George Baker

[Excise Tax Act, December 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I can certainly do that. I will quote from the medicare section. The Reform Party says: "The original medicare model is not only intolerably expensive, it is undesirable".

What do we have here? We have the opposition parties-and of course we cannot leave out the Bloc. The Bloc is on the record as supporting any tax forgiveness for wealthy people as long as they travel to the United States. It is on the record as being in favour of doing away with any double taxation on estate taxes. That only deals with people who make over $600,000 a year. That is the Bloc for you.

Here we have the opposition parties saying no to the Government of Canada. They say they want more taxes on ordinary people. They want to do away with medicare. They want to do away with the Canada pension plan. They say they have a better way.

What is their better way? The Tories and the Reform Party say they want to get there faster. Where? They want to eliminate the deficit faster. That is their policy. Where are we today under this Minister of Finance? Which country in the industrialized, democratic world has the best record for economic growth this year and next year according to the OECD and the IMF? It is Canada.

The most recent figures are out. Which nation of the G-7 has this year the best record with the deficit and the GDP ratio? This new statement is from the IMF and the OECD made up of 28 nations, economists that hold their meetings in Paris and decide on those macro economic questions. Is it Germany, Britain, Japan, Italy, the United States?

[Excise Tax Act, December 10th, 1996]

The hon. member for Calgary Centre is saying: "Be accurate. Read something from it".

Here are some of the recommendations of the Reform Party. On December 3 the hon. member for Calgary Centre said: "Make it the broadest possible tax. Let us tax everything: groceries, prescription drugs". Tax everything.

[Excise Tax Act, December 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I was not intending to speak but since you called my riding I certainly have a few words to say.

The question before the House is whether the Minister of Finance, who is probably one of the best finance ministers that Canada has ever seen, who has the best record of any finance minister Canada has ever seen-I had better be careful-with the exception of the gentleman who became the finance minister in the fall of 1977. The boss became finance minister at that point. There is one exception.

What we have is the rational legislation of the great Minister of Finance and the irrational logic of all the opposition parties. It is what separates Liberals from Reform and Tory and Bloc members. Imagine discussing a bill in this Chamber and having the official opposition advocate that the GST should be changed so that it includes food and prescription drugs. Just imagine that.

Reformers stand in this Chamber and say: "We do not like what the Liberals are doing. We would like to have the tax extended to include food and prescription drugs", as the representative for the Reform Party stated in the House with respect to this bill.

Imagine the transport critic for the second party in opposition, who is just like the Tories, advocating a tax on fuel to improve the roads. Imagine that. An increase in the excise tax is being recommended by the opposition parties.

The finance minister has the best record in Canadian history, with the small exception of the minister of finance in the fall of 1977; the boss. The finance minister is saying to the opposition parties: "No, we cannot afford to tax people more on fuel and on gasoline, as the opposition parties are suggesting".

Not only that, they are also advocating helping the rich out a bit more. They suggested that our first priority should be to remove the taxes on jewellery. That was their priority yesterday in this Chamber.

They want to do away with the Canada pension plan. The Reform Party is exactly like the Tory Party. At the Tory convention two months ago they said: "Let us get rid of the Canada pension plan totally".

One other thing distinguishes the Liberals from the Tories and the Reformers. The Tories' policy meeting passed a resolution to experiment with medicare. That is exactly the same policy as the Reform Party of Canada. The policy statement of the Reform Party, its budget, which I always keep here in my desk, but I am not allowed to show it-

[Fisheries Act, December 6th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know. I did not see anything about dish water or anything like that in the legislation. I have sifted through it for about 15 minutes. I certainly do not see anything there. I suppose the hon. member is talking about the powers that are given to tribunals on each coast.

However, we have not heard the other side of that argument. Under this legislation some decisions are put directly in the hands of those people who are affected by the policies of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I do not see anything wrong with that. The government should have done that a long time ago.

Overriding all of that is the point that the government is being criticized by many nations today because of this legislation, as per the Canadian Press articles.

This is a great day for Canadian fishermen because the government is finally putting its foot down, putting some teeth in the legislation. The Reform Party and the Bloc should be standing up and saying: "This is a great day. We are going to just cut off debate on this and put it through in one day".

[Fisheries Act, December 6th, 1996]

That is right. He is presently the governor general. In fact some fishermen have commented that they wish that orders in council would actually come from the governor general because they appreciated those orders so much when he was the fisheries minister.

That piece of legislation unilaterally declared a 200 mile exclusive fishing zone in Canada. That is not the same as the exclusive economic zones, the EEZs, in other nations of the world. This was a unilateral action by Canada to save the fishing resource. That was in 1977.

When was the next piece of legislation that really broke new territory on behalf of the fishery in Canada? From 1977 until 1996 we had 10 years of Tory rule and not one piece of legislation was passed by this Chamber which we could call a historic piece of legislation.

Then we come to the year 1996. Again under a Liberal administration, this time under the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans who is the member from the historic riding of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception, legislation was brought in to do what the other nations have done. Instead of the exclusive fishing zone, we have declared an exclusive economic zone for Canada so that Canada can be a

part of the team of nations around the world that are trying to save the fisheries. We would have identical legislation.

Today this bill is truly a historic piece of legislation. Why is that? It is for the very reason that countries in Europe do not like the legislation. It is for the very reason that some countries in Europe, and yes the United States and quite a few other countries are objecting to this bill. The reason is that it gives the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans unusual powers to seize foreign fishing vessels which are fishing illegally, according to what the Canadian government is declaring, on the high seas adjacent to Canada's territorial zone.

When the opposition parties complain and say that this bill gives the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans too much power, they have to realize that we either have to do it or we do not do it. We have to give the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans the power to do things which are unusual under international law in order to save the fishery of Canada.

In Europe they are saying there are 14 articles which have extraterritorial effects. I have looked through this bill in the last 15 minutes trying to find those articles. I found some of them. One of the articles for example will allow the government in the future when an offence has been committed to seize a vessel that is owned by the same company that owned the vessel that committed the offence.

Let us say we had a fishing nation which violated the rules on bycatch in the NAFO zone which the hon. member was talking about.

What is a bycatch? A fisherman once defined it as a catch you accidentally catch when you're trying to catch another catch. It means that some fishermen use the bycatch rule of 10 per cent to catch more than 10 per cent of what they are allowed to catch.

Suppose the records of that vessel reach Canada after the fact. The vessel is gone. The skipper probably will not be seen in Canadian waters again and no charges under the present law can be brought against the company that owned the vessel. Under this bill Canada can now seize a vessel that belongs to the same company from the same foreign nation that committed the offence to satisfy a judgment.

An internal audit was done when the Tories were in power in 1985. It showed many cases of bribery, of money being exchanged, money being put in people's mailboxes to try to buy influence with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans by these foreign captains. A fisheries officials in one case found $25,000 in a mailbox. He immediately reported it to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Fisheries and Oceans knew who did it but they could not charge that fishing captain because he did not show up in Canadian waters again.

Under this legislation DFO will now be able to seize another vessel that belongs to that company from the foreign nation to satisfy the judgment.

I do not know the entire 14 articles to which the European Union is objecting, but one to which it is objecting is this. Under the bill the Canadian government will be able to bring charges against a stateless vessel on the high seas that is in a management zone of the northwest fishing organization to which the hon. member from the Bloc referred a few moments ago.

If a vessel from the United States of American-and we have them-constantly violates the fishing agreements entered into with countries that belong to the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, charges cannot be brought against the American vessel because the U.S. does not belong to the organization. Under this bill we will be able to do that. There is a whole section on stateless vessels.

These are some of the things that the Bloc and Reform Party should be standing up and saying: "What a marvellous piece of legislation. Canada will be the first nation in the world to put some real teeth into enforcement to try to save the fishery" because the fishery needs to be saved. I think everybody would agree with that.

In the past, prior to 1993, Tory governments gave quotas to foreign nations. In the fall of 1979 Russia received a quota of 100,000 tonnes of capelin, the food of the cod fish. That Tory administration gave it a 100,000 tonne quota for 1980, thereby giving the Russians a higher quota of capelin than the entire Canadian fleet has ever caught in its entire history and then you wonder what happened to the fishery.

In 1985, 1986 and 1987 when fishermen were telling the politicians that there was a problem in the fishery the administration in power here in Ottawa continued to give out foreign licences. The Tories turned their backs and looked the other way when all the dragging was going on. They even encouraged it.

The hon. member from the Bloc represents an area of Quebec that has the best spawning area in the world for mackerel. The Tory administration actually gave Norway and Sweden licences for mackerel in Canadian waters which would stop the mackerel on their way to the spawning grounds at the end of May.

The Tory government, in the mid to latter part of the 1980s, gave licences to Cuba, Japan, Russia, to five fleets to catch another food of the cod, the squid, off the province of Nova Scotia. Can anyone imagine that?

For the Government of Canada to constantly say that it does not know if it is going to harm the cod fishery if it gives licences for fishing the food of the cod, it should know that the squid that were once in abundance on the coast of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, have disappeared. Why did they disappear? It was not Canadians who made them disappear. It was not Canadians who made the capelin disappear either.

They disappeared because of the foreign nations fishing in Canadian waters with licences given by the Tory administration in Ottawa. The squid come up in a narrow line. They are born in Florida, live for only one year and then go back. They know where to go. They die in Florida at the end of the year. However, the circle they make goes up the east coast of Canada in a thin line. Fishermen refer to it as the trans-Canada highway of squid.

Lo and behold, the previous Tory government gave licences to the Japanese, the Cubans and the Russians to block that passage of squid every single year in the 1980s. That is why we had no squid in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland.

As well, the Tories gave licences for all the fish we do not even think about here like argentine. They also gave licenses for another fish, a scrawny thing with a big swelled head, which reminds me of some of the politicians across the way. They gave licences for every species of fish in our waters and they gave them to foreigners.

Today these opposition parties should be standing up and congratulating the government by saying that this is the best news they have heard since the depletion of the cod fishery. Perhaps it is the single best piece of legislation that could ever be brought before the House of Commons, to be able to arrest stateless vessels that fly no flags and vessels on what is called the high seas outside of Canada's zone.

We need legislation to be able to govern what happens on the high seas, just as we need it when it comes to the attachment of wages act. Certain people in our society are excluded from the attachment of their wages. One of them is somebody who is on the high seas or somebody who is a seaman and another one is somebody in a foreign embassy. However, the government is bringing in legislation so that child support payments and so on can be retrieved from these people. Here is another piece of legislation which will grant the government powers on the high seas.

To conclude, the Bloc is against it, the Reform is against it, the NDP is against it and the Tories are against it. All of these nations quoted by Canadian Press are against it because those nations do not want to have their gigantic, huge draggers stopped around the Canadian coastline from ruining our fishery.

It is a historic day and a historic piece of legislation. Once again it has been brought in by a Liberal administration, the third such piece of legislation we have had in the past 20 years.

[Fisheries Act, December 6th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the Bloc and the Reform Party, I feel compelled to say at least a few words about this bill.

The Bloc does not like the bill. The Reform Party does not like the bill. The Tories do not like the bill and the NDP does not like it. There must be something terribly right about this bill if those political parties are saying they do not like it.

It is not just those political parties which do not like the bill. It is also making international news this morning in the European press. The reason is that the European Union is claiming now that it is not going to sign a co-operation agreement with Canada because according to this story that is in the papers from Canadian Press: "According to judicial services"-now that is in the European Union-"there will be more than 14 articles with extraterritorial effects in the fisheries bill presently before the House of Commons".

Let us get this straight. The Bloc, the Reform Party, the Tories and the NDP do not like the bill. There are countries around the world that do not like the bill. Therefore one has to ask the question: What is in the bill that all of those people do not like? I will tell the House what it is.

This bill before the House today is a historic piece of legislation. It is one of the best pieces of legislation ever to be brought before the Parliament of Canada. The first historic piece of legislation brought before the Canadian House of Commons was in 1977 and the fisheries minister at the time was also a Liberal, the hon. Romeo Leblanc. A lot of people today still talk about that fisheries minister as being such a great minister. He brought in a piece of legislation that created an exclusive fishing zone in Canada.

[Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, Bloc members in this Chamber are on the record of being in favour of the banks' never being restricted. As members of the finance committee they fell over backwards, tripped over themselves, bent over backwards and said come on with some more tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this country as proposed by the Senate. The hon. member was at the finance committee. On the bifurcation of trademarks, imagine a 50 per cent reduction to American companies doing business in Canada. Why did Bloc members put forward that position? I will refresh their memories. They said "you know, we have a great many people who are interested and we are in favour of anything that involves tax reductions for the biggest corporations in this country as long as they are from the United States".

There were three separate tax measures in Bill S-9 and this hon. member stood up in this Chamber and said "come on, let's have some more tax breaks for the biggest corporations in this country".

[Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 1996]

Garbage. I am not supposed to show the taxpayers budget. There it is.

Notice that in their conventions the Tories joined Reformers in saying that the Canada pension plan should be privatized so that people can put money in the bank and then draw their own interest from it. They could have their own plans, as the Government of Canada could afford neither the Canada pension plan nor medicare.

With a record like that, of increasing payroll taxes, of demanding a tax on food and prescription drugs, of doing away with medicare and the Canada pension plan, is it any wonder that the Tories were wiped out and the Reform Party is headed toward a disaster in this next election along with the Bloc?

[Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I was going to go on to something else but the hon. member wants me to quote some more. Let me go back to the situation where they want to drive up the payroll taxes in Canada, where they want to tax food, where they want to tax prescription drugs. We will leave that for a moment and we will go to where they are suggesting they want to save money.

Now there is undoubtedly a way of reducing taxes if you save money. How do they propose to save money? The Reform Party of Canada matches the Tory Party of Canada. In their policy statements, both parties tell the Canadian people how they are going to raise some revenues, not just by taxing food and prescription drugs but also in all of their policy statements they are going to attack medicare.

For the record, they are going to say as they do here that medicare is not only intolerably expensive, it is undesirable.

[Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 1996]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. In other words, I will make sure I quote from it but I certainly will not show it so that anybody will know what I am quoting from.

Here is what the Reform wants to do with payroll taxes. Apart from on page 45 "having a benefit structure requiring two weeks of work for one week of benefits" here is what the Reform says. It says that it wants to "ensure that savings from reform of UI translate into deficit elimination". The Reform Party recommends "the establishment of a permanent reserve fund for UI until the budget is balanced. Funds from this reserve would be applied against the deficit. After the budget was balanced this fund would

remain to balance revenue and expenditure fluctuations under UI throughout the economic cycle".

It goes on to say: "Any additional savings from the restructuring of UI after the deficit has been satisfied" after this huge fund has built up, then Reform says: "savings will be passed on to employees and employers in the form of a reduction".

Imagine using unemployment insurance premiums not only to completely retire the deficit, not only to satisfy the debt of this country but then to build up an additional fund and somewhere down the road they are going to pass along a saving to an employer or an employee.

A tax is a tax. A tax is a tax is a tax. If it is on the employer, if it is on the employee, a tax is a tax is a tax. Basically what we have here are the opposition parties in this Chamber who do not like the record of this Liberal administration. No-