Ken Epp

[Criminal Code, March 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, a few minutes is all the time I will need. I want to say just a very few things in the highest support possible of the bill.

Today has been a really heart-rending day in the House. We have been dealing with issues which really in a respectable society should not even have to be mentioned. We have been dealing with sexual predators. Now in this evening's session, we are talking about a bill that would limit and restrict advantages that people can make in producing child pornography.

I just want it on record that I fully support this bill. I am very concerned that in our society we somehow think that by passing a whole bunch of laws that we can make people good. I do not think we can. We have to really do what a number of members said in the debate; that is we have to look at moral teaching when these children are young, so they grow up to be responsible adults and behave in a socially acceptable way.

The role of law is still to restrict those who will not conform to that. While law cannot make people good, it can serve to restrain the evil. I think that is really the essence of what we are dealing with today and in this bill as well.

I want to congratulate the member for Lethbridge for the bill. We need to support it. I sincerely call upon the government to act, not just to engage in a bunch of nice words here, but to act and to put into place mechanisms that would fulfill what this bill requires.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, March 2nd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, how grateful I am for the opportunity that the member from the CCF has given me to say that during the campaign I too was grossly misrepresented in that case. I bear part of the responsibility. By giving an interview to a member of the press, I made the gross error of forgetting that I was not in a debate in the House of Commons. I got into a debate with the interviewer and I probably said some of the things that were reported about me. I greatly regret having given him the interview because it gave him, during the time of the debate, the two or three quotes that he needed.

My apologies to you, Madam Speaker, the Canadian people and to everybody for that. It was a misrepresentation of what we really want to do. We want to fix things and improve things for Canadians.

With respect to the hon. member's statement on taxes for the rich, it just is not true. Let us say, for example, that I was walking along with my little grandson and we were carrying some stuff. Let us say that I had a load of 100 pounds on my back and my little grandson was carrying five pounds. Somebody else comes along, maybe my grandson's dad, my son, and says that he will help carry that. He takes half of my load and he takes all of his son's load. My grandson had a 100% reduction in his load, from five to zero, and I had a reduction in my load of 100 to 50. Sure I got a bigger reduction but it equalizes it out.

It is just totally intellectually dishonest for that member and the members opposite to so misrepresent our tax policy because it just is not on.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, March 2nd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the member's speech.

Usually I rise on points of order when members do not get the name of our party right, but I will simply say that member from the CCF has really misrepresented our position. When he talks about our party not being concerned about those who are less wealthy, he is misrepresenting what we actually believe.

We believe that it is best for people to have a job. We have a tax policy that would reduce taxes according to our actual numbers. If he were to be intellectually honest enough and actually look at them, instead of just spewing about them, he would see that the greatest tax reductions in our plan are for exactly the people he is talking about. In other words, when some of the rich people get a tax reduction, those who are in the lower brackets get a 100% tax reduction. That is not good enough for him. I do not know what he is asking for.

With respect to the tax for the rich, we believe that those who are well off should not be punished for their successes. Those are exactly the people we need to drive our industries, to produce jobs, to hire people and to take poor people, give them employment and get them off the welfare rolls.

Our view is that the measure of the effectiveness of our economy is not how many people we have on welfare but rather how many people we get off welfare. That is what our position is and frankly I do not care whether the member from the CCF has a response to that or not.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, March 2nd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I was in the middle of an exciting discourse when we were interrupted for members' statements and questions and all that other exciting part of the day. I was in the middle of telling the story about how taxation policy affects behaviour.

My colleague from Calgary spoke about the fact that rich people being taxed on the size of their windows put very small windows in their houses in order to reduce taxation. The tudor type of architecture with the small windows was the result of a taxation policy many years ago.

I was in the middle of relating the fact that my father, who bought a new car every three or four years, thought about buying a new car in 1991 when the GST came in. He went to the dealer and found one he liked. He was ready to buy it until he looked at the bill. It had a huge amount for GST. My dad said that he had already paid income tax on the money he had earned and that the government now wanted him to pay what was left on the GST. He decided not to buy the car. He walked away from the dealership. He did not close the deal. He said that he would keep his old car.

The local dealership lost business, the salesman lost his commission and the owner did not make a profit on the sale of the car. The result of that, I believe, ripples down through the whole economy. My dad, being a frugal person who spent his money wisely over the years, made that decision because of the GST. I believe hundreds and probably thousands more Canadians postponed purchasing decisions based on the GST. The GST thereby has had a huge effect on the economy of the country. Taxation has a huge effect on the economy.

We are here today discussing the GST. We are making small changes to it in order to improve it. I believe to this very day that there is a lot of anger out there about this most hated tax.

There are businesses in Edmonton close to where I live that advertise sales in the papers that are called GST events. They do this today, 10 years after the tax was imposed. Just about every week one of the furniture companies or car dealerships will have a GST sale. In smaller letters, the ads say that the company will pick up the GST.

Companies could simply say that they will give buyers a 7% discount. Some people will show up and pay attention to it. However, when a great big sign says “We will pay the GST”, even though it is only 7%, people will go to the sales. It makes them feel good when they do not have to pay that hated tax.

I come from the province of Alberta where we had no sales tax until the GST. It was wonderful. If an item was marked $4.99, we would pay with a five dollar bill and get a penny back. It was very healthy for our economy. Why is it that Alberta is a province which is so well off compared to some of the others? I contend that one of the reasons is that over the years Alberta has had a much more rational and less offensive tax policy.

It affects me to this day as I spend approximately half of my time in Ottawa as a member of parliament and the other half in other parts of the country, most of it back home in Alberta. Perhaps I should not say this, but whenever I need to buy something I buy it in Alberta and bring it back here.

I do not usually have time during the day to go to the stores around here, but even if I did I would postpone it. Not long ago I needed some videotapes in my office to record one of my colleagues giving a speech in the House. I bought them in Alberta because I did not have to pay a provincial sales tax. The provincial government may look at all the money it gets from this tax, but we should look at all the money it avoided.

A number of years ago the provincial government of Saskatchewan imposed a tax on fuel. It then made a rule that every farmer and every businessman who submitted their receipts at the end of the year could get a rebate of that tax. In other words, the purpose of the tax was simply to tax people from out of the province.

I and hundreds of other people responded to that. My family still lives in Saskatchewan. I go to visit them. What did I do? I used to drive from my home to Swift Current where my family lives. I would visit with them, fill up and drive home again. After this tax was brought in I drove to the last gas station at the Alberta border. I filled up, drove to Saskatchewan to visit my family, drove back to that town in Alberta and filled up there in order to avoid this tax.

Introducing that tax did nothing for Saskatchewan. The numbers show that its revenue went down as a result. Meanwhile it had a huge administrative boondoggle, taking money and giving it back. How am I relating this to the GST? Let me just finish the Saskatchewan example.

Its revenue went down and its local businesses lost business. A local business used to sell me a tank of fuel every time I went down there. After the tax was brought in, and in fact I do not know if it still has this tax, I got into the habit of filling up in the last town in Alberta, whether it was Wainwright or Provost; driving to Saskatchewan; and making sure to get back there before I was out of fuel.

I did not give them the business any more so they lost the profit. They could have made some profit from me, but they lost it because of their government's tax policy.

The GST does the same. I do not know whether Canadians are aware that the GST brings in approximately $50 billion a year of gross revenue. Members will be amazed when I tell them that approximately $25 billion of it is sent back in refunds and rebates. That is absurd. Why have a system where the money just spins in circles in a huge centrifuge? The only thing we are supporting by it is a huge army of government bureaucrats whose only job is to process the payments of people who have put money into a pot when in fact they will get it back.

Not long ago a lady in my riding phoned me and said that her small business was in trouble. It had a couple of gravel trucks to haul snow in the winter and to help with road construction projects in the summer. Its old trucks were just about worn out.

If that small business were to buy a new truck, the value of the truck could be depreciated over time, but when it is purchased the GST must be paid in full upfront, even though it was entitled to some of it back in terms of the way this money goes swishing around. It is a terribly silly, useless, ill conceived and badly administered tax. It was then and it is now.

I am sorry that I have to end my remarks. Maybe I should ask for unanimous consent since no one else seems eager to speak. May I have another five minutes? I would love that.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, March 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand in the House on a Friday morning and enter into this debate on the GST.

It was the GST that brought me here. I do not know whether that is widely known. The most common statement I heard while knocking on doors in 1993 was “we are going to get rid of those Conservatives who brought us the GST”. A bunch of people asked me why they should vote for Brian O'Kurley when he did not vote for them. Brian O'Kurley was the Conservative predecessor in my riding. It was Brian Mulroney and Brian O'Kurley who campaigned for me in 1993 and undoubtedly delivered more votes for me than I could possibly have got by myself. The GST has a history.

I had a very interesting experience the other day. I was preparing to speak on the fact that the government was invoking closure in its motion in order to reduce the ability of the opposition parties to do their work in the House. My staff and I did a bit of research at the Library of Parliament. Among other things, we looked at some of the newspapers circa 1989 and 1990, in that era when the GST was being debated. It was absolutely incredible to read some of the newspaper reports of the day. I was amazed by the outrage expressed by the present Minister of Industry at that time. He was on this side of the House then. The outrage he expressed toward the Conservative government that was proposing the GST was absolutely amazing. Also, the present Prime Minister was then travelling around the country telling people that his government would kill the GST.

Just as I got here because of the GST, I wonder how many Liberals got elected on that same hatred of the goods and services tax, sometimes called, in our part of the world—I am going to say this real quickly, Mr. Speaker, and then you can stop me afterwards—the gouge and screw tax. That is what it was called out west. The amount of animosity generated by that particular tax was absolutely incredible.

I was not aware until last week that the finance critic from this side of the House took a number of Liberal MPs with petitions out to the Sparks Street mall. It was recorded in the newspapers in 1990. Those MPs asked citizens to sign a petition to stop the GST. The newspapers had huge headlines about all of the overt opposition to the GST.

We know the history of it. The Conservatives finally were persuaded to reduce the rate from 9% to 7%. That, they claimed, was a victory for the people because they listened to the people. I guess they listened like these Liberals listen when it comes to tax policy and other issues. They reduced the rate and then proceeded to put it through the House.

At that time I was researching the use of tactics to prolong debate in the House. Members would not believe what the Liberals did on that side of the House in order to try to stop that legislation. They did not introduce 4,000 amendments—I guess they were not bright enough to think of that as a tactic—but they did all sorts of other things. Finally it was pushed through in a whipped vote.

By the way, our own member of parliament for Elk Island at that time, my predecessor for whom I have a great deal of respect, was a real gentleman in the campaign. I have talked to him several times since then. He is a nice guy, but sitting on the government side he had no choice about representing the wishes of his constituents in that vote, because it was a whipped vote just like pretty well every vote on the government side of the House is a whipped vote. That does not give members of parliament the opportunity to represent their constituents. He was an honourable guy, but he was pushed into the system and I suppose had no choice.

What happened in 1993? I told my friend—and I will call him my friend—Brian O'Kurley that he went down with the ship but that he as an individual did not take down the ship. It was the whole crew that took down the ship. Ten years later we now have a group of Progressive Conservatives represented over on that side of the House in a double file along the wall, five deep on two sides. People just did not ever come back to the PCs. In the last election, the PCs lost some 86% of their vote in Quebec. They have very little market share, whereas there is a great attraction to formerly the Reform and now the Canadian Alliance because we have explicitly as one of our policies that it is our primary duty to represent our constituents.

I like to think that had we had a Canadian Alliance type of government in 1989 and 1990, that tax either would not have been implemented or would have been greatly improved before it was implemented. It would not have been implemented until we had the consent of the people. As it was, the tax was jammed through by an arrogant government, with 85% of Canadians opposed to it. That was an error.

I really commend my hon. colleague from Calgary for his speech. We must be geniuses who think alike because I was going to use the Tudor example as well. The only difference in the story that I remember was that they did not count the windows, they measured the windows. They measured the area. That was why the windows were so small.

If I had a dream that could be fulfilled, because we know there are some private members' bills that commemorate this day or that day, I would like to have a private member's bill passed in the House such that every time people saw a Tudor style small window they would be encouraged, not forced, to incant these words “I hate huge taxes”. If every time we saw one of those buildings we were to say “that is the result of an arrogant government that overtaxes the people”, then perhaps we would start putting pressure on the government to reduce taxes.

Since we are talking about the GST and taxes in general, I should also say that I have little doubt in my mind that it is the presence of the Canadian Alliance on this side that has actually made reduction of taxes an issue of debate and has made it respectable to talk about.

Until we came along, it seemed to make no difference whether it was the Liberals or the Conservatives on whatever side of the House. Each of those governments increased records of the number of times they increased taxes and the amounts by which they increased taxes.

I like to think that we on this side had some considerable influence on the direction the government is now taking in gingerly starting to reduce tax rates. The government knows that the public is starting to hear our message and it knows that the public will vote for us if the government does not do what we are promising to do.

I look at some of the issues the federal government has approached, especially in the major campaign document it introduced four days before the election was called, namely the Minister of Finance's mini statement, and I note that the reason those issues were in there was that the Liberals realized without them we would make huge gains, and so we would have if they would not have stolen from us. I suppose I should commend them for stealing our ideas and tell them to steal more because that is the way to go.

There is another example of how taxation policy affects human behaviour. One of my favourite stories is that of my own father who is now in his 90th year. My dad was a hard-working farmer. He taught us to work hard when we were kids growing up on the farm in Saskatchewan. These days he sees that farmers are farming so well and so efficiently, including my brother, who has taken over the family farm and expanded it.

My dad is deeply distressed and concerned about the fact that these farmers farming so well with big equipment on a large scale and getting good crops, basically four times as much per acre as he was able to raise with his boys when he was a farmer, are now struggling for their very existence, with many losing their farms. It is absolutely despicable. My father has been a farmer all his life and still loves to get out there at harvest time and watch that grain come roaring out of the chute on the combine. He is one who is very practically minded, I can assure members.

I remember the GST coming in and my dad breaking the pattern he had had for a number of years. After I left home, my Dad's financial situation somehow seemed to improve. I wonder whether there was a correlation there. We were very poor when I was young growing up on the farm in Saskatchewan, exceptionally poor. When I graduated from high school, went on to university, got my own job and ceased being dependent on him, somehow at that stage my father's financial fortunes seemed to take a little turn for the better and on more occasions he would buy a new car.

For many years he bought a car every three or four years. In 1991 when the tax came in, my dad had a car that was four years old and was ready to be traded. He went to look at the new ones and the dealer hit him with the GST. He walked away from the dealership. He said to my mom “we are going to keep the car”.

Mr. Speaker, if you are going to interrupt me may I continue later?

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not sure that we on this side should be the only ones required to listen to this diatribe. I would like to see more Liberals in the House and I am challenging you on quorum.

And the count having been taken:

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The ruling of the Chair was that the party should be named the Canadian Alliance. The member is showing disrespect to the Chair to continue to defy the Chair in this way. Madam Speaker, you should enforce that.

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There does not appear to be a quorum in the House.

And the count having been taken:

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We had a ruling by the Speaker that our party is to be called the Canadian Alliance in the House of Commons. In respect to the Chair, the member should comply with that previous ruling.

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if we could have unanimous consent for five minutes of questions and comments with the member because I have some important things I would like to say.