Alex Shepherd

[Economic Policy, October 19th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we can dress them up but we still cannot take them anywhere.

The Central Seven Association in my riding received $10,000. What does Central Seven do? It deals with the mentally handicapped in my riding. This is a program the opposition would be happy to stomp out.

Tyrone Mills is a privately owned historical site in my riding that is having a very difficult time maintaining itself. It is one of those areas where if it was not privately owned it would have to be government funded and cost us twice as much to maintain. We gave the historical site the terrible sum of around $13,000 back in 1998 to help with some of their summer student employment programs.

White Feather Farms is a very successful farming operation in my community. It received $6,000 to assist in summer employment on the farm. Young people got work experience in the agricultural sector. These things would not have happened without these programs.

The list goes on: the municipality of Clarington; the Durham region community care association, which helps people with home care; and other things the opposition, whatever their name is, would do away with.

To the people of Durham it is not funny. The people of Durham take this very seriously. They do not find it particularly humorous to be told that these things are a waste or boondoggles. They can see right through it.

I would like to move on to the so-called health care agenda of the Alliance. It is interesting to read the letter the Alliance's illustrious leader sent to the premiers on the discussion of the health care formula. Essentially he talks about the transfer of tax points to the provinces in support of health care. This is the same party that refuses to acknowledge the fact that back in 1997 the federal government entered into an agreement with the provinces to transfer tax points in support of health care. In its little booklet it shows a wonderful graph of how the Liberals stopped spending on health care. What is missing? The transfer of tax points, which is the very thing they want to do. Its whole platform is not only ridiculous but also unethical, frankly. It is not true.

That program of transferring tax points to the provinces would simply mean the federal government would have nothing to say in health care. Indeed, the provinces are arguing about that now. In my own province the government refuses to acknowledge the fact that it was transferred tax points back in 1997, as if it never happened.

For those people who do not fully understand tax points, and many of us do not, the federal government has a federal income tax on which the provinces usually piggyback their taxes. With tax points, rather than simply taking money in and sending provinces a cheque once a year, the federal government would just reduce its amount of federal tax and allow the provinces to occupy the taxation room. The provinces would then collect directly.

However, once the government does this it is almost like giving candy to a baby: provinces consume the candy and want more. They seem to forget the fact that they received these tax points and have been enjoying the benefits since 1997.

That is the type of regime this party would impose on us in the area of health care. In other words, rather than money being sent from the federal government to the provinces, it would all go through the position of tax points. That essentially means the provinces would go their own route to creating a health care regime.

They will forget about the federal government which essentially ends up in the creation of 10 provincial health care systems and also systems in the territories, none of which make any sense to each other, none of which would be portable, transferable or accessible. The reality is Canada's health care spending is the fourth highest per capita in the world and yet when it comes to service delivery, we rank about 18th. The federal government did not create those statistics, the provinces did because they are responsible for the administration of health care.

It begs the question then why would we transfer more power to the provinces that already created this inefficiency, this inadequacy? Does this issue of commitment to health care by the so-called Alliance help to get down to the root problems of the health care system? No, it does not. It simply means that we would transfer power from the federal government to the provinces and there would be no uniformity of health care in the country.

I note in their little platform document that the Alliance says it is interested in Canadian unity, yet when we ask people what unites us as a nation we often talk about our social programs. The fact that we have a universally accessible health care system is one of the things that we see as defining us as Canadians. This is the very central issue that the Alliance would do away with, a universal health care system, and in fact it would allow for the experimentation of privately funded health care.

I note in its documents the Alliance talks about needing more doctors and nurses. I had a health care forum in my riding and I brought in the people who run Durham Lakeridge Health Corporation. I brought representatives from the physicians and nurses. It was a funny thing; after discussion that night the conclusion was that it has nothing to do with money. Sure, we would like a little more money for our MRIs and for machinery, but the reality was that the problems were fundamental. We had too many doctors pushing paper, working on computers and not delivering health care. We had an administrative system in our provinces that mitigated against the delivery of health care.

The Alliance members celebrate that. They want to give more money. They keep pouring money into the top of this thing but it is not coming out at the bottom. That is why when we sat down with the provinces we demanded there be an accountability framework. We demanded that there be accountability on how we are spending the money, on how waiting lists are being made better, how the delivery of health care to average individuals is being made better. We believe that there is a fundamental role for the federal government in health care, of the lives of the people of this country. That is a fundamental difference between us and the party over there.

I would like to talk about some of the other elements that were in the economic statement, not the least of which were some interesting elements in reducing corporate taxes and also capital gains taxes. I note that with our capital gains tax reductions, capital gains tax in real terms relative to the American tax is actually lower now. This gives Canadians a great opportunity to invest in themselves and in the country. It has always been one of our sore points that Canadians have often not invested in themselves. We have allowed for greater rollovers of capital gains. If we buy stock in small companies and then buy another one, we can keep rolling over that money in Canada tax free.

I will end on that happy note. This is a great economic statement. The party over there is in lots of trouble.

[Economic Policy, October 19th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to enter the debate and talk about some of the numbers that the previous speaker was missing.

He said that there was some more spending in here, and he is correct, but look at the spending programs. The spending is on the environment, on alternative fuels and on making our air and our water safe. These are the things that the reform alliance has no interest in. It also has spending to enhance our granting councils, to put more money into research and development, to invest in the brain power and the knowledge power of the people of this country, to make this country a better place and to make us more innovative in the world of global economy. These are the things of course that the Alliance is not particularly interested in.

I hear the members from across the way laughing and carrying on as if this was some kind of funny game. This is not a game. It is very serious to the people of Canada. The debate is about public versus private spending.

The opposition would have us believe that somehow by stripping out public expenditures they would simply go away. The reality is that if we take money out of certain programs it will simply have to be replaced by the private sector. I know the reform alliance would just love to see this in the area of health care.

It was interesting that the other day one of their own speakers was telling us about the access to health care in the province of Alberta where in fact people have to pay their own premiums and that there was a whole list of people in the province of Alberta who, for whatever reason, were unable to make the premium payments and, as a consequence, did not get health care.

That is the kind of society the former treasurer of the province of Alberta would have us live in. Canadians are not fooled by those kinds of choices. Canadians do not want that kind of society.

I would like to talk about the whole area of taxation. Certainly the economic plan of the Minister of Finance was very forward looking with its concept of reducing personal taxes. Across progressive income tax rates we really have four income tax brackets if we count the first one as being zero.

I would like to talk to some of the people out there today about progressivity in the income tax system and the so-called vision of taxation our members across the way would have us believe in. Progressivity simply means that as people earn more money they have the propensity and the ability to pay proportionately more tax. In other words, they are not paying proportionately more tax on all the money they have earned but only on that portion of higher income they have earned.

Canadians have long accepted the concept of progressivity. If one is wealthy, if one has been so generously endowed to earn well, one will pay proportionately more in income tax. We are not talking about rates. We can see today that our government has reduced rates. The two different issues here are rates and progressivity.

I would question all this business about exemptions, deductions and so forth. They really mean nothing to the average taxpayer. The only thing that means anything to anyone is total tax bite in relation to total income. Subtract the two and what is left is the disposable income with which one can actually go to the supermarket or department store and physically buy something. That is the only thing that is important to people.

I would suggest that people start thinking about all the taxes they pay in their lives. We talk about municipal taxes, about sales taxes, and about excise taxes. The one thing they have in common is that they are all flat taxes. They do not go up as one's income goes up.

If we took all of those taxes, included income taxes and looked over the broad spectrum of people's earnings, guess what? Canada has a flat tax system today. As incomes go up, in other words, total taxes do not. I have statistics here from numerous professors that will bear out this equation.

We can go into the reform alliance members' dream world, or I should say nightmare, of a flat tax system that would take the income tax system and also flatten it. They have backed away a little from that. They have said they will not do that right away. Maybe they will just wait awhile or sneak it by the door and then stick it to people. The reality is that people are not going to be fooled by that.

By the way, no countries in the western world have a flat tax. No peoples in the western world have sat down and said it is a fair and reasonable thing to flatten the income tax system. I know the province of Alberta thinks it has one but it is not a country yet.

If in fact the income tax system was flattened, what would happen? Looking across the perspective of people's incomes we would actually see the wealthiest people paying less proportionate tax than the middle class. Let us think about that. We would actually see a line on a graph. As people start hitting $100,00 a year and over, their proportionate tax bite would actually go down. I can think of nothing more perverse or immoral from a party that talks about morality and values. I can think of no situation that can justify such an immoral position as transferring taxation from the wealthy to the middle class. This is a fundamental issue as we go into this election.

I have had the privilege to go to countries that actually have this type of taxation system. They have it not by choice but through corruption an an inadequate way of collecting taxes. Many of the countries in South America often have a similar system.

There one finds a small group of wealthy people who pay very little tax. They have their money hidden in foreign accounts and so forth and do not contribute to the economy. Then one finds a massive group of poor people who have no ability to participate in that economy. It is not good for either the wealthy or the poor. The wealthy cannot sell goods because there is nobody to sell them to and the poor cannot consume them because they do not have the money to buy them.

I suggest that this vision of reform alliance on flat tax would drive us into a two income groups: one for the wealthy and one for the poor. Few people in the existing middle class would have the ability to catapult or make that astronomic jump from being middle class to wealthy. That is the vision that party would bring a vision where the wealthy get wealthier and the poor are destined to be poorer and poorer.

The previous speaker talked about some of the wasteful spending of the federal government. It makes the assumption that if governments spend the money it is terrible, but if somebody in the private sector spends the money it is good.

I have a list of HRDC programs. I look at the Alliance formula here. They talk about all the stuff they would reduce to make their little world work. They talk about reducing HRDC grants and contributions.

I want to talk about some of the things that have occurred in my riding of Durham. I look at the first one on the list of people who received grants from HRDC: Independent Deaf Services. Archibald Orchards and Estate Winery is a small business that is trying to establish a winery in my riding, and very successfully. They taught some young students skills they probably would not otherwise have received because nobody would hire them. They hired those kids to work in that business. The business is successful, creating jobs in my riding and bringing in wealth. The winery is also exporting product across the border, bringing export dollars into Canada.

Another organization I presume the opposition does not like is the Bowmanville Memorial Hospital. HRDC gave money to allow people to work in the summer months at the local memorial hospital.

The Bowmanville Zoological Park is another one. This is private sector. They own a park. They are doing films. I cannot remember the classic film about the elephants in Africa, but those elephants came from Bowmanville. They train elephants for movie productions. They created a school to do that. People are coming from all over Canada to get this training, and we are exporting that to the movie industry all over the world. This is a success story that the reform alliance would have nothing to do with.

I will refer to another so-called terrible expenditure.

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the dissertation of the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley and a number of things escaped me. She talked about the loss of money in the envelope for health care spending. It is quite common that people forget about tax points.

I know I will not be able to sell the country on tax points, but I would like to draw members' attention to the concept that the provinces and the federal government came to an agreement on years ago. Rather than transfer cash payments to the provinces, the federal government would transfer a combination of cash and taxing room. In other words, the provinces would be allowed to tax more and the federal government would tax less in the area of income taxes.

During this same period revenues have increased. In fact the propensity for provinces to gain more revenue to support the health care system is also part of this arithmetical formula. It serves the opposition to simply ignore that fact of reality as if Confederation and other things in this country had never happened, but that is reality.

This member likes to use examples. She constantly alludes to what a great system the Americans have and gave a number of examples about people in her own communities and so forth who are without health care.

I would just like to give an example. I can remember being on a dock in Florida. Beside me were an American doctor from Illinois and a fellow who had a heart attack while fishing. In cardiac arrest, lying on the dock, is this man of about 63 or 64 holding onto this doctor's hand and saying “Do not send me to a hospital. I cannot afford it. I will lose my house”. That is the kind of health care system that the Alliance would like us to have here in Canada.

The Alliance constantly talks about the provinces' responsibility for health care. Yes, under our constitution the provinces are responsible for the administration of health care, but the Alliance then turns around and says that it is inefficient and that it is the federal government's responsibility. The Alliance cannot have it both ways. If the provinces are responsible for the administration of health care, the provinces are responsible for the inefficient use of that money.

Finally, it is interesting that the hon. member talks about the province of Alberta and the fact that people have to pay premiums there. If they do not pay them they cannot get access. Her own leader was the treasurer of the province of Alberta. That is the kind of health care system the Alliance wants to bring to Canadians.

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 17th, 2000]

Yes, there were some changes made, some unfortunate changes, and health care was one of them. Now we are happy to say that our financial house is back in order, that we in fact have surpluses and that we are able to share them with the provinces in this manner.

We must keep focused about just who administers the health care system. Canada has the fourth highest per capita spending on health care in the world. The member would say that we should spend more. That is not the answer because people are saying at the same time that we rate 18th in service delivery. That tells us a whole story, not of the federal government but of the provinces and territories that are responsible for administering the health care system.

That is why this legislation includes an accountability framework. It requires provinces to meet certain accountability targets, like how much money we are going to be spending in new technologies and buying MRIs, like how long the waiting lists are going to be and how we are making progress to improve health care for average Canadians. That is what this legislation is all about. The fairy tales the member was talking about were in his speech.

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the hon. member's comments on this piece of legislation. He was talking about fairy tales earlier, and I was thinking about why we had budget cuts in the first place. It seems to me it was a government that the member's party was part of that brought us to a $40 billion annual deficit. That deficit, I very well remember, endangered not just the simple health of every Canadian in this country but the financial integrity of this country. It was this Liberal government that took up the cause to eradicate that problem.

[Infrastructure, October 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to report that we have signed agreements with the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and, this morning, with Prince Edward Island. This represents $131 million. With our partners, that is over $390 million going into new infrastructure in Atlantic Canada. I am also happy to report that the money will be flowing from these projects by the new year.

This summer there were water shortages in Atlantic Canada. I am very happy to report that these programs will be oriented to permitting safer water conditions and a safer and healthier environment for all Canadians including, and most importantly, Atlantic Canadians.

[Infrastructure, September 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Nepean—Carleton for his question. While no formal agreements have been signed as yet, I am pleased to report that the president is presently negotiating with all provincial and territorial governments and that these negotiations are on schedule, to be completed on or before the end of the year if not sooner.

I would also like to add that $2 billion levered with another $4 billion by our municipal, provincial and territorial partners will mean $6 billion will be available for municipal infrastructure priorities such as safe drinking water and waste management, which will enhance the quality of life for both rural and urban Canadians.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to the Leader of the Opposition's speech. I think he would agree that taxation is all about choice. What he is asking us to do today is to make a choice on $700 million worth of revenue coming into the federal government.

The government has made a commitment to reduce debt. For every $10 of debt we reduce we also reduce $1 forever because it is a debt off our shoulders.

At the same time, we also note that fossil fuel is creating more air pollutant problems. Five thousand people died last year just because of airborne pollutants. As a societal good, is it really the duty of governments to be reducing consumption? When the cost of fossil fuel went up during the Reagan administration in the mid-eighties consumption went down. We should be promoting the use of alternative fuels and the reduction of fossil fuel not in fact celebrating them.

From the member's knowledge as a treasurer, how much of that barrel of oil goes into the provincial royalty payments?

[Supply, June 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I might not have specifically mentioned home care in my speech. Indeed, home care is one of the answers. There is no question that various studies that have been undertaken confirm the member's finding that it is a lot cheaper to maintain an adequate home care system rather than institutional care.

After all those barriers it was also found that patients prefer to be in those places. In my province the estimated average savings is $2,500 per patient if they were on home care rather than institutional care.

It is part of our government's thought process on how to enhance health care and how to do away with the so-called geriatric beds within our institutions to get those patients out of there and into better areas.

The big problem about universal home care is how to define it and what is included and what is not. We are still—

[Supply, June 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I respect some of the things the member for Yukon has said. Indeed, our definition of health care, if we expanded it, although I think it has expanded, most people, if asked about health care, would include naturopathic medicine even though traditionally it has not been included.

Her concerns about the doctors recognizing naturopathic medicine goes beyond that. I know in my own province, my own audiologist, who grew up in New Brunswick and has a three-year university degree, cannot prescribe a hearing aid without a doctor signing the certificate. This is ridiculous. These are structural problems that would exist within the purview of the provinces.

While I understand what the member is saying, I have heard her party say that we should simply restore the funding to health care. I do not think that is all that is needed. I think we want to do more than just restore or increase the funding to health care. We want to go beyond that to an accountability framework.