Lost his last election, in 2000, with 28% of the vote.
Petitions November 7th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the second petition is a large one. This brings to a total of nearly 15,000 names from the greater Kamloops area that are on record as asking the government to remove section 745 of the Criminal Code which they say allows murderers to apply for a reduction in the number of years of imprisonment notwithstanding having been tried, convicted and sentenced in a court of law.
I agree with their sentiment. They are asking Parliament to simply eliminate section 745.
Petitions November 7th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops, I want to associate our views with that of the member for Mississauga South who has just presented three petitions. We would certainly go on record as endorsing those three petitions. Perhaps I can ask the same of my hon. friend.
The first petition I wish to present refers to the GST being applied to books. These few hundred petitioners from throughout British Columbia are urging the government to demonstrate support of education and literacy by eliminating the sales tax on reading materials. They also ask Parliament to zero rate books, magazines and newspapers under the GST. Also they say that as the provinces and Ottawa consider harmonizing their sales taxes, reading materials must be zero rated under the provincial sales taxes as well as the GST.
Veterans Affairs November 7th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. He will be aware that in the late thirties hundreds of Canadians volunteered to go to Spain to fight against fascism prior to the second world war.
The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware that there is only a handful of survivors of the Mackenzie-Papineau brigade living today. He will also know that of 54 countries, 52 have recognized them as veterans and they are receiving the benefits of veterans.
Would the Deputy Prime Minister indicate today whether the government, on the eve of Remembrance Day, is at least considering recognizing this handful of veterans from the Spanish civil war who are still alive today and offering them veteran status?
Supply November 6th, 1997
Madam Speaker, my friend's question is a very valid one. I want first of all to say that while there was some enthusiasm on the part of business for a blended sales tax, I think it was also predicated on the fact that they were assuming it would be blended across the country. Increasingly as companies do business across provincial lines and internationally, this adds even more confusion in terms of the business that they do. However, we will set that aside and I will answer my friend's question directly.
Our position as a political party is that we would like to see the eventual phase out of the GST. As we get into a more fiscally realistic era it would make sense.
Tax cuts obviously will become a reality one day. The fairest way would be to eliminate and phase out the GST. The reality is to go from its present level to zero in one fell swoop would be irresponsible. We simply cannot afford that as a country at this point. Therefore, a phase down to us makes more sense.
A phase down of the GST would create a lot more jobs than an across the board corporate tax cut, an across the board personal tax cut. I agree that some selected tax expenditures would be appropriate as well, but the GST phase down would put money in people's pockets immediately and hopefully one day we would see the end of the dreaded GST.
Supply November 6th, 1997
Madam Speaker, my friend makes a very convincing argument. First, I do speak for my party. No, we do not think it is fair. We think the point being made in today's opposition day debate is reasonable. There was an unfairness. The people of Quebec through their government were not treated equitably or fairly. They were not treated in the same fashion as the people in the three Atlantic provinces were treated.
However, he used the term compensation, which is a fair term. I use the term bribe. I do not believe that bribes are appropriate in any circumstance. I do believe that the provinces in Atlantic Canada were bribed quite frankly. It is a cruel and very brutal term but not believing in bribery I cannot say that knowing they were bribed we should probably bribe another province as well.
My friend's point is well taken. There was an injustice. Yes some provinces were treated differently from other provinces. More particularly the province of Quebec was not treated in the same way the other provinces were treated. They were given a bribe and Quebec was not.
Supply November 6th, 1997
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues for this extension. I will conclude my remarks quickly.
I think I have made my case. We can say this is the most dreaded tax in the country. What is more important than what I have said so far is the fact that in my judgment the imposition of the GST and now the blended sales tax, the HST, is the straw that broke the back of the Canadian taxpayer.
People knew that our tax system was unjust, unfair and biased. There is no question about that. People realized that they had to pay taxes in order to get many of the programs we value in our country, but the GST was too much. It pushed people too hard. It broke the will of people to comply with the tax system of our country so the economy started to move underground in a serious way.
The most popular books for about three months of the year on Canada's news stands are on how to beat the tax man, how to evade taxes. Look in this morning's paper. On the financial pages there were a number of seminars on how to move taxes offshore, how to set up an offshore tax haven. These seminars are being held in the capital city. People have lost faith in our tax system so they are finding ways and means to avoid paying taxes.
Although I have seen no empirical evidence I suspect a lot of Canadians these days are not paying the taxes they are actually obligated to pay, in the underground economy or whatever. I am loath to say these are bad citizens because they know our system is so corrupt.
As my friend said earlier, people in Atlantic Canada know the tax system is wrong when there are folks who buy expensive yachts and get tax breaks while they now have to pay extra taxes on their children's winter clothing, on their books and school supplies and on heating fuel. It penalizes the working poor, the jobless and the victims of an economic downturn. They are punished and treated more cruelly under this blended sales tax.
I look at my friends across the way in the Liberal Party. They are nice people but why do they continue to perpetuate this cruel tax on us? Why do they keep telling people they are going to tax children's clothing and books? We would have to look long and hard to find a a country around the world that says, “What we are going to do now is we are going to tax reading material, books”. It is silly and regressive in a knowledge based economy to be taxing literature and books.
I realize my time is up and I do not want to abuse the privilege that my colleagues have given me to conclude my remarks. Suffice it to say that we are not at all keen on the GST. If the government is going to listen to Canadians, listen to what they said on the weekend when they responded to the poll that asked: If there is a tax decrease planned in the next budget, what kind of tax decrease should it be? Overwhelmingly, some 80% of Canadians said to begin to lower the GST. That would put money in every community in Canada tomorrow.
With the money being taken out by increased GST premiums, increased payroll taxes and so on, every dollar we can put back into the small and medium size communities and rural areas of Canada would be helpful, to say nothing of the urban areas. If we reduce that level of the GST tomorrow, it means that every single Canadian citizen would actually have extra money in their pockets to spend. Maybe $1, maybe $5, maybe $20. Most people we know spend the money. They are not putting it into savings accounts. They need it simply to live.
We think that the enthusiastic endorsement of the Government of Quebec on the blended sales tax was wrong. We believe that the bribe to Atlantic Canada was wrong in principle. Therefore we obviously are not supportive of this motion that would simply give another bribe to Quebec to say thank you for joining in this rather odd and peculiar tax scheme.
With that I will say, obviously we are not going to be supporting this initiative put forward by my friends in the Bloc.
Supply November 6th, 1997
Madam Speaker, it is a joy for many of us to have the opportunity today to talk about the most dreaded, hated tax that has ever been levied in the country. I guess we could say we are talking about two dreaded taxes, the harmonized sales tax in certain provinces and the GST which symbolizes most what Canadian taxpayers feel is the ultimate betrayal in recent political history.
I refer back to the election when the Liberals first came to power. I remember local candidate in Kamloops saying that if the Liberals were elected they would abolish the GST. In opposition they had spoken about the GST for many years. They called it a hated tax, a payroll tax, a tax that would destroy jobs, a job killer. Then when they were on the verge of becoming government they said if elected they would scrap the tax, abolish it, do away with it, because it was an evil, bad tax.
They promised that if they were elected the GST would be gone, would be history, would be scrapped, would be abandoned, would be finished, would be abolished.
Many Canadians thought that meant the tax would go away, that the government would actually do away with the dreaded tax. Obviously it was one of the most regressive taxes ever levied in the country because it did not discriminate between the rich and the poor. When a rich person buys snow tires and a winter battery, he or she will pay exactly the same tax as the poor person buying the same items. It does not make any difference. Obviously it is a very regressive tax.
It is fair to say that the citizens were betrayed, misled and lied to. I am not saying any individual lied, but a whole group of individuals lied called Liberal candidates.
After the election the government decided that rather than abolish or scrap the GST as was promised it would harmonize the GST. Harmonize is a good word. We all like to harmonize things. We like to sing in harmony or harmonize a community. The harmonized tax was to blend provincial and federal taxes.
I was shocked when the Government of Quebec acted so enthusiastically. It said that this was a great idea. It wanted to harmonize first. It wanted to be the first to harmonize the GST and the provincial sales tax.
I will let my friends in the Bloc explain why this sort of enthusiastic cheerleader approach was followed. I never understood it. All the evidence I saw at that time, all the evidence I have seen since and all the evidence I have on my desk before me today indicate that taxpayers pay more under the blended tax. The short and long of it is that taxpayers will pay more.
Some might say that might be the NDP analysis. Let us refer to someone other than the New Democratic Party of Canada. What about the dominion bond rating agencies? They thought they should do a very thorough summary, at least in the Atlantic provinces, to find out the impact of the blended sales tax in what they called the maritimes.
I will read two or three of the summary comments. They stated that there would be a net revenue loss for the provinces. That is not surprising. That is what everybody predicted. They stated that consumers would not benefit. They stated that the federal government would benefit because it would make progress toward complete harmonization and the burying of the GST. In other words, hiding the GST.
Probably one of the ultimate goals was to hide the GST so that people would not be reminded every time they bought a good or a service that they were being taxed by the federal government. The idea was to hide it from the consumer, and the blended sales tax would do that.
The analysis of the dominion bond rating agencies goes on for pages and pages. I could quote it until the time I have for my presentation runs out. They said there were two losers: provincial governments and consumers. They said the net benefit for business was negligible if at all. The availability of input tax credits was offset by the imposition of new taxes, as well as taxation on newly generated income.
Who benefits from it? The federal government sees it as a way to get off the hook, but it could not fool most Canadians so easily as presumably the Government of Quebec was fooled. I cannot to this day understand why the Government of Quebec was so enthusiastic to join with the federal government. I will leave that aside. It must have had its reasons.
What about the Atlantic provinces? Interestingly enough, there were Liberal governments in Ottawa, in Newfoundland, in New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia. I guess the prime minister said that they had to help out by joining in on the blended sales tax business to get it started. I guess he said that the Government of Quebec had been conned and they had to be onside to get this thing happening.
The Atlantic premiers thought they would lose money. The prime minister said “What about a bribe? What about a billion dollar bribe? Would that help?” The premiers could probably be bought off for a billion dollars. They could do a lot of politicking with an extra billion dollars, and so they did. The three Liberal premiers of the Atlantic Canadian provinces of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick accepted a billion dollar bribe to force the blended sales tax, the harmonized sales tax, on the citizens of the three provinces.
Then the government went to Prince Edward Island, which also had a Liberal premier, but there was an election on the horizon. In other words, the Liberal Government of Prince Edward Island would have to go to the people soon. Its members said that they could never sell it, that they did not have time to brainwash the people of Prince Edward Island, that they could never con them or fool them into believing it was good for them.
The evidence was mounting by the day. The Liberal Premier of Prince Edward Island said they could not be bought, could not be bribed, and would not be part of it. Indeed it is not a part of it to this day. Now there is a Conservative Premier of Prince Edward Island. The last thing he will try to do is jam the blended sales tax down the throats of the people of Prince Edward Island. The people of Prince Edward Island know what it will do to them.
What will it do? The Standing Committee on Finance finished a tour of Atlantic Canada. We went to all the capital cities. We talked to people about the economic and fiscal situation of Canada. A number of them indicated that the fact the average family in Atlantic Canada had to pay the blended sales tax meant the average family was paying out as much as $600 more a year in taxes.
My friends across the way on the Liberal benches should be hanging their heads in shame, running out the back door and having a coffee. The president of Noranda in his speech the other day in Halifax indicated that 52% of working Canadians make less than $20,000 a year in income. Those are working Canadians. We know that unfortunately a large number of people in Atlantic Canada do not have jobs period. If the average working family is making less than $20,000, imagine the devastating inhuman impact an increase in taxes of $600 a year would mean to those families. It means necessities have to be abandoned.
One of the most troubling days of my life as an elected representative was the day I went into an elementary Christian school in my constituency. We talked about the life of an MP and what we did, that part of the job was to raise money to do good works. That was the kind of theme I was trying to develop. I asked if there were any questions. A little girl in grade four or five said “Every Saturday my mom and I go to the bookstore to buy books about Jesus. I have to pay a tax on these books. I even have to pay a tax on my Bible”.
I have 20 minutes, Madam Speaker, and I have not spoken for 20 minutes.
The little girl felt it was unjust that she was paying the GST on her religious story books for Sunday school and on the Bible. She asked me to explain why we were doing this to her. I could not explain. I did not want to say that the Liberals were cruel or that they had imposed this regressive tax because I do not think it is fair for a young child to hear that kind of message. I said that sometimes governments just do odd and silly things, inappropriate things. Many other terms were on my lips at that time but I was in a Christian school—
Petitions November 5th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, this is a request by petitioners to dedicate the federal excise tax on gasoline, or at least a part of it, to rehabilitate Canada's crumbling highway system, again a dedicated tax for highway construction.
Petitions November 5th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, another set of petitioners are concerned about the unfair tax system in Canada presently.
They point out that it is unjust, unfair, biased and a disaster, to put it mildly. They consider it to be so haywire that it needs a complete overhaul.
They call for a cost benefit analysis for every tax exemption to ensure, whatever the cost is, that the people of Canada, in particular the taxpayers of Canada, are getting the best bang for their dollar.
Petitions November 5th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I have a whole list of truckers from the Kamloops constituency.
They call upon parliament to develop a national highway system upgrading program, using infrastructure money to make sure Canada's highway system is in first rate condition from coast to coast to coast.