Party members who have spoken on the legislation. It should change its name to the party of surgeons because it loves cuts. It wants to cut even more. I cannot imagine that anyone who has talked to a citizen in the last week would say that we need more cuts to social programs or that we need to cut back even more.

[Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, December 11th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, thank you to my colleagues for agreeing to seeing that this first hour of debate will continue after hearing from the various political parties on Motion No. 75.

The motion has been put and the general intent has been indicated. Basically, it is to find an avenue to recognize those men and women who were part of the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion.

Who were these people? In response, the Mac-Paps as they were often referred to, were a unit of some 1,300 volunteer soldiers from all parts of Canada who banded together to go abroad to fight the enemies of democracy, the fascist powers of Europe.

It was 1936 when the Spanish Civil War began, when the forces of Franco overthrew Spain's democratically elected republican government. With the help of support from Nazi Germany and from fascist Italy, the Spanish Civil War was under way.

People from Canada became aware of this conflict. They became aware of the threat of fascism and the rise of Nazi Germany. They felt that this was the beginning of what was to be an eventual major conflict in the free world, a conflict of free democratic voices against those of fascism.

The call went out. Volunteers from coast to coast in Canada joined after information rallies and so on and left Canada. They left their families, left their jobs, left their communities to fight in a foreign country against what they felt was a threat to freedom and a threat to democracy.

It was 1936. At the time the government of the day passed legislation called the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1936. This act made volunteers who fought in foreign wars criminals. One would have to know Canadian history to acknowledge that at the time there were many people within the Government of Canada who were somewhat sympathetic in particular to the rise of Hitler in Germany.

The history books will reveal that many political leaders in Canada thought the rise of fascism was quite fashionable and quite acceptable. As a matter of fact, in many of the major cities of Canada fascism was very popular. It was not uncommon to find fascist organizations organizing fascist meetings with a great deal of popular support throughout the country.

The Foreign Enlistment Act was passed in 1936 which made it illegal for volunteers to fight on the side of democracy and freedom in the Spanish Civil War. In spite of that, 1,300 people volunteered to go. They felt they had to defy their government in an effort to stand up for justice and what was right in this world.

It is fair to say now with the benefit of hindsight that the Spanish Civil War in many ways was the dress rehearsal for the second world war. It was an early test of the resolve of the free world to make a stand against those forces wishing to crush democracy. We know now in retrospect that certainly was the case. The forces of fascism throughout Europe rose up shortly thereafter and it was just a matter of time before Canadians were involved in fighting fascism in a variety of ways and on a variety of fronts.

We read these days about the conflict, about the incredible heroism, the unbelievable personal sacrifices Canadians made when they went to fight in this war. They often fought with outmoded weapons and in some cases fought with no weapons at all. They were fighting against the Luftwaffe. The Nazi Luftwaffe would sweep over Franco's Spain and bomb the units that were fighting on behalf of the republic. Mussolini sent his naval forces and so on to bombard the cities and bombard the trenches where the freedom fighters were fighting.

It was an incredibly bloody conflict. It was in 1936 and it is fair to say it was before any sort of modern medical application was available on the fronts of war.

Interestingly enough, one of the Canadians who distinguished himself, and there were many Canadians, was Dr. Norman Bethune. He revolutionized battlefield blood transfusions which saved the lives of countless of his fellow volunteers and ever since, future generations of soldiers fighting in war. It was then that Norman Bethune almost became a legend in his own time. He travelled from coast to coast to raise support for the republican forces, to raise finances and to encourage people to enlist. He almost became a cult figure among those people who were fighting for freedom and democracy.

The casualty rate was staggering. The suffering was unbelievable. Many of my colleagues in the House of Commons are well aware of the nature of those battles. They are documented in a number of ways. A number of my colleagues are scholars in this area so I will not elaborate at this point. I know we will hear others talk about the casualties of the Spanish Civil War and the recognition that one-quarter of all of the Canadian volunteers were killed or presumed dead by 1939.

One of the darker sides of the issue was that when many of the Mac-Paps who survived the Spanish Civil War and later sought to enlist in our armed forces to continue the fight against fascism in Europe and elsewhere, they were turned away for being politically unreliable individuals. They were identified by government and by the RCMP as being suspect. Their heroic contributions were overwhelmed by the fact that they actually experienced outright discrimination when they returned home to Canada.

The people who prized freedom and democracy acknowledged their contribution and acknowledge that these folks were fighting for the things that have made our country great. Nevertheless they were treated terribly by those in power and influence at the time. They were subjected to police surveillance because of their suspected political connections and political aspirations.

Today in Canada there is only a handful of these survivors left. Remember that this was in 1936. They were young people at the time. Some were not necessarily that young. Almost all of them have passed away regretful that their contribution to the fight against fascism was never acknowledged, recognized or appreciated in a formal way by the Government of Canada and by other levels of government.

Not long ago a memorial was erected at Queen's Park in Toronto on the lawns of parliament in recognition of their contribution. As we speak, funds are being raised in the city of Vancouver to erect a statue to acknowledge the contribution these individuals made in the fight against fascism and the rise of Nazi Germany.

We have not done anything as a federal presence. As a country we have not acknowledged the fact that these folks made a contribution that we have later acknowledged and became involved directly, the conflict now known as the second world war.

My motion is seconded by a number of colleagues from various political parties. It simply asks that the matter be referred to the appropriate committee of the House for study. Whether it is to give full veterans benefits to the survivors, of which there are probably not more than 40; whether it is to recognize the contribution these individuals made or some other form of recognition and support at this twilight time in their lives, we are open to whatever initiative would be appropriate.

Rather than seal off this issue with a negative speech today, we should at least keep it open and keep a dialogue happening between ourselves as political parties and as elected representatives to find some acceptable way to recognize the tremendous sacrifices and the tremendous contribution made by the individuals called the Mac-Paps against the rise of Nazism.

We owe it to these individuals. There are probably no more than 40 left in all of Canada. Therefore the cost is infinitesimal. I think it would be appropriate to seek some method of saying thanks to the people who led the way in our Canadian fight against fascism and their fight for freedom and democracy.

[Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, December 11th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, there have been discussions among all the parties. I think you will find unanimous consent that after a representative from each of the political parties has spoken to this motion that we will call it a full hour of debate.

[Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, December 11th, 1997]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of giving to the members of the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion and other Canadians who fought with Spanish Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939, the status of veterans under the federal legislation and making them eligible for veterans' pensions and benefits.

Madam Speaker, before I begin my remarks there have been discussions among the various parties. I would seek unanimous consent to call it one hour of completed debate after representatives from all the political parties represented here tonight who wish to speak to this motion have had a chance to speak.