Ken Epp

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000, March 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that cleaning up the complexity of the tax act goes far beyond just going to a single rate or even to two rates.

It is interesting that under Bill C-22 the government proposes to go from three categories to four beginning next year. That is because it loves high taxes.

We must look at the complexities of the issue. Some formulas in the bill are illustrated very well, but others are really quite convoluted. The Income Tax Act is full of that. The question of what applies must also be addressed. The categorization of which tax bracket a person falls into is one question but it is a minor one. I will concede that.

With respect to the tax itself, we must recognize that when taxes are reduced there is a tremendous spinoff in the economy because the money is not destroyed. When taxes are reduced taxpayers do not throw that money into the fireplace. They use it to provide for their families and give the local economy a kick. I would much rather hire a guy to fix my leaky roof, which would give him a job and get my roof fixed, than send the money to Ottawa where it is spun in circles and nothing really happens with it.

I appreciate the question from the parliamentary secretary, although I did not have time to give him a full answer. He is certainly on the right track by asking if we should simplify the code. My answer is a resounding yes.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000, March 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his astute question. I agree with a lot of what he says. I too believe that children ought to have a pretty good head start in their lives. I think it is primarily the responsibility of the parents to make sure it happens and the responsibility of government to get out of their faces so they can do it.

That is true for most of them. Then there are some who need assistance from the larger community, be it the municipal, the provincial or the federal community. Tax dollars are involved in giving grants and helping people in genuine need. I have some reservations about that, but I do agree with it in principle.

I regret, as I said in an earlier speech, that one of the things that has happened is that the Liberals, trading on the fact that as Canadians we are indeed compassionate, have instead taken away from us the fiscal room to be compassionate as individuals. They are taxing us to death, such that now when I see a needy person I am more likely, not speaking for myself personally but as an average citizen, to see whether I can help get them on some government program rather than simply ask them to come to my house for help in getting a job. That is what we did when I was a younger man. It worked well, because there was some personal accountability and mentoring. It works much better than a government program which unfortunately in many cases produces dependence.

With respect to the dollar, it is like driving along in my car in an 80 mph zone and my speedometer is telling me I am going 30. I say to myself that I had better get a new speedometer. No, the speedometer is showing my actual speed. I do not need a new speedometer. I need to step on it so that I can get with the program and get to the speed the traffic is moving at. To a large degree, I believe that is what our Canadian dollar is like. It is simply an indicator of our economic health. It should be of huge concern to the government that right now our economic indicator is showing that we are running at about 65% efficiency vis-à-vis the Americans, our next door neighbours. We are only about two-thirds as productive.

There is no excuse for that. We have a land that is rich in resources. I could list them all. We have a tremendously energetic population and we need to have to survive in our climate. There is no reason in the world why we would not have the capacity to be above the Americans on a true measure of standard of living, yet we know that our standard of living is way lower than theirs on many measures. It is indicated again by the value of the Canadian dollar.

Again, it is an indicator. I do not think one should fiddle with the indicator. Rather, one should try to correct the factors that have produced that particular measure in our productivity and economic efficiency.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000, March 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak in the debate. The Liberal government is getting slack. This morning we debated a bill which was over 900 pages in length. This little itty-bitty bill of 500 pages now seems like child's play in comparison. My party will have a look at it. We are debating it for the first time today, so the debate is on general principles. After this it will go to the finance committee where some of the details will be dealt with.

The whole study of taxation is intriguing in the academic sense. We have come to accept a level of taxation that is on the verge of being obscene.

I have told this story in the House before, and if any members recall it, my apologies, but it is very important. About three or four years ago I gave one of those one minute members' statements. I told the Speaker about a tragedy we had in our home. A guy came to the house. He backed his truck up to the door and proceeded to move everything out that we had accumulated over the years. He took half of our sofa set. He looked upstairs and saw four beds and he took two. He cut my beautiful old grandfather clock in half and took half of it and put it in the truck. I phoned the police before they took all the phones and asked them to get over to my place. I told them that we were being robbed. The police said that I should give them more details. I did and they said that they could not come and that they could not help. As a matter of fact the police did show up a little later and they insisted that I help the guy load.

This is an absurd story, but this is what happens every year to average Canadians. One half of our earnings are taken from us through the various levels of taxation from the federal, provincial and municipal governments. Tax freedom day in most provinces is around July 1, which says that half of our income is confiscated every year. If we do not help the guy who is owed and if we do not deliver the money that we have earned, we are held in contempt and can go to jail.

I do not want to characterize the levels of government as though they are crooks, yet I know I am right on the verge. I do not want to say that, so I will not. They are not really stealing our money because it is taxation. However it is still money I have earned that I cannot use for my family. I have very few needs. We can see that all I need is a square meal a day, or two, some basic clothing and basic shelter. Give me a bicycle to ride or preferably a motorcycle. My needs are simple and I simply want the best. I do not have many needs.

However I do have a great need to provide for my family. Fortunately my children are now grown up and on their own so things are a little easier. Now I only have a very expensive wife to provide for. When the children were younger I was teaching at a technical institute. All hon. members probably know this. I worked there for 27 years. We also made the decision that mother would be a full time mom. The children needed to have someone there when they came home from school to care for them and to show them that they were important.

In order to supplement our income, which even back then was not quite adequate to meet all our needs, including paying the mortgage, the utilities and everything, the decision was made that I would teach part time in the evenings. I taught a night class almost always two nights a week. This was way back and it dates me. Hon. members can tell by my grey hair that I am an old guy. I used to say that I worked Tuesday nights for Trudeau and Thursday nights for my family. It was a 50:50 deal.

Even though we are dealing with Bill C-22 to amend the Income Tax Act, the question that is not being addressed is the overall huge load of taxation which burdens our families and burdens individuals.

I have also indicated recently, and I will repeat this because I feel it is important, that my family and I not only pay our taxes but we also believe in charity. Due to the fact that we needed to look after our future, and as we have always felt insecure about the inadequate provisions of the government, namely the Canada pension plan, we have tried to put a bit of money into RRSPs. We ended up living on about 30% of my income as 70% of it was gone: 50% to taxation; 10% to charity, plus or minus a bit; and 10% to future savings, usually a little less because I could not afford that much. It was a struggle.

That is one of the reasons I became a member of parliament. In 1988, when the Reform Party was just starting, I picked up one of its brochures and all these things attracted me: the elected Senate, true democratic responsibility, and a justice system that would work on behalf of law-abiding citizens. However the one that really struck me was the belief that governments should live within their means so that we could reduce and not increase the debt. That was during the Conservative years when the debt was going up by $25 billion, $30 billion and peaking at $40 billion a year, just before they were finally turfed. That was one of the reasons they were turfed.

I was attracted to the principle that said we should have a balanced budget so that we would no longer increase the debt, the principle that we should start paying the debt down so that we could relieve ourselves of the necessity of interest payments and thereby have more money available to governments for programs that citizens value.

I guess the rest is history. We came here in huge numbers in 1993. When I first joined the Reform Party I did not anticipate that I would be transposed from my career at NAIT's teaching mathematics, computing and interesting things like that into trying to persuade a Liberal government to reduce taxes, balance the budget, hopefully pay down the debt and reduce interest payments.

However I stand here proudly this afternoon when I see what has happened in the last seven years. We have been the beneficiaries of a very robust economy in the United States which has a huge influence on our economy. That is undeniable. At the same time I believe it was our presence here which made it respectable to talk about fiscal prudence and to reduce the amount we were spending. The government was also able to exercise, with our help, a little discipline in not spending all the additional revenue that came rolling in that was beyond its expectations and certainly beyond its planning.

I like what happened in the year 2000. I am a little disappointed in the election. I wish we would have the Liberals in opposition. That would have been a lot more fun. One of the things which did happen just four days before the election was we had a mini-budget, the primary election document for the Liberals. That is what the bill is about.

I must give the Liberals a grudging commendation here. They sure do know how to run elections. I saw a cartoon of the Prime Minister right after the election. It showed the increase in the number of seats. He was reading a paper that said “Liberals re-elected with a resounding majority”. The Prime Minister, speaking to Canadian taxpayers, was saying that was the best $200 million of taxpayer money he ever spent.

We know that an election costs around $200 million. It is quite an expensive project. That is what it took to put the Liberals back into power. I am giving the Liberals a weak commendation in that their pre-election document showed they were ready to go the way we were saying Canadians were asking parliament to go, namely to exercise some fiscal responsibility and implement tax cuts.

If we look at the polling data right now and if we ask Canadians what they think is important, the number one issue is health care, and rightly so. Whenever we are ill and we need some help from the medical profession, we live in a country where we have come to accept that it will be available. It ought to be that way. I believe very solidly in our principle, which is also a principle of the Canada Health Act, that no one should be denied needed health care because of financial situation. I concur with that.

Canadians are saying that is the number one issue. The number two issue is either crime, punishment or the justice system. Down the line a bit comes tax cuts, as the member from the CCF said just a moment ago. He usually calls my party by the wrong name, so why can I not?

He said that tax cuts were actually quite low. That is because when Canadians are asked to priorize something they put these things in rank order. We make the mistake of drawing the conclusion, because tax cuts are maybe third, fourth or fifth on the list, that they are not important to Canadians.

If we look at the importance that Canadians place on those issues they would probably all be close to equal. If we asked how important health care was on a scale of one to ten, a person might say ten. When asked how important tax cuts are, they might say that is a nine. It is not as important so it ranks out that way, but it is still important to them. I hear that from many people who ask why they work like slaves from early morning until late at night and do not seem to get ahead.

Very frankly, even with these timid tax cuts that the Minister of Finance introduced in budget 2000—and of course most of the things in the mini budget from last fall have not yet been implemented—the actual reduction in the total deductions in the average person's paycheque is not huge, if it is there at all. As a matter of fact, with the new payments for Canada pension the bottom line for most families is about the same or sometimes even a little worse.

In broad generalities as I am leading up to my talk on Bill C-22 today, I really think we need to address very carefully the level of taxation in the country.

Second, I want to talk a little about the complexity of it. I talked a bit this morning on Bill C-8, the banking bill, but we have had other bills in the House that have to do with changing the taxation system or the revenue system, and sometimes we deal with government expenditures. I find it frankly astounding, and I hope I never lose my astonishment, that a week ago in one evening we sat here as members and in a matter of about 20 minutes approved the expenditure of some $15 billion or $16 billion. Those were the supplementary estimates just to get the government to the end of this fiscal year. The amount of money we approve here is amazing. I believe the responsibility we have as proper stewards of the money entrusted to us is of the utmost importance.

One of the things I want to see happen is a reduction in the complexity of our tax system. My goodness, I remember not long ago reading an interpretation bulletin on the GST which differentiated between buying cooked shrimp and cold, frozen shrimp. There is a different rate of GST applied to the two of them. In one case it was considered that because they were cooked they were a meal and therefore the GST applied. In the other case they were frozen, therefore they were groceries. GST is not charged on groceries. That is only one minute example.

Bill C-22 discusses proposals for amending the Income Tax Act as well as the Canada Pension Plan, the Customs Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act and another act related to the Excise Tax Act. All of this is included and does not increase the simplicity of it. It increases the complexity of it.

Already I am led to believe that there are very few Canadians, even among our best tax lawyers, who know that code. As a matter of fact, any of our citizens who have had the occasion to go to one of the tribunals to get a ruling on a tax dispute are hoping for some reasonable hearing there because, depending on who one gets, one gets different interpretations.

One person in my riding told me that he phoned Revenue Canada to ask about a certain issue. He got an answer that he did not think was right, so he phoned again, got a different person and got a different answer. Then he thought, just a minute, there are two different answers here, so he went for two out of three because he still did not really know. He phoned again, hoping that he would get one of the other two answers, and lo and behold, there was a third answer. The complexity of it is a great frustration. The bill, among other things, increases that complexity.

During the election campaign the Alliance Party was proposing that we go to a single rate tax. That is not a flat tax. That is a misnomer we are often accused of. A single rate tax is simply the same kind of a tax system we have now with basic exemptions and other deductions, but instead of three rates as we had at that time, we said we would reduce them all to the same rate of 17%. I suppose we could have achieved the same result by simply saying that the amounts where these rates kick in are some high number and it would have probably been more saleable than the way it was presented.

The fact is that we are proposing deductions. We are proposing huge tax breaks for middle income and lower income families. The Liberals are crowing about the fact that people who are now making a family income of $20,000 a year are going to get a tax break of maybe 16% or 20% or whatever number it is that they use. Under our plan that reduction would be 100%. They would be removed from the tax roll completely.

Under our plan, a family of four, a mum, a dad and two kids, would pay zero tax on the first $26,000 of income and then a straight 17% on the remaining, whereas the Liberal government goes on and on with exemptions of maybe $15,000 or $16,000 and then 17% on everything after that, although they are proposing to reduce that to 16%. That, by the way, is also a bit of sleight of hand. If we just talk about the rate but apply it on more of the income the total tax bill is higher than if there were a 1% higher rate but a great deal more of the income exempt from tax.

In wrapping up, I would simply like to say that some of the measures in the bill go in the right direction. I am rather concerned about some of them. They go in the right direction but not far enough. In any case, there are some things in the bill that are woefully inadequate. I am looking forward very much to hearing about the bill in committee, not only from officials but also from witnesses who will come to our committee and give us their read on it. I am sure that in the finance committee we will have a great time analyzing the bill and reporting back to the House in due time.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000, March 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's speech via the courtesy of the interpreters, since unfortunately I am unilingual.

I would like to ask the member a question with respect to what he was saying. He was talking about the problem of mothers and fathers who want to stay home with their children after the one year is up. Under the Liberal scheme, the only way that could be arranged is to have a child every year. The limit is a year. If a person has not worked in between, then they would probably be ineligible. After the first year, the second and third child that may come would not be eligible for those benefits.

Does the member have any solution to that quite clear dilemma in the Liberal plan?

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, March 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I thank you for recognizing me at this time, which actually accomplishes a couple of goals. First, since I have had to stand five or six times to be recognized, I have been afforded needed exercise. Second, I appreciate being able to speak before the parliamentary secretary on this particular grouping because I can hopefully change his mind since I think he may have considerable influence on the way the votes are conducted on the other side. At least I would hope he has, although I sometimes even wonder about that.

Let me address the issues that are before us in this group of amendments. I will begin, of course, with the matter of the penalty that is proposed to be amended by the member from the Bloc.

He proposes that the maximum penalty be changed. In order to see how the clause reads now, I need to haul out this book, the bill we are amending, Bill C-8. It says the maximum penalty for a violation is $50,000 in the case of a violation that is committed by a natural person and $100,000 in the case of a violation that is committed by a financial institution. That is for breaches of the act and of the regulations made by the minister.

I want to draw attention to the fact that this states the maximum penalty, so I think arguments could be made in favour of this particular amendment. The maximum penalty right now is $100,000 and the amendment says it should be a maximum of $500,000. This does not mean it is going to be applied.

As a matter of fact, if we read the next section, which is not referenced in this amendment, it states that in assessing the penalty these are some of the issues which are to be taken into account: the degree of intention or negligence on the part of the person committing the violation; the harm done; the history with respect to previous convictions or violations; and any other criteria that may be prescribed.

In assessing a penalty for a violation, I am sure that a large bank, a huge financial institution, would, under that prescription, be given a larger penalty than a small credit union somewhere, depending on the severity of the violation. Yet at the same time, I am somewhat inclined to have a substantial penalty when a large business just will not comply. That could happen. I cannot imagine under what circumstances, but it could happen.

I think, for example, of a large but unnamed mall in Edmonton. When it first started in business we had the Lord's Day Act in place in Alberta, which meant that some days were available to families to spend together because basically all of the stores were closed and just essential services were provided. It was a wonderful time, actually, when I look back at it, when we could get together with our families. We had freedom. People were not obliged to go to work. It was the same day for everyone.

Then that particular mall said that if it were to be fined $10,000 a day every time it was open on Sunday that was a fair and reasonable cost of doing business. It just paid the fine and broke the law with impunity. There was no provision under the law to escalate the penalty; it was just a straight $10,000 a day. The mall gladly paid the fine and made a lot of money.

By the way, I believe that is where the erosion started. Then it went right across the country, so that working people now no longer have a day off each week that applies to all family members. Very seldom do we see a family being able to get together. Either mom has to work or dad has to work or one of the kids who has a job at the store has to work. They cannot be together.

That is an example of a penalty so small that the business was not compelled at all to obey the law. In that sense, I have a bit of a tendency to be in favour of just increasing the maximum. It would not necessarily be applied, but this amendment would put some teeth into this for those who were in blatant violation and who continued to be so.

I must hurry because I have spent too much time on that particular provision. The next motion is Motion No. 9. That has to do with the application of a problem specific to Quebec at this time but which could happen in other provinces as well. In order to preserve my time, let me simply say that I have an inclination to agree with it.

Motion No. 10 has to do with the provision that the banks should provide for a low cost account. I do not really believe that we should have this in legislation or in law, although I agree with the principle of it. I would much rather see the banks provide these necessary low cost accounts and advertise that fact.

If a bank were to have an ad in the paper that said there were a number of people in our society from whom they just did not make a great deal of money but for whom they felt obliged to provide a banking service at a low cost, I think the bank would get a lot of public relations benefit simply by advertising that and providing a service. The bank could ask small businessmen in towns and cities or wherever to support its business with their business. I think it would benefit the bank.

I agree with the principle that a person of limited financial means should have the ability to go into a bank and cash a cheque and to have a low cost bank account. That is definitely a principle I agree with. As I said, the only reason I would vote against this is that I think would be overkill. I also do not agree with putting in a fixed amount, because maybe the bank could do it for less. Maybe of necessity it has to be $4 and a bank would be in violation if we ensconced $3 in the legislation.

I am opposed to this particular motion on the basis that it is too specific, and I think the same goals, which I agree with, can be achieved by other means.

I turn now to Motion No. 11, also put forward by the NDP member, which proposes that the closing of the branches of a bank “can only take place for reasons of financial non-profitability.” I hate to say it, but this is a dreadful amendment.

I think it is a huge imposition on business operations. It is like telling farmers they could plant only a certain kind of crop and the only reason they could ever quit planting would be if they were not making money on it; otherwise, they would have to plant that crop. I disagree with that.

I believe the banks should have a certain degree of flexibility to open and to close branches based on an efficient way of providing services in the community. For example, let us say that there is a branch over here and there is a branch over there. With modern transportation it is now much easier for people to get around, so if the banks decided to have one branch operating in the middle instead of having two branches operating, it would mean the closure of two branches. Neither of them might be losing money, but the bank could be more efficient and provide a better service for less cost, including services for low income people. I do not think we should stand in the way of this. In this particular instance, I would simply say that I would be really hard pressed to support Motion No. 11.

The last motion is the one on the credit unions, proposed by the member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley. I propose that we heartily support it. This is where I want to get the ear of the parliamentary secretary over there and have him influence all of his Liberal colleagues to vote in favour of this very fine amendment.

I happen to believe in the credit union movement. My dad was a leader in the credit union in Saskatchewan for many years. He was on the board, on the finance committee and on the loans committee. He did all sorts of things. As a result of having grown up in that kind of an atmosphere, I guess, I am sort of inclined toward credit unions.

Over the years I have given some business to the banks for different reasons, but I have found that in a competitive market my dealings with the credit unions have been most satisfactory. I do not hesitate at all to give a little bit of free advertising to them here today. They can use this clip if they want to. I give them permission. I do not know whether the rules of the House of Commons permit that, but I certainly support the credit union movement and this amendment strengthens it. The reason we should favour this amendment is that one of the best things for the Canadian financial services industry is to have good competition, where we can say to our financial institutions “Treat me like that and I am out of here”.

I am going to run out of time here, but I remember when I had a bank loan for purchasing a car. I asked the bank whether I could pay the loan off more quickly. The bank said that I could but I would have to pay a penalty. Members would not believe it, but the total payment the bank wanted in order to have me pay off that loan early was greater than the sum of the remaining payments. I said to the bank that either it was nuts or it thought I was. I was not willing to comply with that. I just finished off my payments and said that if that was how the bank did business I would look elsewhere. Sure enough, soon I found another financial institution that pleased me more and I just moved my business to it.

That is the very best thing we can do: provide competition. Credit unions are one of the primary ways of holding the banks responsible and giving them some real competition.

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, March 27th, 2001]

My apologies, Madam Speaker. I was simply urging the members opposite to listen carefully and perhaps even to consider voting in favour of the amendments that have been put forward.

I will digress for a second. A motion was passed by a majority not long ago that said that amendments at report stage in the House were not to be received by the Speaker. Then there were some really broad, sweeping statements made. The fact is that when we make amendments in committee, they are voted down by the majority in the committee before they have been given serious thought. I am contending that amendments made in the House often get no serious thought. I think it is time that we change that.

I would like members to seriously consider and support Motion No. 1 put forward by my colleague. Instead of the minister giving a report in the House, Motion No. 1 states that the report should go to the House of Commons:

—on all matters connected with the administration of this Act, which stands permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, and of the consumer provisions.

We are dealing with a balance. Banks have tremendous power but we need them. They are an important component of the engine of our financial well-being and our economic development. However we need a balance between their powers and provisions and the protection of individuals, small businesses and others. We say that the report should automatically be referred to the finance committee and to the House of Commons and not just simply be a report tabled by the minister. I would urge members to seriously consider supporting that.

I will now make reference to Motion No. 13 put forward by my colleague, which deals with the designation of payment system. Someone might read Hansard somewhere down the road, or may be listening on television or perchance listening in the gallery today, who does not even know what the payment system is. The fact is that we have huge numbers of financial transactions every day ranging from mega corporations transferring millions and sometimes billions of dollars, down to an individual using a credit card to make a purchase of a couple of small items at the drug store.

We have a payment system that is the communications link between all our financial institutions. When I write a cheque drawn on the credit union to which I belong and it is processed by someone who deposits it in one of the banks, there has to be a communications system. The government, rightly, has the authority to designate the payment system. Motion No. 13 suggests that the minister must provide in writing the rationale for either declaring a payment system valid or not.

I will read subclause 37(3) of the bill on page 408. It states:

Before a payment system is designated, the Minister shall consult the manager and the participants of the payment system and may consult interested parties, with respect to the effect of the designation.

It says “may consult”, not have to, anybody who is affected. The provision of Motion No. 13 would strengthen this and would require the minister to do the work much more thoroughly. The motion says:

—the process by which consultation of the manager, the participants, and other interested parties who could be affected by the designation can take place, including how the Minister's concerns can be addressed;

There is a strengthening of that. I would again ask members opposite to give some heed to the actual wording of this particular amendment. It is a good amendment because it strengthens the relationship between the banks and the people who use their services. It shows an accountability which exceeds just simply a minister being able to do pretty well anything he wants with a consultation which me may or may not use.

I would like to comment on the motions put forward by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle in Group No. 1. My present inclination is to be oppose his motions on a rational basis. Quite clearly we have very few banks in Canada. If I read his amendments correctly, they say that amalgamations should be approved by parliament.

It is probably true that we have five maybe six major banks in Canada right now. It is foreseeable that some of them may try to merge their operations for whatever reason, but I will not go into those. We know we went through an exercise like that not long ago. It is reasonable to expect that this could occur again. The member is proposing that it should be approved by the House of Commons and by the Senate. That is what his amendment basically says.

I suppose one could not be opposed to that if we were looking at one or two occurrences. However there are hundreds of smaller financial institutions around the country. I think we would probably err if each of those would come before the House every time a little outfit in one town wanted to amalgamate and merge with another one in a neighbouring town to strengthen their position. It is not clear in the amendment that the member would exclude many of these.

My inclination is not to favour that amendment for the reason that these things could be held up interminably waiting for a parliamentary calendar which would permit us to deal with them. That would be my primary objection but in principle it is correct. It is in the House where presumably members of parliament have the voice to represent the needs of the people who are dealing with the banks.

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, March 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-8, a massive bill, as has been mentioned. It is a bill which, when I hold it in my hands, increases my weight by about 10%.

When we look at the proposed amendments in Group No. 1, we see that they are there to improve the bill. I will speak specifically to Motion No. 1 right now, put forward by my colleague, which deals with the reporting section. The parliamentary secretary just stated that there is a provision in the bill for this. For clarity, I will read from page 15 under “Annual Report”. It states:

The Minister shall cause to be laid before each House of Parliament, not later than the fifth sitting day of that House after September 30 next following the end of each fiscal year, a report showing the operations of the Agency for that year and describing in aggregate form its conclusions on the compliance of financial institutions with the consumer provisions applicable to them in that year.

Do members notice who is reporting? It is the minister. The minister shall lay a report on the table. Of course the minister can say exactly what he or she wants. It is reported in the House and we all know what happens to reports. Routine proceedings take place every day in the House and someone presents a report under the tabling of documents. Under one of those proceedings, the minister could simply table a report showing the operations of the agency.

Motion No. 1 is really quite different. It is difficult by reasoned debate to persuade the members on the other side of the House because I am not sure they are listening. If they are listening, they do not show it by their body language. All we see is a bunch of green foreheads over there that are not really—

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, March 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Perhaps I am too late. The hon. member was speaking to a motion that is not presently before us since we are still dealing with Group No. 1. The motion he is speaking to is in Group No. 2. However, I believe he was just moving on to the next one so I am too late.

[Division No. 36, March 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member dealt at length on the issue of naming young offenders. We support the idea that a person who has done something wrong ought to confess to it, make it right and make restitution, if it is a property crime, and do everything he or she can do to restore and build their character.

I would like the member to give us his rationale for including in this legislation that which has been practised in Canada for a number of years now. I am speaking of hiding the identity of a person who has been charged and convicted. It seems to me that it is part of accountability when someone admits that he or she did something wrong and asks for help. If the community knows who that person is that person can then go on to make a good life for himself or herself. That is what should be done. I am puzzled by Liberal insistence on keeping identities of young offenders secret.

Could the member comment on that?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 22nd, 2001]

That is exactly how it works.