Ken Epp

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Look at the budget documents. The data is right there. All anyone has to do is look at the expenditures. Since 1999 until now, government expenditures are up 50%. Had there been some fiscal responsibility exercised, we could have had the debt reduced a whole bunch more.

The other thing that a lot of people do not realize is that under the Liberal watch the debt grew from $480 billion to over $550 billion. I think it was around $558 billion or thereabouts. Again, the numbers were conflicting when I was getting information from the Library this morning.

The fact is that the debt grew under the Liberals and now they have managed to bring it down to about the level that it was in 1993 when they were first in power. Now we are back, after 12 years of Liberal government, to where it was when it took over and yet it is saying that in nine years of Conservative government we should have tackled the deficit then. It was a huge debt that was foisted on us by the Liberals.

However let us look at this honestly. Debt reduction should be a high priority. It is for Canadians and it should be for the government. We should stop wasting taxpayer money without accountability, as the government is so prone to do. Canadians and taxpayers are outraged when they hear the reports of the various abuses of their money by the Liberals, their agents and their friends who are appointed to various patronage appointments, and the way they use it. That is an affront to them and I think it is shameful.

The next topic is with respect to tax reduction. I would like to point out that the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla gave a little speech and talked about the Laffer curve.

I was a math physics major and I did not know a great deal about economics until I was put on the finance committee. I was told that I was a numbers guy and that maybe I could do some good there. I really enjoyed my work on the finance committee. I did a little bit of reading on economics. I stand here, not as an expert in economics. I took one course at university but it had been so many years ago that I did not remember much but I do remember the Laffer curve. It is an absolutely fabulous concept and one I think we ought to use more, especially because inadvertently the finance minister in his speech this morning talked about it.

The finance minister indicated that although the tax rates for businesses had gone down, the revenue the government receives from business taxation has gone up. That is a very important point. We do not build the economy by overtaxing people. We receive a certain amount of revenue from a high tax rate but if the tax rate is lowered the economy flourishes. Businesses, entrepreneurs and investors can do so much better with the money than just send it to Ottawa and hope some bureaucratic process will send some of it back to some of the people, be they dead people or people in prison when it comes to a rebate, such as the one that is being planned now. We are very anxious to see how that will work out.

However if we were to leave that money in the hands of the taxpayers, the entrepreneurs, the businesses, the investors, private individuals and families, it would be used much more efficiently and would have a much more positive impact on the economy. We could actually reduce the tax rates and increase tax revenue and thereby have more money available for the government programs Canadians would like to have or demand in some cases.

It is very important that there be good solid fiscal management in this way and it ought to be done on good financial forecasting and on good economic principles. Those things have been missing, in my view, in terms of what the government has done.

The third thing in the bill concerns government spending. The government says that it will use one-third of the surplus for government spending. I fail to understand that. When the Minister of Finance reads his budget every year he should be projecting the expenditures. The government already has a $3 billion contingency fund in case something happens, some tragedy or national emergency. I have no problem with that but it should be able to project very accurately the total expenditures.

I do not understand how the government can say that if there is an unexpected surplus, one-third of it will be just a free for all. It will be like a big lottery win for the Liberal Party to be hauled out at the next election. To me that is very wrong.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

No. The reason I do not have them is because I have copies of the budget and the numbers are not the same in different documents that are put out by the government. The best estimate I have is that in 1993 the debt was around $480 billion.

In a previous speech, I worked out that the Liberals were $280 billion in debt when they were defeated by the Conservatives in 1984. If we add the going rate of interest to that debt, it grows to $480 billion by 1993. If it had not been for the excesses of the Trudeau government, with Chrétien as the finance minister and his record deficits, and if that debt had not grown to $280 billion, the accumulated interest on that would not have been $480 billion when the Liberals took power in 1993. It is their debt.

The incredible thing is that in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was just a young man starting my career and the Trudeau government, the Liberals, were adding to the debt every year, some of us were saying that was not the way to go. All we need to do is look at the effect of compound interest added to debt and we know that it is not sustainable in the long run.

After nine years of the Liberals being in power, the Conservatives started to attack that. Had the Conservatives stayed in power, I can guarantee that we would be a lot better off than we are now because of the fact that they brought in policies that arranged for the Government of Canada to fight that deficit.

A lot of these members were elected in 1993. It was 12 years and a couple of days ago that we came here. I remember when we were speaking about tackling the deficit. I remember that first year we had a little plan called zero in three. We would balance the budget in three years. It cannot be done in one year. We had that plan and it was all set out with good economic forecasting. The Liberal opposition over there, which is the opposition to the Canadian taxpayers, kept saying all sorts of dastardly things about us.

I know we were on the right track because what we said we would do they said they would not do, but they had the policies that were in place at that stage and were able to accomplish deficit reduction until about 1997 when we had a balanced budget.

I would like to thank the Liberals for doing that but they could have done much better. We should look at the policies that the Liberal government has had and their out of control spending in so many areas. In the last five years government spending has gone up 50%.

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

It is 10¢ or whatever the premium rate is. I will not get into an argument with the parliamentary secretary over there, whoever he is.

I would like to point out once again that it is workers and employers who have been fighting the debt for the Liberals to the tune of around $45 billion. Around $45 billion has been taken out of EI in excess premiums by the Liberals. It has been $45 billion or more. I think $45 billion was the last number I heard and that may have been from last year. It has probably increased by now, and yet those members are saying they have done a great job.

Bill C-67, which is before us today, deals with unanticipated surpluses. I want to talk about the word “unanticipated” before I get down to some of the meat and nitty-gritty of this bill.

“Unanticipated” means that we cannot forecast properly, or if we can, we decide to hide the facts so that we leave ourselves a lot of room for playing with the taxpayers' money at the end for little things, such as an election where it might be nice to have some money in the kitty to roll out to try to buy people's votes.

We know that even in this House the Liberals have tried to do things that are quite unseemly with respect to taxpayers' money in terms of buying votes. That is not acceptable in our society. The rules of Elections Canada forbid it, yet it was done in this House on May 19, when the Liberals made a deal with the NDP, which cost around $250 million per vote on that particular occasion, just in order to stay in power a bit longer.

Let me point out that the cost of an election is approximately $250 million, so every vote on that particular occasion was worth the cost of a federal election. I do not know why the Liberals did not just spend one-twentieth of it or one-nineteenth and go to the people and ask them whether they had confidence in this government instead of buying the NDP. That is an atrocious misuse of taxpayers' money.

“Unanticipated” means very simply that the Liberals have not been properly using statistical measures and statistical forecasting methods in order to get a good estimate what the surplus will be. We know that this Liberal government is absolutely out of it when it comes to accurate forecasting. Year after year, this government has been way out to lunch.

It is obvious that in statistical measures we cannot be dead on over time. I concede that fact, but if we are being fair and honest most of the time we would be out by a small percentage. Occasionally we would be a little low and occasionally a little high. This government has always been very high in its estimate of government expenditures and very low in its estimate of government revenue. As a result, it has consistently posted excessive surpluses.

Those surpluses of course represent money that the government has taken from taxpayers. It has taken an excessive amount. The most recent case of course involved the government's prediction of $1.9 billion. We had a bit of fun with that, calling the finance minister the dyslexic finance minister because $1.9 billion should have been $9.1 billion, which is what it really turned out to be.

We on this side of the House of course applaud the fact that in our economy our people and our businesses are working hard and earning money despite the misuse of their dollars by this government. In spite of that, they are working.

It is also true that these surpluses are largely as a result of policies brought in by a previous government and which the present government opposed. We all remember the GST. In fact, I will never forget it. I believe it was the GST that actually won me the election in 1993 because of the great hatred people had for it.

The Liberals said that they would scrap the GST. I remember pictures on television of the then leader of the official opposition, Mr. Chrétien, saying, “If we are elected we will scrap it”. I will not attempt to mimic his accent or his voice but he did say that he would scrap it and that it would be gone. Did he do it? No, he did not. After his government came into power he thought it was nice money and decided to keep it and use it. Of course, it has been a huge tax.

We probably, at some point in time, will want to continue the debate on the merits of the GST that was brought in by the previous government. The Liberals promised to kill it but instead used it and now crows about how wonderful managers they are because of something they did, which they did not plan and which was brought to them on a silver platter. They were able to use the money to reduce the deficit and start reducing the debt. Good for the government but, on the other hand, they should not be crowing about it and saying that they are such great and wonderful managers. The Liberals never thought of it. The Liberals opposed it and yet it worked for them.

Second, I think of free trade. I remember the Liberals saying that free trade would be an absolute disaster. I heard phrases such as, “What's afta NAFTA? Disasta”. I heard those words from Liberal candidates and others. They did not want that free trade agreement. They were against it and spoke loudly in opposition to it.

We now know that our trade, especially with our American neighbours, despite the fact that the government has tried to do everything to diminish our good relationship with those neighbours, and with other countries around the world has gained us a huge benefit.

Once again the Liberals sort of got the deficit elimination and some debt reduction handed to it on a platter with a policy and with action that they not only did not think of or initiate, but they were against it. Now they are saying that they are great and wonderful. I would point out that if it were not for those things, the Liberals would probably be running deficits right now.

Furthermore, let us think about this. If the Liberals would have managed taxpayer dollars prudently and properly, instead of only using the words, one can only think of the amount of debt reduction that we could have had. I believe it has been the tradition over years in Canada that if there is an unanticipated surplus and if there is a debt, the surplus goes toward reducing the debt.

The present government could never bring itself to put into the budget an actual plan for debt reduction. Instead, it brought in this little thing called a contingency plan. I have no problem with that. I think it is prudent to have a contingency fund. However, in addition to that, it should have done accurate forecasting and built right into the budget a fixed amount that was designated for debt reduction.

Debt reduction is what people want. People want to see the amount of the debt reduced substantially so that we do not give future generations, our young people, our college students and graduates of today, this huge debt and the huge interest.

In several speeches today, including in the speech by the Minister of Finance, I heard Liberals say that some $3 billion a year is now available because of the reduced demand on the treasury to service the debt. I say that is wonderful. However it is too bad the government could not have been serious about debt reduction in the last five or six years with the huge surpluses, instead of going on their spending sprees because the debt could have been reduced even further. It could have been $4 billion or $5 billion that would have been available.

Instead, the government squandered the money and it has very little to show for it. It is the same as what we have to show for some of our teenage kids. They take the money and we wonder what they did with it. It is gone.

I also would like to point to a fallacy in the speech given by the Minister of Finance earlier today. He indicated that the Liberals had inherited a huge debt from the Conservative government that they replaced in 1993. I have said this before and I will repeat it over and over until somebody hears it and gets the point. If we look at the record over the nine years that the Conservatives were in power, they had a balanced budget on program spending. Members can check the record.

I expect the finance minister and the people over there to have accurate numbers when they are talking to Canadians. Members over there are crowing and yelling. They should listen to the facts. I do not have the numbers at my fingertips right now but I think it was in the--

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I find it passing curious that in the last moments of his speech the member for Brant talked about EI premiums. It is true that they have been reduced by a few pennies here and there, but the fact of the matter--

[Unanticipated Surpluses Act, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think probably the member's cellphone ringing has been broadcast right across the country. I imagine that there is somebody out there in some riding, perhaps from the constituency of Brant, asking, “When do I get my $1.25?” If this bill really works, that is how much each taxpayer, not each person but each taxpayer, will get, $1.25 per week. That taxpayer is anxious to get it and was on the phone asking to have it now.

I want to know whether this member is actually quite convinced that Canadian taxpayers, who have been paying through the nose over the years for the waste that the Liberal government has perpetrated on Canadian citizens, will be bought off with $1.25.

[Criminal Code, October 25th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, that was a very insightful question and it is one of the themes that I have been pushing pretty well all my life, certainly long before I became a member of Parliament. I strongly believe that all of our actions, whether they are moral or immoral, good or bad, useful or not useful, are driven by what we think. The first thing, of course, is how we think about these things.

If there were no law for stealing vehicles, no law against murder or robbing banks, for me it would make no difference because I am not going to do those things anyway, even if I were in a country with no laws. Those sorts of things are wrong. I have that built in but a lot of people do not and therefore we need to strengthen our homes, churches and schools in all these areas of thinking.

At one time we had teaching in our schools about what it means to be a good citizen. One of the things I remember learning when I was a youngster in elementary school was that good citizens obey the laws. That is a given and we have that drummed into us. We were taught that by word and by example. We had teachers who gave us those examples. We had parents and grandparents who taught us that and regularly reinforced that.

Indeed, that is the true beginning of prevention of bad behaviours. We need to strengthen that.

I really wish that we had leadership in our country and in our provincial governments that would strengthen that part of our education component.

The member went on to ask a question concerning joyriding and the fact that nothing is being done about it. That is true for all sorts of things, whether it is shoplifting, joyriding, taking a vehicle, stealing other things, petty theft or vandalism. Although we have all been falsely accused of wanting to lock everybody up, that is not what we want.

I have huge compassion for these kids. I have been to the youth detention centre and I see the potential we have there that has the probability of being wasted if we do not turn these kids around. However something needs to be done. We cannot simply say that nothing will happen.

When these youngsters are found and brought in after a joyride, I would like to see them stand in front of the judge with their parents. Let us hold this family unit together and make them mutually accountable. None of us are an island. We all live in families of one sort or another. Let us be together on this. Let us reinforce proper behaviour, instead of blinking our eyes at improper behaviour and thereby encouraging it.

The simple rule in psychology is that whatever behaviour is rewarded is repeated. Whatever behaviour is punished, in whatever form, will generally diminish. We know that with taxation. The Liberals punish us with taxation and consequently our society is not as productive as it could be. That is only one example but there are many examples where this is true.

[Criminal Code, October 25th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be corrected both by you and the hon. member opposite, who is very sensitive to these things, and I appreciate that.

I will, however, continue to say that the reporter said that she had been in the courts in Sherwood Park and on numerous occasions had seen that youngsters who had been found guilty of shoplifting from the local mall or for taking a car for a joyride, and that is the connection I am making, had received penalties that were more onerous than the aforementioned one which I cannot not talk about and I will not. The general principle is that the Liberals just do not believe in having individuals pay some consequences for disobeying the rules in our society. They think there is nothing wrong with it, but a wink-wink, nudge-nudge and do not do it again does not work.

I have said many times in the last 12 years that I have been in this House that there is no law this place can pass that will make people good, but there is something we can do that will help to restrain those who do not have a built in moral compass that prevents them from doing bad things.

When it comes to things like vehicle theft, we are not talking about joyriders. Most joyriders will pick up a vehicle but they are not going to change the vehicle identification number. They will take it for a little ride and then park it some distance away from where they found it and then those youngsters will go home at three o'clock in the morning to their parents who do not know where they have been, which is a whole other issue to talk about. Those youngsters just took the car for a ride.

When we talk about vehicle identification alteration, we are talking about organized crime. We are talking about big business. We are talking about people who wander around the streets at night in closed trucks. They will suck the vehicles into the truck in a matter of minutes, close the doors and away they will go. They will not be caught. They will change the vehicle identification numbers and then ship the vehicles off in containers to other countries. They will make millions and millions of dollars at our expense. Whether we take the loss personally or whether the insurance companies reimburse the person who suffered the loss, it all comes out of the Canadian economy and out of the pockets of individual Canadians. These property crimes need to be addressed.

I was glad that my colleague who spoke just before me mentioned about the deal. We will never know what kind of a deal was struck. Chuck Cadman was a friend of mine and I knew him well. I know he was a man of principle. Following up on what my colleague said, my conjecture is that the Liberals probably said to him something like, “If you vote with us, we will make sure that some of the things you have been pushing for will happen”. That is conjecture but I think that may have happened and I think Chuck Cadman at that stage would have said, “No deal”. If I know Chuck at all, he was not into cutting deals.

I believe that the Prime Minister and the Liberals are bringing in the two pieces of government legislation simply because their consciences are bothering them like crazy with Chuck Cadman having passed away and they now feel an obligation to try to do something that they had implied or promised that they would do.

However, the Liberals cannot bring it upon themselves to actually follow his advice and put in a bill the same wording as what Chuck Cadman had proposed. What the Liberals have added is absolutely ridiculous. It refers to a person who commits an offence under circumstances that give rise to a reasonable inference that the person did so to conceal the identity of the motor vehicle. Huh? What would you say, Mr. Speaker? Hello. Why would someone change the vehicle identification number? Why would someone even bother if the person was not trying to conceal the identity of the vehicle?

We could get into the debate that there are people who sometimes put together one or more vehicles and they have to do this. It is not illegal if they obtained the vehicles they are putting together legally, but the bill covers that. “Lawfully” is in there. That is lawful.

Those other people are doing something that is not lawful and what we are doing is giving them a huge excuse in the courts. There will not be any convictions under this legislation. This is just a feel good measure that was brought in by the Liberals in order to appease their failing consciences, if they have any at all, and I really doubt that they do.

In the 12 years that I have been an MP, some two million vehicles have been stolen. It is time that we addressed this issue in a serious manner. I unfortunately will have to vote against this bill because it goes opposite to what really needs to be done.

[Criminal Code, October 25th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to represent the constituents of Edmonton--Sherwood Park in this debate today.

As has been noted, Edmonton is the same as other cities in that it has a notable problem of vehicle thefts, from youngsters taking them for little joyrides to organized crime hitting luxury and other desirable vehicles. Sometimes they use vehicles that are just easy to get into and easy to get running. It is a great cost, a great inconvenience and a great affront to law-abiding citizens who work hard to earn the money to pay for their vehicles only to have them ripped off like that. Certainly in principle, and I think I speak on behalf of all of my party, we agree that measures need to be taken in order to reduce this crime.

Members know that I love numbers. I have been a student of math in my life and I like doing little calculations just for fun. It just so happens that 12 years ago today, many of us here were first elected. It was on October 25, 1993 when we came here in significant numbers under what was then the Reform Party. Now we have brought the Conservative forces together under the new Conservative Party. It is wonderful to see that finally Canadians have a real alternative to the Liberals.

I find it ironic that the Liberals are bringing in legislation that purports to strengthen the fight on crime when there is quite ample evidence that the Liberals themselves, and I do not know if it is parliamentary but I think it is a fact, have been engaging in illegal criminal activities. There is ample evidence on the record that this has been taking place in the past and for all we know it is still taking place. Here the Liberals are saying, “We are going to go after the guy that steals the car, but we will see if we can run away with $1 million or $2 million and get away with it”. To me that has a bit of irony.

On that topic, I think of the sentence for Paul Coffin, which is now being appealed of course. He got this huge sentence and he has to give lectures on ethics at universities because he was convicted of a crime, but it is onerous because he does have to be home by nine o'clock, which I think many of us as members of Parliament would welcome. It would be more of a reward than a punishment if we could be home by nine o'clock.

I am getting on to the topic now. A reporter from the Sherwood Park News --

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I am just wondering, is there not a parliamentary rule against using this chamber for comedic joke telling?

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member is probably concerned about the rate of crime, especially those committed by youth and gangs in Quebec. This is a serious problem right across the country when it comes to organized crime running away with vehicles, shipping them off to different parts of the world and selling them there at lower but still very good prices. It is a very lucrative business.

I wonder whether the member would have some comments on how effective, if this bill were to pass, it would be in curbing that kind of activity in his province.