Ken Epp

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 2nd, 1999]

Oh, there is one back there. He happens to be reading his book but he says he is listening to me. There is another one back there who is actually listening. I cannot mention his name. That is great. There are two of them. That is wonderful.

Out of 301 members of parliament, the Reform Party is trying to put forward some debate. We are trying to persuade some empty seats to come to a different point of view. What a shame.

I will say a bit about the process that is involved. We have a very strange anomaly with respect to the democratic process. It is a matter of record that the majority of seats in western Canada, the majority of seats in British Columbia, are held by Reform Party members. We in the Reform Party have undertaken a very creative initiative in politics in Canada by representing in the House of Commons the wishes of the people who elected us.

A majority of members of parliament from British Columbia are Reformers who are listening not just to the chiefs but to the grassroots people. They are getting the message both from grassroots natives and from grassroots non-natives that there are serious flaws in this process and in what is being jammed down their throats.

The democratic system is failing because of the way democracy does not work in Canada. Most Liberals on the other side of the House, most of whom are represented by green foreheads again today, do not live in British Columbia. They will rise on command and vote the way they are told to jam the legislation through even though they do not represent, by any stretch of the imagination, the people who are most vitally affected by it. I am speaking of the people of British Columbia.

I should also hasten to add that inasmuch as every deal like this one creates a precedence and a pattern for future agreements, it affects every Canadian. However the Liberals are not listening to that. They say they do not need to listen to that. They have a majority and can do whatever they want. They just thumb their noses at us and do whatever they wish.

Even though the New Democratic Party government in British Columbia held a majority of seats in that house, it obtained a lesser percentage of the votes in British Columbia than did the Liberal Party. It is intriguing the Liberal Party of British Columbia, a party with the same name as the governing party here, came to the conclusion after studying the bill and consulting with the people involved that it was not a very good bill and should be amended, changed, fixed or defeated.

Admittedly the New Democratic Party government gave it a lot more debate time in its house than we are getting here. I guess we can give the NDP a back-handed compliment for at least permitting that. However just permitting debate is meaningless.

I know my party is saying that we ought to be able to debate this bill. I am not content with that. I am not content with just standing here and talking. I would like to change the minds of the people on the other side. What can I do to force them to actually listen to me? I do not know what I can do.

Maybe we should change the rules of the House. Maybe our salaries should be contingent on us actually physically being present in the House when debates are being held. Maybe that should happen. Maybe we should do something that forces members to participate in a debate like this one.

How many speeches have we had from the disinterested green foreheads over there today? I believe we had one or two. I was at finance committee for a while so I may have missed one of those important speeches, but there is mostly indifference.

I remember reading a long time ago that the opposite of love was not hate, that the opposite of love was indifference. Members opposite are totally indifferent. They do not care. They do not raise their heads to speak. They do not talk to the people in any meaningful way. When the time comes for voting they will indifferently rise on command, collect their salaries and go home.

I am not in a position to prognosticate and predict what will happen, but I would be very surprised if the number of Liberal members from B.C. in the next election was not cut by one-half, one-third or one-fourth. I do not think that they will carry the support of the people because it is evident that they are not being represented here by those Liberal members.

We have evidence that between 60% and 90% of people in different ridings are opposed to the agreement. I will ask a simple, reasonable question. If there is such opposition to it, why can government members not exercise a shade of humility and say that perhaps they are not perfect? Just imagine if they would confess that and admit that perhaps they are not 100% perfect.

We are dealing with Bill C-9. I know I cannot use props, but I was trying to guess how thick the books were. I just felt them and they are thick, the two books we are talking about today. Surely in there somewhere we could have made a few little amendments to satisfy the deeply held concerns of British Columbians and other Canadians in this regard.

What we have is a government that says it is 100% right and there is no room for change. It feels that it does not need to consider any amendments. In fact the bill has come to the House without the possibility of amendment. We are not doing our jobs as parliamentarians if we just simply rubber stamp a flawed document. Also, the ramifications of this decision will be with us, our children and our children's children for generations. Therefore it is important that it is done correctly.

I remember one of my bosses at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology who had a parchment in his office. Every time I went to see him I would see that parchment which contained a very fitting statement: “If you don't have time to do it right, when will you find time to do it again?” That is a very good principle for how we do things. We need to do it right. In this instance it is doubly and triply important because the ability to change the agreement once it has been enacted is not very hopeful at all. It will be virtually impossible to do so.

We are rushing into it. We are not doing it well enough as parliamentarians. I should be explicit. The Liberals and other opposition parties that are standing with them in jamming the bill through are failing the Canadian people. They are failing the people of British Columbia. They are failing the natives, because even they are telling us that they have serious concerns about the legislation. They are not well served. They are not at all happy with what is happening.

In conclusion, I urge members opposite to use their own brains and their own conscience and do what is right and what is necessary in terms of the bill. For once they should use the clout available to them. They are so close to being able to put the government in a position of having to deal with it, why do they not do it? Let them show some integrity and do it.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise again today on one of those occasions when I wish I could say I am pleased to rise in this debate. However I have to be blushingly cautious in that statement because I am not really very happy to be standing here under these circumstances.

I have observed over the years how different people fall out of sorts with each other. We call them human relationships. I have noticed people fall apart even in their marriages. A couple of things lead up to that, according to the reading I have done, but one of them is that there is an indifference to the other partner. The partner starts thinking “I just don't matter. I just don't care”.

In Canada these days we are once again consumed with the question of national unity. I would simply put forward the notion that national unity, the unity of our citizens, is not being served by Bill C-9 at all. That is because of the indifference the government is showing toward people who are so greatly affected by the bill.

I cannot help but observe that even right now not a single member of the government is paying attention to what I am saying. Not one.

[Finance, December 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, he steps up to the contestant's chair. It is the finance minister. Who wants to be a billionaire? “I do”, said the finance minister.

Is it (a) grab the money from taxpayers using bracket creep for $40 billion? Is it (b) grab the money from the civil servants getting $30 billion from their pension fund? Is it (c) grab the money from the EI fund getting a cool $26 billion or so? Is it (d) all of the above?

The finance minister holds his glasses in his hand, thinks and says, “(d) all of the above”. Is that your final answer? “Yes.” says the finance minister, “It's my final answer”.

He wins. He grabs it all, billions and billions taken from Canada's poor, beleaguered taxpayers. The finance minister walks away from the podium, a slight glint in his eyes. He has billions of dollars to spend any way he wants. The only problem is he does not realize he has killed all of his lifelines.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 2nd, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 12

That Bill C-9, in the preamble, be amended by replacing line 5 on page 1 with the following:

“Canada;”

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 29th, 1999]

May I ask a question?

[Canadian Institutes Of Health Research Act, November 29th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the privilege to enter into the debate in the House on a very important issue to Canadians.

I know there are a lot of people who will be directly and indirectly affected by the outcome of the legislation. First of all, there will be the people who are involved directly in research in the country. I hope the passage and perhaps some proposed amendments to the bill will have a positive impact on the ability of Canadians to participate in worthwhile, meaningful, efficient research in the area of health care in Canada.

Hopefully there will be thousands and maybe millions of not only Canadians but people around the world whose lives will be made more enjoyable and, in some cases, whose lives will be made possible because of the research that will come out of this particular initiative.

In case the people listening, either in the House, in the galleries or on television, are not aware, we are debating Bill C-13 today. It is one of those cases where the government is saying that it will end one organization and put in place a replacement organization. We are talking about the old Medical Research Council, which will be phased out with Bill C-13 and replaced with this new organization called the Canadian institutes of health research. It is a very noble sounding title with very noble objectives by this particular group.

I am one who firmly supports the funding and promotion of research in the medical field. I am not at all convinced that it should all be done by direct research grants funded by governments. I said that I support funding, but I am not sure that having a government bureaucracy involved is the most efficient. As a matter of fact, even before I get into some of the details of my discussion, I will put forward an idea for people to think about.

Perhaps what we ought to do is shift governments out of this more and more and allow private companies and individuals to receive a greater benefit in the tax regime so that they can directly support those particular areas which they support.

I know of many individuals who, because of involvements in their families with certain diseases, are very prone to supporting funding for research in order to find a cure, help to ease the problems of living with a particular disease and perhaps even in the preventative end. They would be very willing to support a research project in this area or that area. Many of our large corporations in Canada would support it.

I think that if we had that we would have a better allocation into areas of need than we do now when government bureaucracies and politicians, being subject to the vocal lobby groups, tend to respond to that. I think we are all aware of the fact that there are a number of groups that get a lot more money than the statistics would show are warranted simply because they make the most noise on Parliament Hill. I am thinking of a couple of specific organizations in different areas of research.

I had the privilege this morning of meeting with Barbara Nathan-Marcus. She is a volunteer. She is a diabetic who has learned to cope with the disease.

I have had several friends in my lifetime who have coped with diabetes. It is a very difficult disease. I do not know if members are aware of this fact, but there are some really interesting statistics in the brochure that I got from them which surprised even me. One statistic shows that the economic burden of diabetes alone is estimated to cost the Canadian economy in excess of $3 billion a year. I was also amazed to find out that there are approximately 2.25 million Canadians affected by this disease and many of them are not even aware of it. We have approximately 60,000 new cases every year. It is the leading cause of blindness. In fact, Barbara, with whom I met this morning, is very, shall I say, sight challenged. I cannot tell by looking at her. She copes very well but has great difficulty seeing.

One of my friends at university, a wonderful man, was stricken with diabetes. He was a very active, a helpful and kind person, who unfortunately lost his eyesight due to his diabetes. He died at a very young age as a direct result of it.

Do I wish that we had more funding and more research for diabetes so that my friend and millions of others like him could have their symptoms relieved and we could continue searching for a cure and for a way of preventing the disease? Absolutely. If there is anything Canadians can address themselves to as a country it is in this area.

I think of the area of cancer. I do not think there is a family or a person who has not had a close friend or a member of the family affected by this disease. We have seen it in our family. Very frankly, we need to do all that we can to find the cause, to search for a cure and to find a way to prevent the disease.

I think of Alzheimer's disease. My goodness, think of the people we know today who are totally able to communicate, to engage in discussions and debates and who several years down the road find their brain suddenly ceases to function and are stricken with a disease that causes lack of recognition of even their closest family members. How dreadful. How great it would be if, as a result of this bill, we could increase the research into Alzheimer's and look for and find something that would prevent the disease from occurring or to arrest it when it comes.

I think of Parkinson's disease. I have several friends who have Parkinson's. One of my friends who had this disease passed away not long ago. I have another friend younger than I, who I have mentioned in the House before, who had an early onslaught of Parkinson's disease. Today he sits in his wheelchair day after day. When people ask me if I would want to see a cure, a way of preventing Parkinson's, a way of curing it, I say “absolutely”. We in this country need to do all that we can.

I think of strokes and heart disease. One of my closest friends, younger than I, had a serious stroke. He will probably have to live with the marginal ability to get around and communicate for the rest of his life. Yes, let us find a cure. Let us find a prevention.

I think of multiple sclerosis, MS as it is called. I also have a number of friends with MS. I think what I am saying is true for all of us. Every one of us can think of someone in our families or a close friend who has been stricken with these different diseases.

I am not saying that Bill C-13 and the new organization of health care research is the final answer and will solve all of these problems, but I am encouraging all of us to work together to provide research so that these diseases can be tackled and solutions, cures and preventative measures can be identified, found and implemented. It would do Canada a great service and all Canadians would benefit. It would give us a mark in the world as being on the leading edge of needed health care research.

[Municipal Grants Act, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we have all sorts of government politicians and bureaucrats playing around in the big mixing bowl with taxpayer money. It is going here. It is going there. It is going everywhere. Nobody really knows how much is going where, and the level of accountability is altogether entirely too low.

We have a principle in Canada that one level of government cannot tax another. With all deference to my colleague, we have a voluntary plan on the part of the federal government to carry at least some part of the fair share of municipal taxation in those municipalities which have facilities.

I do not think that is unfair. The money comes from the taxpayer. Some municipalities have a preponderance of federal government agencies, buildings or facilities, and it is not totally unfair that should be done. However, the principle that he has referred to must of course be maintained.

[Municipal Grants Act, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with what the member has said. I notice she did not in any way indicate that we would first of all test the pigmentation of people's skin or genes before we allow them to take up citizenship. It is totally irrelevant to this situation.

I would add a further caution to what she has said. I will put it in the form of a rhetorical question. Do we really want to within the boundaries of our country have little countries all over the place, here a country, there a country, here a country, so that when we walk into those boundaries we cannot be a citizen of that country unless we pass a racial test? I need to ask, is that really where we want to take our country? I say as emphatically as I can, no.

[Municipal Grants Act, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question because it has to do with how Bill C-10 impacts on the life and times of municipal taxpayers. We are talking about municipal taxpayers paying their bills to the municipality in which they live or in which they own property.

The member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands has made an excellent point. We have long held the principle that there cannot be taxation without representation. There cannot be a body for which we have no opportunity to vote and which can levy taxation against us, make rules that actually part us from some of our income. It is unconscionable.

He made mention of the fact that this is what is happening in the treaty agreements in British Columbia. I would take the point a little further than he did. There is certainly an immediate and serious problem that needs to be addressed.

The government members, all those green foreheads as I refer to them, are just not listening. They are not paying attention to the genuine concerns we are bringing forward on behalf of the people of British Columbia on this issue. I wish they would listen because not only is there an immediate concern, but there is the immediate huge injustice of people losing their own property through a process over which they have no control and no recourse. There is also a long term repercussion which I think our children and our grandchildren are going to rue for years and years to come.

To divide our population based on genetic make-up and to say that different rules apply to different people because of their particular genetic make-up, history teaches us that that is dangerous. Common sense makes us aware that that is dangerous.

It is unfortunate with legislation like that which we have before us today and legislation such as my colleague mentioned that the government is totally blind and deaf. It will not see the problem and it will not hear from the people. I find it unconscionable that the government is actually contemplating not even permitting the people of British Columbia to have a referendum on what is going to make a tremendous difference to their lives and their society, not only now but for years to come.

I thank my colleague for an excellent question. That is the type of thing I wish we could debate clearly and openly in the House with a genuine willingness to listen and to make changes when it becomes clear that there is inadequacy in the legislation before us.

[Municipal Grants Act, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, any time I have the opportunity, I will stand up in defence of Canadian taxpayers.

Those poor, beleaguered people are attacked at every turn by government after government after government. It boggles the mind to think that Canadian taxpayers give up over half of their earnings just to fund their levels of government.

I have often said that if someone came into my house and took half of everything I owned, I would probably phone the RCMP. I would tell them to come and get this guy, take him away and lock him up. Let us have some justice here. Probably most Canadians would say, “Yes, you are entitled to do that. That is fair. That is in defence of your property. That is stuff that you bought with money you worked for and earned. The guy who went in at night has no right to take it”.

The taxman comes in the daytime. He comes and takes everything I earn. If I do not help him load the truck, I am the one that goes to jail. If I do not co-operate with him loading up and taking my stuff, I am considered to be some sort of a lesser citizen because I will not take part in the scheme.

I guess should put this into balance. I suppose I should not always talk about taxes like that, because it is a privilege to pay taxes. I concur with what many people say, this is a wonderful country. It is a privilege to live in Canada. I believe it is a privilege to be a member of parliament in the country. It is a privilege and an honour to stand in this place in defence of the people who elected me and who are paying the bill.

I hear from a lot of people in my riding and across the country who say, “You know, I would not mind paying a fair amount of taxes, but the taxes we pay are too much. We keep on paying taxes on taxes”.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you are aware that we pay a lot of taxes on taxes literally. For example, if we go to the gas station to buy $10 worth of fuel for our cars, in the end that $10 actually includes a portion of the federal gasoline tax and the provincial gasoline tax. That price of $10, although I cannot remember the last time I only bought $10 worth of gas at one stop, but that $10 already contains a bunch of taxes.

What do we then get here? The government says that it wants to charge GST on it. The GST is our famous gouge and screw tax. It is added to everything, even to the tax portion of that gasoline. Here we have money that we have earned and on which we have paid income tax. We then take the part that is left and pay the gasoline taxes. On those taxes, GST is added. When I say taxes on taxes on taxes, it is literally true that we end up paying taxes on taxes.

I am getting very close now to talking about municipal grants because we want to talk about taxation collected by municipalities. It is also true that when we pay our municipal property taxes, in most instances the money we use to pay that tax we have already paid income tax on.

We work like slaves, get some money and the federal and provincial taxman keeps about half of it, on incremental income for most Canadians these days. With the half that we have left over we have to pay our municipal taxes. This is the reason I introduced my private member's bill that says that people who pay property taxes should be able to deduct that amount from their taxable income. I do not think it is right for Canadians to have to pay taxes on money they earn for the sole purpose of paying taxes. It is enough already, as my grandmother would say. It is just too much.

Today we are talking about Bill C-10. Bill C-10 is also a bill which has to do with how to distribute and move around money that has been collected from taxpayers. It also has to do with municipal taxes and other fees and charges that are paid by different levels of government, in this case, the federal government. I find it absolutely incredible that the money that the taxpayer sends to Ottawa is used for all sorts of different things.

Among other things, the Canadian government operates a number of vehicles. We have thousands of dollars of real property. I suppose that is a necessity, although sometimes I wonder whether we have allowed that to get out of hand as well. It seems to me that our government is larger than it ought to be because there has not been any real accountability on the part of government on how it spends money.

Obviously, when the federal government uses part of the facility in a municipality to operate its buildings, it should also pay a fair share of the municipal taxes. One could argue that there is only one taxpayer. However, the fact of the matter is that this is a way of relieving, at least partially, the burden of property taxes on people in the municipalities. That is, in order to provide the services and the infrastructure which also supports the government facility, as it supports other businesses and homes and apartments, this money is also used for these government buildings and government services.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is fair that the Canadian taxpayer should pay a fair share of the municipal taxes because there is an increasing burden on municipalities to pay for all of the things that are being downloaded by the government.

This is a bill that will amend the Municipal Grants Act. It has to do with how the federal government makes grants to municipalities directly in lieu of taxes that it should be paying.

Mr. Speaker, I know you had some anxiety as to whether or not I was on topic, but I was indeed giving my preliminary lead-up to the topic at hand today. I think I can probably promise you, Mr. Speaker, that at least 95% of the time I will open my speech with some sort of a statement that says it is time to cut taxes in the country, so my preamble was most appropriate.

In this particular bill, there are a number of things which are needed and are justified. It is a case where we have a number of items that are probably worth supporting. We know, and this has been the case for quite some time, that supplementary payments can be made to municipalities in lieu of taxes. In other words, in this country we do not permit one level of government to tax another.

There are some exceptions to this. I have noticed lately that federal government vehicles carry provincial licence plates. Agreements have been reached on that, which is fair since those vehicles utilize the roads of the province in which they are stationed, for the most part.

There are other things that have been permitted for quite some time. The federal government, however, cannot be levied a tax. If a municipality says that we have a federal court, a federal taxation building or an EI office that is owned and operated or leased by the federal government, normally if that were any other lessee it would assess property taxes against that property. The federal government, in order to be fair, has for a number of years voluntarily paid a fair assessment to the different municipalities. By doing this, it gets around that little rule that one level of government may not tax another level of government.

This particular bill has a couple of good features in it. It will extend the ability of the federal government to make these voluntary payments in other areas. For example, it would extend it to making payments of interest in the event that the payment was late.

I do not know if members have heard this rumour, but there are some government departments that are continually late in their payments. The Minister of Defence is here and maybe he can give me a wave if I am wrong, but I have heard rumours that the Department of National Defence spends millions of dollars every year on late payments through the normal billing of expenses. It is late in paying, so the supplier of the commodity that the defence department has purchased just adds the usual carrying charge to the late payment and the government pays it because it is a legitimate payment. If it would be on the bit and pay its bills promptly it would not have those interest payments.

In the case of municipalities, they also assess charges for late payments, whether it is late payments for municipally owned utilities or whether it is late payments on property taxes.

This particular bill would extend the ability of the government to make voluntary payments in lieu of interest on payments which are late. Again, I cannot really be against that. I think it is fair to the municipalities, the ratepayers and the property taxpayers in those particular municipalities where this applies.

There is another thing that happens. Sometimes the federal government owns a property but does not use it all. Even though it is owned by the government, it leases that same property out to another third party. Almost always, those particular contracts for lease include a clause that says that the lessee must pay the property tax on that property. Sometimes these people who lease the property are not diligent in their payments. As a result, they go late. This particular bill will now, I guess, stiff the taxpayer for the inability of the government at whatever level to collect the rent and tax payments from the individual or business that is leasing the property.

At any rate, it is a transfer of tax dollars from one location to another. In this case, it is from the federal government to the municipality. If the taxes are delinquent, this bill will allow the federal government to voluntarily make that payment.

There are some kinds of structures that have been added to the list. I would not disagree with that. Also, we now have a committee of appeal.

However, I would like to bring to the attention of the House that the Reform Party has a very good policy with respect to this type of thing. I would like to read a page from the book. It states:

The Reform Party will insist that all laws pertaining to individuals and the private sector apply equally to the Government of Canada, its personnel, its agencies and Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, you will be totally amazed at how I am going to weave the MP pension plan into this story. That principle applying to the fairness of municipal taxation is a principle that extends right across the board.

I draw to the attention of members and anyone else who is hearing or reading these words that in the pension plan for members of parliament and senators, legislation is in place which specifically exempts members of parliament from certain provisions of the Income Tax Act. I meet many people who would love to defer an additional 2% or 5% of their income for taxation in some future years.

This is a violation of the Reform principle which says that all laws which pertain to individuals and the private sector will apply equally to individuals as well as to governments, as well as to members of the government, including the employees, members of parliament and senators. We have here a violation of that principle. The MP pension plan is one of the most blatant violations. Specific legislation was passed in this place to exempt members from a law that applies to every other Canadian.

How could the Liberals have the gall to do that? I cannot believe Canadian voters continue to send members to this place who would do that type of thing. It boggles my mind.

The government is maintaining a special position in this bill. Even though the Government of Canada will voluntarily pay taxes to some municipalities on behalf of its buildings and structures, it will not necessarily do it all the time.

One objection we have to the bill is that Canada Post is not included. It is very much an arm of the government. The Canadian mint, a crown corporation, is not included as having to participate in this program. We think that is wrong. It should apply to everyone equally.

The payment of grants in lieu of taxes is a very good program but every once in a while a dispute arises. How would we solve a dispute? There are a number of ways to resolve a dispute when two people disagree. The best way is to sit down, talk about it, negotiate it, figure out who is willing to bend which way and come together on it. Every once in a while disputes become serious and the federal or provincial courts become involved. We try to resolve our differences at the court level by having a judge and in some cases a jury look at the situation to try to bring about justice.

There is a serious flaw in this bill. Even though when there is a dispute there is a mechanism to solve it, lo and behold we find that the board that is supposed to do this is appointed by the minister. It is like getting into a boxing ring and finding out that the opponent is also the referee. It does not bring a great deal of fairness to the situation. This flaw should be corrected before the bill is passed.

A second flaw is that board members make recommendations to the minister. Is that not a surprise. First the minister appoints the board members and then they make a recommendation to him. The bill is clear. The minister may or may not accept their recommendation.

If a municipality disagrees with the payment level or the promptness of the payment being made by the federal government and challenges it, the matter goes to the the board which hears the case. The board may give some very good advice or it may given rotten advice, we do not know which, but we hope the board would try to be fair.

I suppose the Prime Minister would hasten to tell us that just because they were Liberals who were appointed to the board does not mean that they will always make a wrong judgment, and I suppose that would be a fair statement. They probably would not always make a wrong judgment. In any case they make a recommendation to the minister and then the minister has the choice to take the recommendation or not.

In all fairness the minister and his officials would probably read and study the recommendation. I would hope they would. I hope the decision would not be arbitrary and capricious, but there is nothing in the bill or the act that would prevent that from happening. The minister could take their advice or he could decline their advice and do whatever he wants. He would then unilaterally say, “Sorry, we are not paying” and that would be the end of the matter. There is no further appeal.

Those are some of the very serious flaws in the bill that should be corrected. There should be some fairness built into this. Arranging the affairs so that the person one is fighting with in the boxing ring is also the referee is just not a very good way to plan success.