John Solomon

[Petitions, February 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to stand on behalf of many constituents of Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre and other people across the country. This petition pertains to the MacKay task force recommendations.

There are a number of people from Beauval, Strasbourg, Regina, Lanigan, Earl Grey, Duval and a number of communities who have signed this petition. They are very concerned about the MacKay task force report which recommends that the banks get into the insurance business. These people support the independent insurance brokers of Canada. They do not support the banks taking over the business of the independent brokers association and its members. They call upon parliament to totally reject the recommendations of the MacKay task force report pertaining to the entry of banks into the casualty and property insurance markets. They strongly urge parliamentarians not to give in to the pressure of the banks on this matter.

[Petitions, February 8th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it my honour, pleasure and privilege to stand in the House today pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition on behalf of many Canadians who are very concerned about the export of water to the United States from Canada.

They are also very concerned about the multilateral agreement on investment which the Liberals, and in particular the chief Liberal Don Johnston in Paris, are pushing under the instructions of the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada to continue to make sure that corporations have more and more power and authority over our economy without any independence from any country with respect to making their own decisions.

These citizens are from many locations across the country. They are concerned the MAI will make it very easy for corporations to take all of our fresh water and send it south so that the Canadian population will be at the mercy of the Americans and the large corporations.

I join with these individuals in presenting the petition on their behalf.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 8th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, it is good that the hon. Liberal member has raised the issue of ports. This is another sore point for farmers in Saskatchewan. Farmers, through their revenues and income, have supported the ports of Canada. If we did not have ports, we would not be able to ship our grain outside the country.

Farmers are sick and tired of the Liberals continuing to download to them all of the costs that are on the shoulders of the Liberal government. For example, when there is a strike at the port in Prince Rupert, on the coast, or up in Churchill, who pays for the costs of demurrage or for the delay in getting the grain to market? It is not the Liberal government or Quebec. It is the farmers in Saskatchewan, the farmers in western Canada who pay for this.

I am quite appalled that the Liberal parliamentary secretary would say that farmers have nothing to do with the ports of this country. I ask the hon. member to go to Saskatchewan, Manitoba or Alberta and talk to the farmers. Ask them about the federal government which is responsible for the ports, which cannot deliver our grain to market because the workers are not paid adequately and have to use job action to get a fair rate of pay, ask the farmers who pays for all that. It is not the Liberal member of parliament from Ontario. It is the farmers from Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan who pay for those ports. I am glad the member raised this issue.

My sense is that Saskatchewan, because of its involvement with the equalization formula and which supports the concept of equalizing payments, would be remiss if it did not take advantage of an equalization formula which includes resource revenues, which are now down in price and therefore the revenues are down and equalization kicks in. This is something which is fairly important.

Part of the reason that our farmers have record low net incomes this year is not because we have equalization payments. Incomes are low because they are spending a lot of money in ports and other parts of the country to get their grain to market and the Liberals are downloading the costs to the farmers.

I ask the member opposite to go to his Minister of Finance before the budget and have the Liberal government change its policy as it applies to farmers. Rather than have farmers pay for all of the transportation costs, all the labour costs and all the port costs, perhaps the federal government should undertake responsibility in a financial way to help them out in that regard.

I thank the member for raising that issue.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 8th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to share my colleague's time speaking to Bill C-65, an act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act.

Equalization is a principle which provides certain revenues to provinces that are deemed to be at a disadvantage from provinces that are in an advantageous situation economically and financially. This is a concept that I heard the Liberals, the Tories and the Reformers talk about with respect to different issues. For example, when it is the large international oil companies that want tax breaks, the Reformers and the Liberals talk about a level playing field for the international oil companies.

An equalization bill is a good example of a level playing field. It provides revenues to those provinces that are unable to provide basic government services to their people because of various economic disparities. The concept of equalization to ensure that consistent benefits are paid to various provinces that require them was enshrined in the Constitution when it was patriated in 1982.

There are some interesting issues in this bill which I want to address.

The first one that comes to mind is that each province which is a have-not province, seven out of ten, have a different per capita formula. For example, Quebec receives $521 per capita in equalization payments from the have provinces and from the national treasury. Nova Scotia gets $1,209. For Manitoba it is $898. New Brunswick gets $1,154. Newfoundland gets $1,648. P.E.I. gets $1,340. But Saskatchewan, which has more miles of roads than any other province in Canada even though we only have one million people, only gets a per capita grant of $232.

It is quite interesting that Quebec has 7,100,000 people and gets $521 per person. Saskatchewan has just over one million people and gets $232 per person. We in Saskatchewan have national transportation commitments that Quebec does not have even though we have less than one-seventh its population. Of course we get only one-third of its grants per capita. I raise this in the House and with the government opposite as to why that inequity would be.

I can see that perhaps with P.E.I. and some of the smaller Atlantic provinces that have had a long tradition of being reliant on federal government revenues. It was appropriate for the Liberal government in Ottawa and sometimes from time to time a Tory government to provide those moneys to elect provincial governments in Atlantic Canada.

I would like to monitor that and see what happens down the road, in spite of this particular initiative, when an NDP government gets elected. That may happen very soon in Nova Scotia. I want to make sure that the money the government is giving to Nova Scotia now is similar to what it will get when it becomes an NDP government.

On the other hand, we have heard my colleague from Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys make reference to the fact that when there is an NDP provincial government, as in Saskatchewan for example, we are there to clean up the mess of the former Liberal-Tory-Reform coalitions which have made every effort possible to bankrupt our province. The people tossed them out and elected an NDP government and we end up cleaning up their mess. Not only are we a very modest recipient of fiscal arrangements but on occasion we have been a have province and we have shared revenues that have been derived from good management with other provinces that require that assistance.

We see some key changes in this equalization agreement. My colleague made reference to casino revenues. I will make reference for example to the resource revenues which will reflect the value rather than the volume of harvested timber. This again benefits Quebec. British Columbia, with a very high quality timber, is not affected at all because it is a have province. But it provides a little extra money for Quebec and perhaps it needs it. Perhaps the provincial government would be better suited to manage the economy and balance its budget rather than continue to have huge deficits.

There is an issue which is very important to Saskatchewan right now. My province of Saskatchewan is experiencing an agricultural crisis. Farmers are desperate to get their crops in this spring. They have no revenues to do that.

We have some very significant problems in agriculture, not because of a local management problem, but because of an international situation which has arisen. European and American governments nationally have funded and subsidized agriculture in their countries to a very large extent while Canadian governments are eliminating subsidies for agriculture altogether.

I am not saying subsidies are the answer, but when a federal government abandons its farmers, farmers in Canada end up suffering even though we are providing most of our products for export while the European farmers and American farmers are the recipients of huge subsidies from their governments.

The Liberal government has cut the Crow benefit which was a transportation subsidy. It has taken $340 million a year outside of our agricultural economy. Now the government is saying it wants the Saskatchewan government to chip in 40% for an agricultural program to help those farmers who are in need.

Agriculture is not something we benefit from locally in Canada. We export a vast majority of Saskatchewan's production to other parts of the world that require food. This is a national agricultural situation. Actually it is international in nature when it comes to subsidies, yet the Liberal government says it is not going to provide any assistance to these farmers unless the province comes up with 40% of the funding.

The government is offering only $450 million for all of Canada. Saskatchewan might get 40% of that in a particular year. That may amount to $5,000 or $6,000 per farmer which will not make any difference in terms of substantially improving their position to put a crop in this spring. The government has to consider that.

Over and above equalization, or maybe including the equalization, there should be some consideration that foreign governments are subsidizing their agricultural base. We should provide some reciprocity for Canadian farmers to make sure they are not put out of business.

The Liberal Minister of Natural Resources, the member for Wascana, is from Saskatchewan. He has said that Saskatchewan's equalization benefits are being increased because of the problems of lower income in agriculture and a substantial decline in resource prices and that the Liberal government is going to give us $3 million this year as an increase in equalization.

The minister has said that Saskatchewan should be able to put that into its agricultural program. Yet he does not understand that we are not being asked to put in three million bucks. We are being asked to put in $45 million to $60 million this year alone. But he is going to help out by taking $340 million out of our economy from the elimination of the Crow benefit, giving us $3 million back and saying “good luck, this is a real good economic program for farmers and for western Canada”. The farmers in western Canada have seen enough of this shell game being undertaken by the Liberals to trick farmers into believing the Liberals are actually doing something for the economy.

Manitoba is in an even more desperate situation with this equalization bill. Manitoba is slated to lose $37 million over five years. This accounts for 18.5% of Manitoba's overall revenues, not the $37 million, but the total equalization payment. I believe provincial officials are very upset about this. They are opposed and are asking for amendments in the next go around.

What is more disturbing than all the issues I have raised is that the Reform Party goes on record as saying that it does not support equalization. It does not support a level playing field for the provinces and regionally based economies. Reformers do support a level playing field for Conrad Black. They do support a level playing field for the oil companies that are international in nature. They do support a level playing field for their large corporate friends, but they do not support equalization for provinces and regions that require equalization assistance from our national treasury.

I call upon the Saskatchewan and Manitoba members of parliament from the Reform Party to stand in this House and say they oppose the Reform Party's view that equalization is bad and it will not support equalization payments to provinces that require them.

[Transit Passes, February 8th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House of Commons this morning to support Motion No. 360 which calls for employer provided transit passes to be an income tax exempt benefit.

I would like to congratulate my colleague, the member of parliament for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys, who has moved this motion and who has done an enormous amount of work, not only with members of parliament from other parties, but also with a number of municipalities, trade unions, environmentalists and businesses across this country to make sure that we have in the Income Tax Act a fair opportunity for working people to provide and receive an income tax benefit for using mass transit.

Before getting into who supports this idea and some of the real and significant benefits, I want to go over the reasons for which I support Motion No. 360.

First, it affects pollution in this country. It affects the health of Canadians. It deals with the congestion problem in the cities of Canada. It is a social equity issue, an environmental issue and an economic issue. I want to say a few words about each of those headings if I might.

We all pay tax on our income. Some of the benefits we receive from our employer must also be declared as income and are therefore taxable. Employer provided parking and employer provided transit passes are both considered taxable under the current federal Income Tax Act.

However, Revenue Canada's interpretation of this act provides tax preferences allowing most employees to receive their free parking income tax free. This is an incentive for commuters to drive and represents a significant loss of income tax revenue, but this is a bias in my view for those who drive automobiles and against those who use mass transit.

One way to address this unfair bias is to provide a tax exemption to public transit users. This provides equity for non-drivers as well as motivation for drivers to switch to a mode of transportation with lower environmental costs and lower costs to the taxpayer in terms of the maintaining of roads, health care and so on. I believe it is a rare opportunity for the federal government to effect public policy at the local level.

In the United States, the opportunity for employers to provide their employees with an income tax free transit subsidy became available under the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

On average, transit expenditures among recipients increased by 23%. With a 31% increase in transit use by participating San Francisco employees, an estimated 17 million vehicle miles were removed from their roads, 61 million tons of pollutants were avoided and $1.6 million of new transit revenue was generated. This is an example of the benefit of providing transit passes to employees as an income tax exempt benefit.

With respect to Canada's commitment to greenhouse gas reductions under the Kyoto protocol, Canada has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012. Transportation is the largest single sector source of Canada's carbon emissions, at 32%, accounting for 30% of energy used and 65% of petroleum consumed. Half of these emissions are produced by cars and light trucks in cities where public transit is available. Transportation emissions are expected to rise 52%, if this major issue is not addressed, between 1991 and the year 2020.

We also have an interesting issue with respect to transportation and greenhouse gases. One of the greatest economic and environmental challenges facing the world is the control of CO2 and other greenhouse gases because they threaten to destabilize the climate and they lead to global warming. We are seeing many examples of that around the world.

In Canada we have seen the rising sea level. We have seen temperature change in certain regions of our country. We have seen unprecedented drought cycles and extreme weather events, such as floods, fires, ice storms and so on which, cause human displacement. They cause food shortages and losses exceeding the financial capabilities of the insurance industry.

This information was provided by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy in its strategy for sustainable transportation in Ontario, which it prepared in 1995.

With respect to health, whenever we travel to cities like Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria, Halifax and Winnipeg we see more and more smog, which is ground level ozone. It has increased by about 20% over the last decade. Medical research shows that smog is contributing to increased incidents of respiratory illness, higher physician emergency room visits and increased mortality.

This is a very significant development in light of the fact that our health care has been cut back by the Liberal government by $6 billion a year. When people are being subjected to broader ill environments and broader risks to their health, they will be ill in greater numbers, requiring health care, and our health care has been taken away by the federal government to the tune of $6 billion a year.

Support for this motion might encourage the Liberal government to provide some consideration which would be helpful to working people.

We can talk about traffic congestion and how it increases travel time, parking demand, vehicle costs and wear and tear on the roads. Two forty-foot buses carrying 130 people occupy about 80 feet of a single lane, but to carry the same number of people by car requires an extra 1,500 feet of lane.

If we have 130 people in cars, versus 130 people in two buses, we will see the wear and tear on our roads, an increase in smog and pollution and we will see all sorts of negative impacts upon Canadians in this country. We believe this is another reason to support the motion.

We can talk about social inequity. Generational poverty increases when people have limited access to education and work due to mobility barriers. Adequate mobility is essential for people to participate in society as community members, producers and consumers. Public transit provides safe, affordable, basic mobility for those persons without an alternative, including transit-dependent students, lower income workers, seniors and other persons who either cannot afford or choose not to own an automobile.

Converting to public transit reduces the costs associated with the impacts of pollution, traffic congestion and the other things I have mentioned. Public transit also provides substantial regional economic development benefits by channelling transportation dollars back into the community.

We see many reasons to support such a motion. There are also many individuals and organizations supporting this particular motion. The Federation of Urban Municipalities, which is our national organization representing municipal organizations across this country, supports the motion. In my province of Saskatchewan, the city of Saskatoon, the town of Langdon, the town of Martensville and the city of Regina support this particular motion for all of the reasons I mentioned.

We also have quite a lengthy list of organizations from across the country which support such an initiative. They include: The Canadian Lung Association, the Climate Change Task Force group of the National Air Issues Co-ordination Committee, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Ontario Lung Association, Physicians for Global Survival, Pollution Probe, the Saskatchewan Lung Association, the Saskatoon Environmental Society, the Sierra Club of Canada and various trade unions and other governments.

I would like to ask members to consider supporting this motion. It is votable. It will mean better access to transit by working people. Working people, as members know, who make $40,000 a year or less do not have a lot of options for tax deductions. We do not have a lot of support in our tax system to help them get to their places of work. I think in a country like Canada, which has such an expansive geography, mass transit is the only way to go.

The last example I give before I conclude my remarks is the example of grain movement in western Canada. We have seen passenger trains being pulled off the rails. Now they are thinking of closing a lot of the rail lines in western Canada that move grain. They are using trucks instead of boxcars. That is having an additional effect on our environment because more trucks on the road affect not just the environment but our roads.

I ask all members to support this motion which my colleague in the NDP has so thoroughly researched and presented to the House of Commons.

[Business Development Bank, February 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

In most regions of Canada these days it is so rare for a business to get a government grant or a loan that it is like winning a lottery. However, in Shawinigan a businessman with a criminal record and a bad credit rating calls his MP's office and gets not one grant but five grants and two loans in one year totalling $840,000. What special criteria did this guy meet? Canadians believe these are either golf buddy grants or political in nature. Why will the Prime Minister not do as he says, come through, clear the air and appoint an independent investigator to check this thing out?

[Finance, February 1st, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to raise some questions with the member for Scarborough East. He has stood in this House and has talked about the priorities that he believes the Liberal government has. He also outlined for us, in a surprising fashion, that it actually has health care as a priority. I just want to review that for a moment.

As I recall, in the 1993 federal election the Liberals had three priorities: to abolish, get rid off, cut and eliminate the GST; to re-negotiate and roll back the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement, which they then embraced; and to support our health care system.

I am a member of parliament from Saskatchewan. The hon. member opposite talked about the Ontario experience. In terms of Liberal priorities, the Saskatchewan experience has been interesting to say the least, but they would not be viewed in Saskatchewan terms or in any other terms as priorities.

For example, we used to have a 50% cost sharing arrangement with the federal government for health care. Do members know what it is now? It is not 50%. It is not 40%. It is not 25%. It is not even 15%. The federal share of funding for health care in Saskatchewan has dropped to 14%. That is how the Liberals define priority for health care. They slash, hack and cut medicare so it is bleeding from a thousand cuts. Fourteen per cent means that 86% of the cost of health care is funded by Saskatchewan people for Saskatchewan people. This is a priority that I hope the member will address in the upcoming budget.

In five years we have seen $1 billion taken out of our health care system by the Liberal government which has prioritized health care. How much would it have taken out if it was not a priority? Maybe it would have been $5 billion. We are not sure. A billion dollars in Saskatchewan is $1,000 for every man, woman and child. That is what we have lost from our health care system. But the NDP government, in its wisdom, found that $1,000 per man, woman and child and did not pass on the cuts the feds made to the health care system. We backfilled every dollar into health care which those members opposite said was a priority.

We have also seen their wonderful priority in terms of tax cuts for Saskatchewan people and other Canadians. They have eliminated the Crow benefit, which is another $1 billion that has been taken out of the Saskatchewan economy. On top of that they raised railway transportation costs by between 25% and 33% to every farmer selling and shipping their products by rail. That is a priority.

When we look at the issues of health care, transportation and agriculture, what we see in Saskatchewan is that even the provincial Liberals are saying that health care is a priority and that the NDP in Saskatchewan is not doing its job with respect to health care. The NDP found $1 billion that this government cut, but the Liberal cousins in Ottawa continue to attack the health care system.

Will the hon. member put his seat on the line? If health care is not the priority that he says it is come the budget, will he resign his seat?

[Finance, February 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the remarks from the member for Mississauga West when he talked about fighting over the spoils of the surplus budget and resounding numbers of our economy.

As we know if we have watched television or read newspapers lately, we see there are some resounding numbers in our economy. Homelessness, for example, is at a record level. It is almost a national disaster and it is certainly a national embarrassment. This is something the Liberals have been architects of, so I agree with the member for Mississauga West about that resounding number.

The member should look at the resounding numbers of people living in poverty. There are more than half a million children living in poverty and in hunger since 1993 than before the Liberals were elected. Those are resounding numbers and they are resounding in the sense of absolute embarrassment of the Liberal government's policies.

We are hoping that in the coming budget these issues will be addressed. In Regina the employment insurance benefits for people who deserve benefits because they are unemployed and have paid into the system are no longer being provided. The worst record in the country is in Regina where only 19% of unemployed people who have paid into the employment benefit system qualify for benefits. The government arbitrarily has attacked those people who need the insurance help the most from the employment insurance program. These are resounding bad numbers of the government.

I wonder what the member for Mississauga West has to say about these issues which are very disastrous for the Liberal government and what are its plans in the budget to address the issue of homelessness, poverty and the unemployed who are not receiving the benefits they deserve.

[Division No. 306, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, members of the NDP this evening vote yes on this motion.

[Railway Safety Act, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members vote yes on this motion.