Osvaldo Nunez

[Petitions, February 13th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition signed by 214 voters from my riding of Bourassa and from elsewhere in Quebec.

These people are asking Parliament to intervene to ensure that the provision of the Citizenship Act concerning the automatic granting of citizenship to any child born in Canada not be dropped. This petition is in response to the federal government's intention to amend the existing legislation.

In support of their request, the petitioners maintain that such an amendment will create stateless children. Canada would then be in the position of not respecting its international commitments in this regard. They therefore ask that the legislation be left as is.

[Immigration, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the minister ought to put an end immediately to the patronage system currently used to appoint IRB members.

Does the minister acknowledge that delays in processing files are inhumane to claimants and their family members, and a heavy burden to the taxpayers who have to pay for its inaction and disorganization?

[Immigration, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

Since the Liberal Government was elected, the refugee claim backlog at the Immigration and Refugee Board has risen to over 30,000, a 75 per cent increase, and more than half of these are in Montreal.

How can the minister explain these unacceptable delays, and what steps will she take to solve this problem as promptly as possible?

[Excise Tax Act, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in a nutshell, there is no justification for paying huge amounts to three Atlantic provinces to harmonize their taxes. All taxpayers in Canada and Quebec will have to foot the bill, at a time when this government is telling us that the deficit must be tackled. It seems unreasonable to me to grant this $1 billion subsidy to the three Atlantic provinces.

[Excise Tax Act, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that it is very difficult to compare tax systems internationally. On the whole in Canada and Quebec, the tax system favours business. Corporate taxes are much higher in some countries than they are in Canada, and in Quebec naturally.

In a sovereign Quebec, I think it will be much easier to set up a much fairer tax system, one that is much fairer for individuals and corporations, one that stimulates job creation.

For example, as I mentioned earlier, the labour sponsored investment fund has contributed hugely to job creation in Canada and, particularly, in Quebec, and we will promote this fund in a sovereign Quebec. Right now, all the federal government is doing is cutting some of the credits to these funds, which runs counter to its job creation policy.

[Excise Tax Act, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the question is totally irrelevant. In any case, I can tell you that the sovereignty project in Quebec cannot be bought. We would not drop it, even if the government gave us $2 billion. I must add that we send $30 billion every year to Ottawa.

The sovereignist project is a political project, a social project that arises from the hearts of Quebecers in response to the deep aspirations of the people of Quebec. It will go on until Quebec becomes a sovereign country.

[Excise Tax Act, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member has just said, Quebec harmonized its tax in 1991 and asked nothing of the federal government.

Today, we realize that harmonization cost nearly $2 billion. We say that, if the federal government is prepared to pay $1 billion to the Atlantic provinces to harmonize the federal tax with the sales tax of these three provinces, why would it not pay Quebec the amount it is asking for?

This takes nothing away from our statement as representatives of the Bloc Quebecois or the speech I made to the effect that this bill was hastily thrown together, is bad and unfair, and is one we will vote against.

[Excise Tax Act, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I hope I will not lose my temper like the previous speaker. I am pleased to speak to Bill C-70 concerning the GST. This bill proposes a so-called replacement of the GST by the HST, or harmonized sales tax.

This is basically the same tax, in the same amount. Nothing is changed, really. I would like to draw your attention, however, to the attitude of this government that does not fulfil its promises.

We have here a glaring example of a promise unfulfilled by this government. They had made an election commitment to eliminate, kill, abolish the GST. "We will scrap the GST", said the current Prime Minister on television when he was running in the election. "We hate this tax and we will kill it".

In a minority report dated November 1989, the Liberals, then in opposition, stated: "It is the position of the Liberal members of the finance committee that the Conservative goods and services tax

proposal is flawed and cannot be `patched up' in a way that would it fair for Canadian taxpayers".

The Prime Minister has tried to make the public believe that he had never made any promise of the sort. But the evidence is there, television was there. He was forced to recognize it, after a waitress questioned him about this toward the end of last year and after being taken to task in an editorial published in the Globe and Mail .

The Minister of Canadian Heritage was forced to resign her position as a member of Parliament over this, and this has cost the taxpayers $500,000. The hon. member for York South-Weston, who is an honest man, left the Liberal Party of Canada, accusing it, that is the government, of not having fulfilled its commitments. Indeed, it is the members opposite, government members, particularly those who hold ministerial responsibilities, including the Solicitor General, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Public Works, who fought this tax when it was introduced in Parliament by the Mulroney government.

Voters will not forget what this government did. They will not forget that it has not kept its word in this case, but also regarding other issues, including job creation. This is one of the most negative things about this government, which was elected under the slogan "jobs, jobs, jobs". There is also another issue concerning which the government did not keep its word: the funding of the CBC.

Today, with Bill C-70, the government is seeking to harmonize the GST with provincial taxes. However, it is already costing the federal government $1 billion to harmonize the GST in the Atlantic provinces. The government refuses to provide the same financial assistance to the Government of Quebec, which is in the process of spending $1.9 billion to harmonize its tax with the federal one.

Like others in the Bloc Quebecois, I would like to say and to repeat this: there can be no sales tax reform without an in depth review of personal and corporate income tax, and without the participation of the other levels of government.

It is imperative that Canada undertake a tax reform that will include all forms of taxation, at all levels of government. For three years now, the Bloc Quebecois has constantly been raising the issue of taxation. Two reports proposing excellent recommendations were tabled.

The first, which was tabled last November, examines corporate taxes. The second looks at individual taxes and was tabled in this House a few days ago.

The Bloc Quebecois firmly opposes family trusts and tax havens. We also defend the interests of Canadian and Quebec taxpayers. We proposed an overhaul of the corporate tax system. The federal government could recover up to $3 billion annually by eliminating certain outmoded, ineffective and unfair tax expenditures. This money could then be used to help businesses create jobs.

Tax expenditures allow businesses, particularly large ones, to reduce the taxes they pay to Revenue Canada by quite a bit, sometimes to eliminate them entirely. The cost of these tax expenditures is estimated at over $9 billion annually, according to the latest figures from the finance department.

These billions of dollars in uncollected taxes represent an additional tax burden for taxpayers and other businesses that do not benefit from these tax deductions.

It is useful to point out that the percentage of federal tax revenue from corporate income tax has fallen considerably over the last 30 years. It dropped from 23 per cent in 1961 to 9 per cent in 1995. Canada is one of the G-7 countries with the lowest corporate taxes. It has also ranked well below the average for OECD countries consistently since 1965.

Given the current job market difficulties, the goal of corporate taxation should be to maximize the creation of sustainable and meaningful employment, while ensuring that financing of public services is shared equitably by corporations and individuals.

The tax system must encourage businesses, particularly SMBs, to create jobs. It is important to emphasize at this point that it would still take over 800,000 more jobs in Canada to match the situation in 1989, before the recession.

Official unemployment rates are still scandalously high, 9.7 per cent in Canada and 12.2 per cent in Quebec, according to Statistics Canada figures released a few days ago. Why is Canada unable to lower its unemployment to 5.4 per cent, as the U.S. has done? It must be pointed out that, in the public sector alone, 200,000 federal and provincial public servants have lost their jobs in the past two years. This is unbelievable.

The government lacks control over intercorporate dividends, which means that some companies with branches in tax havens such as Barbados are able to minimize the tax they have to pay by doing some tax planning. They maximize their profits via means that are unproductive to both the government and society.

According to the auditor general, this tax loophole appears to have cost the taxpayers the modest sum of $240 million in 1992 alone. The Bloc Quebecois recently tabled its second report on personal income tax, a system which currently favours the most advantaged people in the country.

The federal government currently pays out $77 billion in tax expenditures to individuals annually. By introducing greater progressivity, the Bloc Quebecois has identified $2.5 billion that could be recovered by doing away with, or tightening up, tax expenditures that are deemed unfair. Obviously, it would be the low and middle income taxpayers who would benefit from this revision.

The federal government has been in power for over three years. The actions it has taken to make the taxation system fairer and more progressive are lamentable. The Minister of Finance is holding up corporate tax reform unduly. What is more, he is refusing to undertake any serious study of the personal income tax system. He does not dare attack tax advantages which run the risk of upsetting the friends of the Liberal Party.

The Bloc Quebecois is addressing the federal tax system in a concrete manner in order to make it more equitable, more progressive and more focussed on job creation.

For instance, one concrete measure would be to abolish outright a privilege that is now obsolete: the tax free salary and other remuneration paid to the Governor General by the federal government. This is an anachronism, because today, even the Queen of England has to pay income tax.

The Bloc Quebecois suggested that part of the resources in RRSPs be spent on fighting unemployment. An RRSP-employment program would allow a person who is unemployed to withdraw part of his RRSP without penalty for the purpose of starting up a business. Now that is a great suggestion by the official opposition, the Bloc Quebecois, that would create jobs. The Minister of Finance should include it in the budget he will bring down in this House on February 18.

We also suggest raising the maximum for investments in a labour sponsored fund. The Liberals reduced this maximum from $5,000 to $3,500 in the 1996 budget. However, these funds have had a positive impact on economic development and job creation. The maximum should therefore be raised to $5,000.

Last October, I attended a meeting of the finance committee which heard submissions from representatives of venture capital corporations. These included Fernand Daoust and Pierre Laflamme, for the Fonds de solidarité de la FTQ; Jim Cambly for Working Ventures Canadian Fund; Earl Storie, for Vengrowth Investment Fund; David Levi, for Working Opportunity Fund of British Columbia, and Jim Delaney for First Ontario Labour Sponsored Investment Fund.

Labour sponsored venture capital corporations administer a total of $3 billion. They exist in practically every region in Canada.

These investment funds are sponsored by the labour movement. Capitalization is provided by a vast number of shareholders, mostly workers. The federal and provincial governments give tax credits. The purpose is to protect and create jobs, stimulate regional economic development, and provide training for workers and shares in the company supported by their money. We all know that unemployment and job insecurity have become a fact of life in our economy.

The Fonds de solidarité of the FTQ is the oldest labour sponsored investment fund in Canada. It was set up in 1983 and for 14 years injected one billion dollars into small businesses in Quebec, thus helping to save or create about 45,000 jobs. These funds warded off a final shutdown at the Kenworth company in Ste. Thérèse, Quebec, and protected hundreds of jobs held by members of the CAW.

I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the FTQ, the labour organization where I worked for 19 years, on this its 40th anniversary. In fact, it was on February 16, 1957, in Quebec City, that delegates of the Fédération provinciale du travail du Québec and the Fédération des unions industrielles du Québec founded the FTQ. This merger brought together trade unions and industrial unions.

At the time, the labour movement was very active and fought the Duplessis government which since 1944 had been actively anti-union.

It must be pointed out that, in actual fact, the FTQ is far more than 40 years old. Its origins go back to the end of the nineteenth century. It builds on the old traditions of a combination of European and North American trade unionism, and is the heir of the rich history of the international labour movement.

Today, the FTQ represents 480,000 people working in all sectors and all regions of Quebec. In addition to doggedly defending the interests of wage-earners of all backgrounds, the FTQ also battles for the sovereignty of Quebec and for its membership's right to work and to live in French. On behalf of the House of Commons, I wish the FTQ, my labour congress, all the best on its 40th anniversary.

My colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot was saying just now that the government is ramming this bill through and taking an undemocratic attitude by preventing discussion on this highly complex bill. It is close to 300 pages in length, and thrown together any old way.

He also referred to the pre-election fever the government is trying to turn to its advantage, particularly in Quebec. According to the latest surveys, the Bloc Quebecois has 49 per cent of public support, and the Liberal Party of Canada only 39 per cent.

I would like to touch on the meeting held in my riding of Bourassa this past Sunday. It confirmed the nomination of my long time opponent Denis Coderre as the next candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in my riding. I defeated him in 1993, and will have no trouble doing so again in the next federal election.

The riding's provincial representative, Yvon Charbonneau, was present at this meeting. I would remind you that he used to be a trade unionist like myself, but he renounced those convictions somewhat by joining the Quebec Liberal Party, which had imprisoned him and other union leaders in 1972. Mr. Charbonneau was quoted as saying: "In this riding, we have a Bloc Quebecois member, Osvaldo Nunez, and we want to get him out of here". Such arrogance!

With all due respect to my provincial counterpart, I wish to tell him that it is neither he nor his party who will push me out of my riding. These words do not scare me, nor do the racist attacks against me by my former and current Liberal opponent in Bourassa, Mr. Coderre, and by the former federal Minister of Human Resources Development, now the Minister of National Defence.

The three provincial Liberals supporting the Liberal candidate on Sunday were called to order by Jonathan Sauvé, president of the Quebec young Liberals. He wanted to remind them that the Liberal Party of Quebec had to remain neutral in the next federal election campaign. Mr. Sauvé also said that the provincial Liberals must not team up with any federal political party.

The Quebec Liberal Party youth commission revealed its intention not to campaign for the Liberal Party of Canada. Mr. Charbonneau thus appears at odds with the calls for neutrality issued by his leader, Daniel Johnson.

Jonathan Sauvé added yesterday that they had spent much of the past year explaining to Quebecers that the QLP was not a branch office of any other political party.

Bill C-70 is not acceptable to the people of Canada, to the people of Quebec and, especially, to the people of Bourassa. It is unfair. It is a bad bill. It is a half baked bill, and I will vote against it.

[Excise Tax Act, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak at third reading of Bill C-70 concerning the so-called replacement of the GST, the goods and services tax.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the motions in Group No. 3. Naturally, I support the amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois to Bill C-70, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act.

In my earlier speech, I have already criticized the agreement between the federal government and the Atlantic provinces, which cost Canadian and Quebec taxpayers close to $1 billion. I also asked a bit earlier for the government to pay Quebec $1.9 billion, since that province has already harmonized its tax with the federal tax.

Under this bill, the GST will become the HST, the harmonized sales tax. But, despite its name, it is the same GST that the Liberals fought so hard against when they were in opposition. The Liberals, and in particular the current Prime Minister, promised to abolish the GST. They made this promise on television, with great enthusiasm, although recently, he tried to say that he had never promised to eliminate the GST. What is certain, because we saw it on television, is that in 1993 the Prime Minister said that he would indeed scrap the GST, that they would eliminate it. His colleagues, when they were in opposition, said the same. I have here a few examples.

On November 7, 1990, on page 15245 of Hansard , the member for Windsor, now the Solicitor General of Canada, said, in response to a question: Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are speaking for Canadians when they say the GST has to be stopped. If the Minister is interested in listening to Canadians, he will listen to the Liberals who are saying in this House, across the country and in the Senate that the GST must be stopped''. He added:Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Liberal senators, in accordance with policies announced by

the Liberals, voted in favour of an amendment that would exempt books and periodicals from the goods and services tax. However, the Conservative senators rejected this amendment". Then he asked his question: "My question for the Prime Minister is this: why does he claim to be listening to the country when he refuses to withdraw his GST and has the nerve to tax books? Why does he want to impose his GST? Why does he want to impose ignorance on this country?"

Now we know that the Liberals do not want to lift the GST except from certain books, not all books and periodicals, as the Bloc Quebecois has always requested, even when it did not constitute a party, and as is done in Quebec. Books and culture cannot be taxed.

To continue, on March 25, 1991, on page 18931 of Hansard , the same member for Windsor, now the Solicitor General of Canada, asked a question, using the following words: ``Will the Deputy Prime Minister admit that the government was wrong in applying the GST on books and on the economy, and set up this task force today?'' What a difference between that and what the Liberals are saying today.

Another well-known member at the time, now Minister of Canadian Heritage, said on March 25, 1991, at page 18927 in Hansard : ``Mr. Speaker, a tax on books is not going to do much for Canadian unity and Canadian identity''.

On December 13, 1990, at page 16668 in Hansard , another well-known member, now Minister of Health, said: ``They are signed by residents from the province of Nova Scotia, namely, the city of Halifax and surrounding areas. These residents petition the Government of Canada in their opposition to the goods and services tax, in particular as that tax applies to books, magazines and newspapers. All petitioners on these three petitions call upon the Government of Canada to withdraw the goods and services tax as it is an impediment to small business as well as to Canadian consumers''.

On December 4, 1990, at page 16171 in Hansard , another member, the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, now Minister for International Co-operation, said during tabling of petitions: ``Mr. Speaker, I have a petition which I would like to present pursuant to Standing Order 36. It is against the taxing of books and urges the government to abandon the GST, at least with regard to books, but preferably to abandon the GST altogether. Why stop there? Let us go all the way.''

Another well-known member, now Minister of Public Works, the hon. member for Sudbury, said that she wanted the government to carefully reconsider its position and at least change the goods and services tax if it was not prepared to scrap it.

The Liberals have always spoken out against the GST, especially to request that books, magazines and newspapers be exempt from this unfair tax. In the few minutes remaining, I would like to mention the concerns and disappointment of many Canadian citizens of various ethnocultural origins regarding changes in the tax treatment of Canadian pensions as they affect non-residents.

I was approached on the subject by representatives of various ethnocultural communities, and especially by the Portuguese and Greek communities. They wrote to the minister and met with officials of the Department of Finance to try and deal with the problem, so far without success. A 25 per cent tax on pensions is too much for elderly people on low incomes.

We all agree that we need a fair tax system. Major reforms are needed. However, compulsory and uniform taxation of the often very modest pensions paid to Canadians living their last years abroad is unacceptable. These elderly people are often subject to double taxation: by Canada and by their country of residence. This situation is becoming increasingly widespread, since a growing number of immigrants who are retired go back to their country of birth to live there.

From a strictly economic viewpoint, the return of an elderly person to the country of birth is a major benefit for Canada. In fact, after working and contributing to Canadian and Quebec society for many years, sometimes for most of their lives, these immigrants leave Canada and no longer depend on Canada but on their country of origin for medical care, social services, recreation, public services, etc.

On the other hand, it seems that more money comes into Canada in the form of pensions paid by other countries than leaves Canada in the form of Canadian pensions paid to non-residents. That is why we must deal with this problem as soon as possible. I urge the government to find a solution that is equitable.