Charles Caccia

[Law Of The Sea Convention, April 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The law of the sea convention is designed to protect the world's fisheries and stop the pollution of oceans. Eighty-three states have already ratified the law of the sea. In the throne speech the government states its intent to follow suit.

Given the importance of this piece of international law, can the minister indicate when Canada will ratify it?

[National Day Of Mourning, April 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on page 64 of the red book of the Liberal Party published in 1993 we find the following promise:

Our first task will be to conduct a comprehensive baseline study of federal taxes, grants, and subsidies, in order to identify barriers and disincentives to sound environmental practices.

Last December when we reported to the House, the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development did hold hearings in keeping this promise and made numerous recommendations to the government for the 1996 budget.

One positive result was that the budget contains measures for beginning the process of putting renewable and non-renewable energy sources on equal footing. That is a good step in the right direction.

At the time of the committee's hearings experts in the field of sustainable development told us one year would be sufficient for completion of such a study and warned against stretching it over a longer time.

Another reason for the year timeframe is that soon we will have in place a commissioner of the environment and sustainable development in the auditor general's department. In 1998 the job of this person will be to review each department's sustainable development strategy.

If this baseline work is done now departments would be able to incorporate the relevant findings into their sustainable development strategies. In addition, this work would provide a benchmark to judge progress toward sustainable development objectives in individual departments.

The environment committee recommended the finance minister appoint a small group of outside experts, supported by senior federal officials taken from the departments of the environment, finance, natural resources, agriculture and transport, among others. This working group would be chaired by a recognized and credible expert in sustainable development matters charged with the authority to make definitive recommendations on behalf of the working group. This approach to the baseline work would provide substantive proposals plus transparency and legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

I ask the distinguished Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance if the government will launch the comprehensive baseline study now so as to be completed by September of this year, as recommended by the environment committee, or will it be the turn of the century before we see any results?

[Chernobyl, April 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. As exemplified by the thousands who have died or are sick with cancer, the health, environmental and economic impacts of Chernobyl are still felt today.

In Canada, the nuclear energy industry is subsidized to the tune of $5 billion since 1952. In addition, the auditor general reports there is a $10 billion radioactive waste disposal problem. Canada should move toward renewable energy production and phase out large subsidies to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. In addition, economic benefits could be achieved through energy efficiency programs.

Finally, we need policies that support science and technology for renewal energy production to ensure a safe, clean and sustainable energy future for all Canadians.

[Department Of Human Resources Development Act, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in essence this intervention is to urge the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans not to give away key federal powers.

Let me explain. Last week I asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans not to delegate to the provinces section 35(2) of the Fisheries Act. In brief, this section prohibits the harmful alternation, disruption or destruction of fish habitat unless authorized by the minister or under regulations.

If section 35(2) is delegated to the provinces it could no longer serve as a trigger for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The result would be less protection for our streams, our shorelines and wetlands when it comes to the environmental assessment process.

Instead the suggestion is being made that environmental assessment be carried out only on large projects, as some are proposing. I submit this is not desirable because dealing with large projects only means that the cumulative effect of small projects would not be taken into account.

In the past the government has, on occasion, delegated certain powers under the Fisheries Act to the provinces but it should be cautious and learn from experience. For example, in his 1990 report the auditor general points out that when powers were delegated to the provinces for monitoring and enforcement of mining effluent regulations under the Fisheries Act, compliance fell from 85 per cent in 1982 to 48 per cent in 1988.

This poor track record is now compounded by the fact that some provincial governments such as the Harris government in Ontario are deeply cutting their ministries of the environment and natural resources. These are the ministries that would be charged with monitoring and enforcing the federal powers such as the protection of freshwater fish habitat under section 35(2).

For example, the Ontario government is cutting 752 staff from the Ministry of the Environment and Energy and 2,170 from the Ministry of Natural Resources. Furthermore, with the implementation of Bill 26 and the repeal of the Planning Act legislation, the Harris government has effectively eliminated protection for environmentally significant areas in the province of Ontario.

In light of this massive dismantling of environmental regulations, can the minister of state responsible for natural resources assure the House that he and the government will not give away section 35(2) of the Fisheries Act and actually retain that section as a federal power so that the trigger offered by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act will not be lost and its benefits to the Canadian population and future natural resources not damaged?

[The Environment, April 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

The Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg and the Canadian Centre for Inland Waters in Burlington are facing severe budget cuts, threatening one of Canada's greatest assets, namely fresh water.

Can the minister commit to maintaining the 1993-94 funding levels of these two internationally renowned institutions for fresh water science?

[The Budget, April 15th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is engaging in a typical Reform misconceptual game of linking debt with social security payments and I think he is wrong. He is completely wrong because the social security system cannot be seen in isolation as a factor that runs counter to economic interest.

Whatever penny or dollar is spent in terms of pensions is returned to the economy very quickly through expenditures by seniors who certainly know how to use their revenue. Usually that revenue goes to the cornerstore, to the supermarket, to transport and other commodities.

Therefore there is no conflict between the well-being of the economy and the well-being of social security. On the contrary, by ensuring that our seniors receive an adequate pension payment, adequate security and the ability to live in dignity as they do now, we also pump the money back into the economy and everybody benefits from it.

I noticed on the part of the hon. member the same tendency as that of the hon. member for Prince Albert, a desire to spread some fear among Canadians about the future of their Canada pension plan. The Canada pension plan as it stands today is not in any

danger at all. It is a pay as you go scheme. It is a scheme that takes care of the immediate present and will be put in a condition to take care of future generations as the number of seniors increase by adequate adjustment in the contributory benefits.

In doing so we can look forward not just to a few years but decades and decades of Canadians having a pension plan that will at least meet the basic requirements of an individual. It is a system and a scheme that for the last 30 years, as a result of a fine Liberal measure, has served us well. I must make sure the hon. members of the Reform Party understand that the Canada pension plan does not receive one penny from the taxpayers. It is a self-sustaining plan.

[The Budget, April 15th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, in the few minutes available I would like to put forward some thoughts on future budgets.

First, let me congratulate the minister on his announcement on March 6 of the change to the Income Tax Act regarding investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. This is an initial step in the right direction which will help in keeping our red book promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The main point I would like to make today is to express the hope that sooner or later, but preferably sooner, the government will find it possible to conclude the policy of deficit reduction and review and expand public sector expenditures in an effort to improve the social and economic conditions of most Canadians, particularly low and middle income earners.

We have witnessed with apprehension the phenomenon of certain large corporations, banks and other financial institutions making record profits by continuing to "downsize" their workforce. The time has come, as one observer recently put it, to downsize downsizing for the sake of social peace and stability.

The Easter recess has allowed me time to note the profound malaise caused by unemployment and poverty and to bring back to Ottawa from Toronto and Montreal recent images and impressions of the hardships Canadians are presently enduring.

In increasing numbers people are sleeping on sidewalks and in telephone booths and are reduced to begging for change in our downtown urban areas. Families are struggling to make ends meet. There are even reports that the financial hardship resulting from cuts to welfare payments in Ontario has become a factor in parents offering their children for adoption. Cash strapped municipalities are finding it almost impossible to provide basic services, from road maintenance to public libraries to providing an adequate number of teachers, to mention a few.

Social housing applicants are waiting longer and longer, in some cases several years, before their turn comes.

High youth unemployment set at 15.3 per cent in March has eroded the confidence and hope of our young people to find meaningful work commensurate with their training and career plans. It is no wonder that youth are without jobs when thousands of people have been and continue to be thrown out of work as a result of corporate and government layoffs, including the 10,500 provincial civil servants recently cut by the Harris government in Ontario.

Consumers are hesitant to buy even small appliances because of the uncertainty posed by potential job loss. Companies such as General Motors are closing down auto parts plants in Oshawa and Windsor because of low cost competition in the U.S., all in an effort to please the insatiable corporate appetite for larger and larger profits. Also, Kenworth Trucks in St. Therese, Quebec is giving notice that it intends to shift and enlarge truck production to its plant in Mexico.

New housing starts remain at a record low while the savings rates of Canadians stay at record low levels and the percentage of after tax personal income going toward servicing their debt is at a record high.

The poverty gap, that is the amount of additional income that would be required to bring all Canadians above the poverty line, amounts to a staggering $15.2 billion with single parent mothers representing one of the largest groups living in poverty.

It seems to me that these points call for a number of measures, the most pressing being the urgent necessity of redistributing incomes. Personal and corporate tax expenditures alone still cost the federal government billions of dollars in lost revenue. Some of these expenditures are necessary and warranted but others such as the non-taxation of gambling and lottery winnings, alone amounting to some $900 million in lost revenue in one year are not.

To give another example, the tax concessions in the resource sector such as the Canadian exploration expense and the Canadian development expense are conservatively estimated at $150 million a year. These expenditures are no longer justifiable if development is to become sustainable.

Over the past 30 years corporate taxes as a percentage of federal government revenue and as a percentage of GDP have declined. There was a corporate tax rate reduction from 46 per cent to 38 per cent under the Mulroney regime, thus reducing the corporate fiscal burden in Canada to one of the lowest among OECD countries.

While the social safety net has undergone intense scrutiny and reductions, for example unemployment insurance and the Canada assistance plan, outside of small increases in the large corporation tax and corporate surtax in 1995-96, increases in corporate taxation remain untouched in this budget. This policy has produced a serious imbalance between the treatment of social and economic policies.

For these reasons, sooner rather than later the Minister of Finance needs to shift his focus of attention from deficit reduction toward a policy which will: one, restore fairness and progressiveness in the tax system so as to bring back the confidence of Canadians in their government's sense of social justice and equity; two, give poverty issues the attention they so urgently require; three, provide low income Canadians with adequate social measures to ensure they can live in dignity; and four, translate the government's commitment to sustainable development into coherent policies that will ensure future growth while taking into account the need to protect our freshwater resources, the necessity of clean air to breathe, the fragility of many ecosystems, the need to adequately conserve our agricultural soil and the need for sustainable fisheries and forests, to name a few.

In addition, our sustainable development policies must respect our international commitments from the management of toxic waste to the ratification of the law of the sea, from the biodiversity convention to our commitments to lower carbon dioxide reductions under the climate change convention. All of these are important Liberal commitments we must work to realize.

In conclusion, I have a few words on the phasing out of the old age security pension over the next five years and the Canada pension plan. The replacement of the old age security pension with the proposals for new seniors benefits involves basing benefits on household income instead of on individual income as is the present case. Unfortunately the losers in the scenario are married women who have no income of their own who at the same time have no legal entitlement to the income of their spouse. I urge the government to redress this inequity over the next five years to ensure that married women retain the same degree of financial independence they have presently under the old age security pension.

On the Canada pension plan, I congratulate the government for launching today public hearings in Toronto which will help decide on the future of the CPP. Our increasing senior population makes it necessary to do in Canada what has already been done in other OECD countries namely, to increase contribution rates so as to retain both the present retirement age and level of benefits. This is a small price to pay for a retirement plan which benefits most Canadians who cannot afford a private retirement plan and which permits mobility from province to province and from job to job.

The Canada pension plan is one of the best plans of its kind in the world. It is funded entirely by contributions from employers and employees without a penny coming from taxes. It serves Canadians well and has done so for some 30 years. It ought to remain as a public fund owned and operated by the public sector for the benefit of many generations of Canadians to come.

[Fisheries, April 15th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Section 35(2) of the Fisheries Act deals with the protection of freshwater fish habitat and is a fundamental pillar of environmental and fisheries protection.

Can the minister of fisheries assure the House that the powers of section 35(2) will not be delegated to the provincial governments?

[The Environment, March 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, at a time when considerable profits and tax refunds are being reaped by the mining sector, it is worth highlighting an auditor general's report to the effect that under provincial monitoring and enforcement, industry compliance to the metal mining liquid effluent regulations of the Fisheries Act fell from 85 per cent in 1982 to 48 per cent in 1988.

This finding brings into question proposed further delegation of federal environmental responsibility if high standards of human and environmental health are to be maintained for all Canadians.

[Environment, March 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. It relates to our red book commitment to conduct a comprehensive base line study of federal taxes, grants and subsidies in order to identify barriers and disincentives to sound environmental practices.

When does the Minister of Finance intend to implement this red book promise?