Steve Mahoney

[The Economy, March 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased I am not wearing my red suspenders this evening. I congratulate my colleague from Scarborough East for some thoughtful comments on the budget, on the state of the economy and on where we are going.

I want to specifically talk this evening about one page in this budget that I think is equally as telling and equally as important in laying out what this government thinks about turning the economy around and moving forward. It is page 127. While I certainly would agree with my friend and my colleagues who have spoken about the significance of a balanced budget and what that will do to the overall economy, what happened on page 127 will go an enormous way toward bringing fairness to our economy and increasing the revenue not only for the federal government but for the provincial government which we constantly hear talking about how it has been cut back and it is always moaning, at least in the case of the province of Ontario, which my friend has referred to.

The reality is page 127 of this budget will indeed put more money in the hands of Ernie Eves in the province of Ontario and all provinces. Perhaps even more important than that, it will put more money in the hands of average Canadians. The heading is Tax Fairness: Tackling the Underground Economy.

There have been studies done on the underground economy. We all know what we are talking about. If you do this for cash we will not pay the taxes. We will give you a special deal if we pay you under the table. We know this goes on. We also know, and I think we should admit, that a tax regime that is too high and does not put fairness into the system will drive the economy underground.

Page 127 in my estimation goes a long way toward tackling and fighting the battle of the underground economy. It goes on as follows:

Tax evasion through participation in the underground economy penalizes honest taxpayers. The federal government has a comprehensive strategy for addressing this problem. This budget announces additional measures to reduce the underreporting of income.

Federal departments and agencies will begin issuing information slips for contract payments made from January 1, 1998 as will federal crown corporations effective January 1, 1999.

The various associations involved in the construction industry have been concerned with competition from the underground economy for some time.

I might add that it is the construction industry that actually tackled the underground economy head on. It came united with the private sector, with the labour movement and with academia. It came united to this place and said it had a plan that will fight tax evasion in the underground economy. This was not something that was dreamed up in the finance department. It was not something dreamed up by a committee of parliamentarians. It came from the men and women who work in the industry on all sides. I really congratulate them for their foresight.

The budget page goes on:

In response to their concerns, the 1995 budget implemented a voluntary reporting system for the construction industry.

More recently, key industry associations, including the building and construction trade department of the AFL-CIO and the Interior Systems Contractor's Association of Ontario, have indicated that the reporting system to be effective needs to be made mandatory.

The private sector and the unions came forward and said voluntary is not working, they need this to be a mandatory reporting system.

In conclusion on this page:

Effective January 1, 1999, reporting of construction contract payments to Revenue Canada will become mandatory. The federal government will consult with industry to ensure that any industry compliance costs are minimized and the system is effective.

In perhaps a little more plain English what this simply means is that if contractor A wins a contract for $1 million and decides to sub it out to three contractors, B, C and D, for $300,000 each and pocket $100,000 for doing it, that is perfectly legal. We have no problem with that. What this budget change will do is ensure that contractor A must not only say that he has offloaded $900,000 worth of revenue but now in a mandatory prescription he must say who exactly he is paying it to.

Heretofore what would happen is that contractors B, C and D would have the option of taking that $300,000 in cash, maybe even discounting it and doing the work for $250,000 and avoiding taxes.

We are not just talking about a sales tax. We are talking about the ability to avoid employer health tax which would be an enormous loss in revenue to the provincial government here in Ontario. We are talking about an ability to avoid worker's compensation premiums, extremely important particularly in the construction industry.

What this does is give some security and some assurance to the men and women who work in the construction industry and let us face it, most are men but there are also more and more women coming into the business. It gives them the assurance that they need not worry about getting injured on the job and then finding out that their employer ducked the responsibility of paying the workers compensation premiums.

It really makes the entire process transparent. I think it is an enormous step to put this mandatory reporting system in place. I think we will see over time. Rather than simply guessing at the figures, I think we should monitor this and the people in finance should monitor this to see exactly what it does to the revenue base of this country.

It is my belief right across the country we will see an increase but we will also see greater protection for our workers. One of the reasons that this is important is there are tens of thousands of people who work in this business in the construction trades. Whether we are talking about carpenters, electricians, boiler makers, pipefitters, formers, we are talking about labourers, it is tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of men and women across this country.

Until this change was brought in by the minister of finance in this budget, they were simply at the mercy of some of the companies. Not all of them were. I do not want to cast aspersions across a broad perspective or suggest that everybody in the construction business is avoiding taxes. I do not think that is true. I do not think that is fair.

This amendment came about as a result of the efforts of people like Joe Maloney with the Construction and Building Trades Council here in Ottawa. A number of people along with Joe, his colleagues, did their homework. They explained to us on this side of the house how important it was.

I know one of the concerns was that business would come out and say you cannot do this, it is more red tape for business. But ask a simple question. If a business does not want to disclose a contract that it just received the question is why. What is it trying to hide? What is it trying to avoid? There really is nowhere to hide in this. It is transparent and it is fair.

On the issue of what it means in our communities, let me just tell a little about my riding Mississauga West which is fundamentally a bricks and mortar economy. Certainly we depend on the auto industry, just like many other parts of this great country, and we depend on software companies. We are known for pill hill where all the pharmaceutical companies are, in the north end of my riding.

We are, if nothing else, a bricks and mortar economy and as the construction trades win a contract they then put into practice a process that leads to the development of new communities, industrial, residential communities. Out of that comes everything a family needs when it moves into a home, everything a business needs when it opens in a new industrial complex, and it goes on and on.

It is a snowball rolling downhill and it all starts with an amendment like the one on page 127 which brings fairness to the economy, which helps to fight the underground economy, ensure that employees, hardworking men and women in the construction trades, are protected, and ensure that government gets its fair share so that we can continue to provide the services Canadians want and indeed deserve.

[Women Hockey, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday was International Women's Day, a day when women around the world marched for equality. It is with this in mind that I rise to pay tribute to women's hockey in Canada.

For most of us fans, the debut of women's hockey at the Nagano olympics showed that hockey is not only a man's sport. The world championship Team Canada with Cassie Campbell, Lesley Reddon and Jayna Hefford of Mississauga proved that by bringing home an olympic silver medal.

Most of the credit for the success of women's hockey must go to the Mississauga based Ontario Women's Hockey Association. As the only organization of its kind in the world, it was the driving force behind the establishment of the World Women's Hockey Championship and can take a great deal of credit for the inclusion of women's hockey in Nagano.

No tribute to women's hockey would be complete without mention of Mayor Hazel McCallion who earned $5 a game playing professional women's hockey in the forties. As an active member of the board of directors, she has remained a strong advocate of the sport and was a key force on the road to the olympics. All Canadians can take pride in the achievements of Canada's women hockey players.

[The Budget, February 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would acknowledge that the president of the Chamber of Commerce might not be lining up to join our parade.

As a matter of fact, there was a headline in one of the newspapers, “Big business bashes budget”. Okay, I will accept that criticism. It is the people who work for those big businesses, though, who are going to benefit from this.

Let me be clear. There is a debt reduction plan. We have already retired $13 billion in marketable debt. That is done, off the books, gone. We also have a debt repayment plan with a two year fiscal plan based on prudent economic planning assumptions.

We are taking the $3 billion contingency fund which, over the last three years, was used to eliminate part of the $42 billion in deficit we inherited from the Conservatives. It will go to debt reduction. That is $9 billion.

It is totally misleading to say that we are not attacking the debt. We would like to do more, but we have to maintain a balance.

[The Budget, February 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I fully acknowledge that we have only begun down the road to solve some of the financial problems the member talks about.

We have identified $7 billion in tax relief for low and middle income Canadians. Does that satisfy everyone's needs? Of course it does not. We have increased the child tax credit. I had a call from a constituent who told me his wife stayed home with the kids 10 years ago and now the government is just giving the money away for people to do that. I told him that this was for the benefit of all Canadians. I told him that he may not directly benefit but that his kids would benefit and his kids' kids would benefit. That is the principle we are attempting to put in place.

The most important thing in this budget, which our Prime Minister has said and our Minister of Finance has said, is that never again will this country go down the road to the kind of deficit finance spending I admit we have seen in this place for far too long. The budget is balanced and it is a balanced budget that will indeed set us on the road to a strong financial future for all of Canada.

[The Budget, February 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting to hear the Reform Party quoting Shakespeare. I would have expected Homer Simpson instead. In any event, we will get to that a little later in the debate.

One of the things that I and I think Canadians find most interesting is the cries of indignation only come in this place. Take any of the journals of the fifth estate, take any of the headlines, just pick the newspaper, and it is really quite remarkable how this budget has been received. You ask yourself why.

I think the most telling thing that our finance minister said in his speech was not only is this a balanced budget, but it is a budget with balance. The opposition parties are wrestling with what to do and say about this.

One of my colleagues said to me before the budget that you will know that this is a successful budget if everything you hear is we didn't do enough. Go through it. We can take the Conservatives who would say in their program that they would grab a 10% income tax cut right across the line. It does not matter, as one of my colleagues said earlier. If you make $500,000 you will get a 10% cut, if you make $25,000 you will get a 10% cut. They would say that we did not do enough in the area of tax cuts.

From the document we see that the amount of income that low income Canadians can receive on a tax free basis will be increased by $500. That does not sound like a lot of money, but if you are a low income Canadian, that can make the difference between feeding your kids the way you want to and struggling and having to go to a food bank. In fact, it relieves 400,000 Canadians from paying any income tax at all.

Did we do enough? Is there a person in this House who would not rather stand here and say we would like to give them $1,000 instead of $500 in tax free allowances and tax free earnings? Of course we would.

When you look at the balance and the responsibility of the government governing for all Canadians, we believe that it is a good first step for low income Canadians who at least put some money back in their pocket which gives them a chance to get ahead.

The 3% general surtax was a gift from Brian Mulroney to the Canadian people. We eliminated it. Clearly, 13 million taxpayers with incomes up to about $50,000 will no longer have to pay that. Would we have liked to have done more? Yes. Would we have liked to increase that ceiling? Obviously we would have.

Once again, when we look at the balance requirements, we can only do so much in this budget and still maintain that balance.

I hear talk about managing student debt. The NDP would say we did not do enough. Once again there is that premise. It is a good budget we hear, but they did not do enough. The New Democrats, of course, would like to eliminate any requirement for a student to pay anything for post-secondary education. They are open and honest about that. We do not believe that is good balance. We do not believe that the Canadian taxpayer can afford that.

What have we done? We have provided tax relief for interest on all students loans. We would have liked to have done more, but we have to be reasonable. We have provided interest relief and extended it to more graduates. We have provided an extended repayment period for those who need it. However they have to demonstrate that they need it. There is nothing wrong with that. If they need the help, this government is prepared to provide it.

There will be an extended interest relief period for individuals who remain in financial difficulty. There is no point in forcing our graduates to struggle with a huge debt. We want to be able to help them. We have committed to do that.

We have even said that we will reduce the loan principal amount for individuals who face severe financial hardship.

That is a balanced approach.

We have heard people say that we have not done enough to help people upgrade their skills. One of the things that I see in my riding, when I look at the demographics of Mississauga West, is that a lot of people have made career changes. A lot of people in my riding are looking for a way to improve their skills and increase their training. They are entering a whole new way of life. It could be in the software or hardware industry of computers. It could be in some form of communications technology.

That is very difficult. These people may be 45 years old. They have been working for 20 years, since they left school. They have managed to build up some retirement savings, but their company has downsized. We all realize what that means. Not only do governments downsize; the corporate world has been feeling the pain for the last decade. We understand that. The translation is that when the corporate world adjusts, it usually hits the human resource element.

There may be a 45 year old man who has RRSPs. Up until now he has not been able to touch the RRSPs to spend the money on his improvement without paying taxes. We are providing a system whereby tax-free withdrawals can be made from retirement savings plans for lifelong learning. That will begin on January 1, 1999. Canadians will be able to make tax-free withdrawals from their RRSPs for lifelong learning.

Once again that is a balance. It says to the Canadian people “We have to be creative. We have to find new ways to use the resources which you have put aside”. Let us face it, a retirement savings plan is a tax haven for future retirement.

There is a repayment plan tied to that, and so there should be. Ten years or 20 years down the road when that 45 year old turns 65 and is ready to retire, they will have had an additional 20 years of earning. However we do not want them to be without RRSPs. They must pay them back or they will become taxable.

Again it is fair. It is a reasonable approach and Canadians understand that.

Let us talk about tax reductions. In my constituency there are an awful lot of people who still have young children either in elementary school or in high school. We are providing the Canada education savings grant. The phrase which is used in this document is that it is a new reason to save. It is a clear incentive. It is built with balance.

For example, if a family contributes $25 to a retirement education savings plan every two weeks for their child's education, a total of $650 a year, they will receive a grant in addition to that from the government of $130. That is 20%. On 20 cents out of every dollar they will get an additional grant.

If the family has three kids, or the proverbial 2.2 kids, and it makes those contributions for each kid, it will amount to a substantial amount of money to help a young person go to school.

If that family contributes $25 every two weeks, over 15 years, assuming a 5% return on the investment, which I think is a prudent assumption, that child will wind up with $4,700 for each of the four years they will spend in higher education.

What is this budget about? It is not about the opposition members hammering the government and it is not about the government simply blindly defending it. This budget is about young people. It is about people like Nicky, Harris and Dell, nine and ten year olds in Mississauga who are starting out in life. It is about young David Bond, with his wife and two babies at home, working as a chef in Mississauga and what the future means for him. It is about health care and education. In fact, 80% of the budget goes to those two items directly.

I am very proud to be a Liberal. More important, I am proud to be a member of this place which has put out a balanced budget that will secure the future for all Canadians.

[Streptococcal Group A, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform this House and the Canadian people about the tragic death of a young boy in my riding. Kyle Martin was only five years old when he mysteriously took ill at school.

He was taken to a local clinic and then to Credit Valley hospital. After waiting for several hours in emergency, Kyle was flown by air ambulance to Sick Kids hospital where he passed away.

A healthy, happy young life has been lost to a disease known as streptococcal group A, causing toxic shock. This is related to the flesh eating disease, with no known cause and no cure.

Kyle's father, along with the community, has established the Kyle Martin Fund at the Members Savings Credit Union in Toronto. The money will be used for research at Mount Sinai hospital.

The response from the community has been incredible and I ask members in this House to join me in extending our sincere sympathy to the family and to contribute to the Kyle Martin Fund. Let us all help put an end to this tragic disease.

[Canada Labour Code, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it might come as some shock to many workers in Canada to hear the Reform Party supposedly defending them. It is a little difficult.

The member said that the legislation is in effect a ban on replacement workers. That is not true. In the legislation there is a right for a business to keep working, but if it uses replacement workers to bust a union the board has the authority to outlaw it.

The hon. member would try to perpetuate that somehow there is a total ban on replacement workers and it is exactly the opposite.

On democratic principles the board shall have a vote on between 35% and 50% of the cards signed by the rank and file. That is what they say they want. If there is clear indication that members want to certify with a union and there are in excess of 50% of the membership signing cards, the board has the authority to certify without a vote.

Let us be clear. If there is any indication whatsoever of unfair labour practice on the part of the union organizers intimidating people to sign cards, the board can either deny certification or require a full vote. The member should put the facts on the table so we are clear about what we are dealing with.

[Canada Labour Code, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am curious that the member would take a position that seems to be contradictory. On the one hand he talks about final offer arbitration or final offer selection as being the panacea to all the problems in the labour movement which would virtually eliminate strikes and take away collective bargaining. It would simply put it into a “you put your best foot forward and I will put mine” and that will be the end of that. Then with the same breath the member talks in terms of protecting the democratic rights of the workers he purports to be representing in this speech. I find those two positions rather contradictory.

Clearly collective bargaining in the labour movement is a time tested tradition that ensures that the workers have their say and have the ability to negotiate for their future and their families.

What the Reform Party would do in this case would be to strip the workers of their democratic right and then on the other hand try to pretend they are champions of their democratic rights because they want them to be able to vote on certification, even if 90% of them have signed cards.

Even Mike Harris in Ontario has not gone as far in the extreme as the Reform Party. I wonder if the member might have some comments on those remarks.

[Apprenticeship National Standards Act, February 24th, 1998]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-363, an act to require the establishment of national training and certification standards for trades that receive apprenticeship training.

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this act is to facilitate the setting of national standards of apprenticeship training and certification that will have national recognition. The minister will establish organizations with representation from government and stakeholders to achieve this objective. There will be an annual report to Parliament that is deemed referred to a standing committee.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Canada Labour Code, February 20th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member might have a comment on the issue surrounding replacement workers.

In the bill replacement workers cannot be used, but the concern is whether or not it is for union busting. Businesses have the right to continue operating. They can bring in replacement workers to continue keeping the business open but they cannot use them for the purpose of union busting.

In the province of Quebec I believe replacement workers are not allowed under any circumstances. Would the member have a comment on the difference between the two situations?