Alex Shepherd

[Taxation, March 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue.

Millions of Canadians are now in the process of filing their 1997 income tax returns. In spite of assurances in the past, many taxpayers feel that they have little or no rights. What actions are being contemplated to ensure that those who pay the bills have rights and are treated with respect?

[Supply, March 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the member just stated if we cannot bring the Canadian flag into the House where can we bring it. I and many of my colleagues have been bringing the flag on our lapel pins into the House ever since we were elected. I do not know where the member has been.

This debate is not about flags. It is about the institutions of Parliament. It is about the institution of free speech. It is about the ability of expression in this House. The Reform Party does not seem to understand or respect our basic institutions of Parliament. Is it fair to wipe out somebody's ability to speak freely in this House just by having demonstrations? What other kinds of flags can we bring into this House? The Canadian flag and what about some provincial flags? Would that be acceptable to the member?

[Supply, March 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to comment on the recent intervenor's behaviour in the last few days, traipsing around this city with a beat-up old Oldsmobile, painted with a Canadian flag. Is that respect for our institutions?

[Supply, March 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member could comment on the observations I have made. The leader of the Reform Party a couple of years ago could not have been bothered to attend the flag day celebration because it was not very important.

Today members of the Reform Party are cloaked in the flag. Somehow they are the great defenders of the flag. I wonder if he could comment on what I believe to be a very shabby and shallow patriotic venture on the part of Reformers.

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I heard about bicycles and snowmobiles but I did not hear too much about what we are going to do about this report card.

He said the system worked well before the federal government changed transfer payments.

Once again we are back to the 30% to 40% dropout rate. That is what I am talking about. I am talking about how we can increase the awareness not only in Quebec but throughout the country of the importance of getting a better education.

The millennium fund is just one way of helping. I repeat that the money will be spent in provincially mandated institutions. The course material is provincially mandated.

The federal government has not interfered in provincial jurisdictional. It has made resources available for some students who have the required merit to attend post-secondary educational institutions but who do not have the resources.

Why the member wants to talk about bicycles and snowmobiles rather than defending the best interests of his people is beyond me.

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, for the people watching this debate, I thought it would be instructive just to repeat what the motion is. It says that this House censure any action by the federal government in the area of education, such as the introduction of the millennium scholarships program or national testing.

Since we are talking about education today it seemed appropriate that we look at various report cards. The report card on the educational system in Quebec says that at best, its educational system is mediocre. Many reports confirm this. For example, only one youth in two finishes secondary school grade 11 in the Catholic school commission of Montreal. After Alberta, Quebec has the highest dropout rate of any secondary level in Canada. Thirty per cent did not complete high school. It is 40% in Montreal compared to 15% in New Brunswick. We spend $7,132 per student at primary and secondary levels, the highest rate in Canada and one of the world's highest with unimpressive results.

It is alarming to me when I hear a number of members from that province stand up and object to our assisting each other in moving along as a country with higher technology.

The Conference Board of Canada has just reported that some of the main problems we have had competing in the world have been because our productivity and our ability to embrace new technologies is lagging behind many of our competitors. A big portion of this lag has to do with access to higher education.

The millennium scholarships program recognizes that a number of children who graduate from secondary institutions for one reason or another find it very difficult to make that leap into post-secondary education. It is for very profound reasons that the federal government has moved in this area. It realizes that our future, our greatest resource, and we used to talk about Canada being a great resource based country and indeed it is, but our greatest resource is between our ears. The budget generally talks to those resources and specifically with the millennium scholarships fund.

I had the opportunity to visit a classroom in Chicoutimi about a year ago. I talked to some of the students and I was amazed by what they told me. They told me that this country is very much part of all of them and they want to continue with that vision of Canada. It makes me feel good today to realize that as a federal government, we can help all citizens of Canada whether they are in Quebec or any other province.

It has not just been the millennium scholarships fund. We have also changed the registered education savings plan. This will have a tremendous impact on parents in that province who want to save for their children's post-secondary education. It is the federal government in partnership with parents and students. A $2,000 deduction is going to be backed up with a $400 grant from the federal government.

Who are the benefactors of all these programs? Ideally of course they are the students. But do not forget that money is being spent in post-secondary institutions mandated by the province. The reality is that the money from the millennium scholarships foundation is being paid over to institutions which are mandated by the province.

I do not know why this would concern the hon. members. Do they think they have a possessory right to the grey matter of the people in their province? I do not understand. I would have thought they would be standing here today with us rejoicing in the fact that we want to empower those people to have a great future. That is what this is all about.

My hon. colleague mentioned as well the ability of people to take money out of their RRSPs. We paid a lot of lip service to the concept of continuous learning. We have come to the realization that it is for real. The reality is people are going to change their careers two, three or four times during their lifetime. We have to find a way to make that viable, to make them make those transitions, to make them continue to be useful to their employer. They may not change their actual employment but even within their employment, their job descriptions are going to change many times.

This was another positive way in which the federal government could say “We know you are saving money in your RRSP for your retirement, but maybe what you really need is a down payment on improving your skills today”. That is the best retirement program people can have. It is going to continue assisting them with their economic well-being during their lifetime. It allows the resources to build up savings for their retirement, $10,000 in any one year capped at $20,000.

I do not care if they are federal or provincial governments when it gets right down to it. The reality is governments owe one thing to their people and that is to give them a good education, to give them those resources that are going to help them in the future to secure good employment conditions.

I just read the report card. Why would the members not be rejoicing in moving in this general direction? It is not that we are telling the people in their province what educational programs they can have, what institutions they can sign up for. I do not think anybody would want to have that kind of power. The money is being spent in provincially mandated institutions.

In my riding I have Durham College. It was also mentioned in the budget. The president of the college slapped my back and thought that was the greatest thing. He did not care whether the money came from Ottawa, Toronto or anywhere else. He thought it was great that we had empowered students to get a good education.

I have great difficulty with the members across the way who can actually stand there today and complain about it. It seems odd to me.

The second thing they have complained about is the concept of a national testing program, as if we are going to put everybody in the litmus of a focus and that the federal government is going to pass or fail people across the country. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The program they are referring to is called the national longitudinal survey of children and youth. Although I have not read it intensely, my understanding of this program is basically to go across the country and measure how well children are doing. It is not just education. It is about health and all kinds of other things.

We talk a lot in this room about young offenders. If you go back behind those statistics you will find children of neglect in various forms. Sometimes it is nutrition. It seems to me that as a government if we want to really solve some of these problems we have to get at them before they happen rather than after the fact. The provinces are partners in this and they participate in it.

One of things it does is measure the capacity for lifelong learning skills. It also measures a number of other aspects such as the third international mathematics and science study which is part of this. I presume this is something that really bothers my hon. colleagues. Others are the international adult literacy survey, the pan-Canadian education indicators program. Quebec is a member of a sponsoring association as well as the council of ministers of education of which Quebec is a member.

I am at a loss today as to know what this motion is for and whose best interest it is promoting. I do not see how it promotes anybody in this country.

[The Budget, March 9th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is very simple to explain to the member that within the last budget, the previous budget, $850 million was given to the area of child tax credit which his constituent would have benefited from.

Let us be honest. Let us be serious. The reality is that woman is better off today than she would have been under a Reform government.

[The Budget, March 9th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I am sure that if I knew Kathy McGuire's income perspective I could find something that was very positive about this budget, but of course this is the way the members ask their questions, just give you half of the information so you cannot possibly do that.

The reality is I am very proud of that budget because in fact we removed thousands and thousands of people, low income families and low income people, from bracket creep by increasing personal exemptions.

I have many constituents, senior citizens, who were paying taxes before who are not paying them today. That is a major commitment from the lower income people of this country.

[The Budget, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to enter this debate on the budget. In some real ways, this is the culmination of how I ended up here. Indeed, I spent many years wondering how it was possible that Canada can continue to go so close to the abyss of financial ruin. It was clear to me that we needed a new way to do government.

That is why the week before last it was my great pleasure to listen to the Minister of Finance bring in the first balanced budget that this country has seen in over 30 years.

One thing that is very noticeable about this budget is that it talks about education. One thing I have always believed, and it is very important, is that a country educate its people.

We talk about Canada being a resource based country and, indeed, we are but our best resources are the resources between our ears. Finding better ways to use those resources is what is going to make Canada a better country in the 21st century.

I would like to talk about productivity. Some people think this is an economic concept. What it basically means is the ability of people to use their surroundings, to use their resources in an effective way to produce products.

We have been changing our economy so that we are moving away from the resource based industries of the past and we are moving towards a service sector orientation.

For that reason, it is very difficult sometimes to measure productivity. Why am I talking about productivity? The problem of Canada and Canada's economy is that we have been lagging many of our competitors in the area of competition.

In the area of productivity, Canada lags our chief competitor, the United States, by something like 30%. Why is that? What is it going to mean for our economy? It means that our competitors are able to use technological advances quicker, more rapidly in their production capabilities as well as in their service sector than are Canadians.

Some people suggested that the decline in the value of the Canadian dollar is directly related to our decline in productivity.

The Conference Board of Canada has made a tremendous number of reports basically stating that while Canada has one of the highest per capita spending in the western world on education, we are still very much scorned in the mid-term in the areas of science and math.

Indeed, our illiteracy rate in Canada is mid-term. It is really quite a disgrace for a modern nation like ours to have illiteracy rates as high as we do. That is why I was very proud to be part of a government that brought in an accentuation that, while we have been able to manage our debt and deficit so that we have a balanced budget, we have been able to accentuate those things that are going to empower ourselves to be a better and more competitive nation in the future.

In those things, exclude that we look at the education area. I was very happy to see a restoration of funding for NSERC and the Medical Research Council. These are ways that governments can support our institutions and create more opportunities for technological advancements in our universities and colleges.

I should mention I was very proud when the Minister of Finance mentioned a college in my riding, Durham College. Indeed at the same time, the president for Durham College was in the gallery listening to that.

The next morning, I gave a post-budget breakfast in my riding for basically all the business community. I can tell this House that those people were all very happy and supportive of the budget we presented.

I can remember back in 1994 it not being that way, that there were very ugly meetings sometimes when people wanted us to move fast on this or that envelope. It has been very much that the Canadian people have come to the realization that this government brings sound, good management.

Some of the areas that this budget talked about were registered education savings plan. My background has been one of an investment adviser and accountant. When I used to practise, these registered educational savings plan we basically shunned. The reason was that they were very much a gamble on behalf of parents who wanted to save money for the support of their children going for post-secondary education, because the mean factor was that if one's kid did not go one lost the money. The benefits were great because 50% of the people did not actually go so the people who stayed in the plan of course got good rewards.

Most people are not into gambling, they are into saving for some positive returns. What has happened with these plans is that we have now made them so that if a child does not go on for post-secondary education, parents can roll them back into their registered retirement savings plan.

The government has gone one step further by providing a 20% grant. The federal government is going to put that money directly in that plan as well. There is a partnership arrangement going on between parents, their children and the federal government. I think that is a very healthy attitude. The only comment I heard from people I talked to was why did we wait so long.

It is unfortunate that the baby boomers—me with three children in post-secondary education—are not going to be able to get the benefit of that, but the reality is that it allows people to put money aside. It is a great trepidation for a lot of parents to have young children who are going to go to university which will possibly cost as much as $10,000 a year to place them there. This gives them a way in which to see that their children do get adequate education.

Another area that I found very interesting was the ability of people to withdraw up to $10,000 in any one year and a cumulative of $20,000 from their registered retirement savings plans for their own education.

It is obvious that we are living in a society of continuous learning. We have to try to find ways to encourage people to go back and learn in new and better productive facilities in which to upgrade their skills. These all come back to my original theory of increasing Canada's productivity and making us a very competitive nation as we go out to fight it out with our neighbours and other countries in the world for our share of economic development.

I once suggested that we should use the employment insurance this way. In other words, we should provide certain funding through the employment insurance system to allow people the discretion to go out and re-educate themselves. This is another way to get at the same thing.

I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard a financial planner criticizing this plan. His criticism was that the government was scheming to reduce people's RRSP savings so it could get them out and tax them. In other words, if people took out those moneys that were in their plans and went back to school, of course they would not be appreciating and therefore the government would be able to tax that money sooner. I do not think anything could be more ludicrous. The way to solve that problem is simply by reducing the benefits of RRSPs or the premium contributions.

There is no question in my mind that the government's prime purpose is to make a down payment on the whole concept of continuous learning.

As an aside, there is one other little thing here that is not about productivity that I thought I would mention, the home givers tax credit. I was in a seniors home the other day and I mentioned this credit. Everybody's eyes lit up because the government was now recognizing how we are going to have to do health care differently in this country.

We cannot continue this process of institutionalizing people at great cost when in fact many people are at home taking care of their loved ones. They are often women who need that little extra break, the $400 care giver tax credit, a down payment on a different way and a better way to health care.

In conclusion, I am very happy to be part of a government that has brought in such a sensible budget. Unfortunately it has taken us a number of years but we are going to continue on that track of reducing our deficit and debts in the future.

[Supply, February 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the hon. member's comments. What he said was, if you have this unconditional or broad mandated carve-out for culture, the Americans will not sign. Therefore we cannot go ahead with it.

Somehow the Reform Party's position is that we will go out with some other multilateral partners and make them give us some special conditions on culture. Is the Reform Party's position not that if we cannot get our way with this agreement then we will cave in to the Americans? Is that not what he said?