Ken Epp

[Liberal Party of Canada, April 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is making a mockery of democracy. There is nothing democratic about appointing candidates in ridings and not allowing the people to choose.

In Edmonton East a favourite Liberal is in the process of being anointed and others are not even being allowed to compete. In Burnaby--Douglas the chosen Liberal poster boy is fast tracked while Canadians of Chinese origin are given the heave-ho.

How does the Prime Minister square these actions with his throne speech--

[Westbank First Nation Self-Government Act, April 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have a serious challenge in front of me today. There are, presumably, some 170 Liberals in the House who are listening intently to the arguments being made from this side today. My challenge is to somehow persuade them to favour the amendments that are being proposed so that we avoid disasters in the future.

I often think of the analogy of being a chess player. I have always enjoyed that game. It is a game that requires forethought. It is a game where one does not look just at the present move because if one does, one will almost certainly lose, unless one is playing with an opponent who also only looks at the current move. One must look at the second move and the third move and at what one's opponent may or may not do. In order to pass good laws we have to look at the consequences of those laws after they have been enacted to see what actually will happen.

The plea that I make to the members opposite today is to listen carefully to what is being said from this side and to actually, regardless of what their minister says or what the Prime Minister says, use their own judgment and carefully judge the impact of passing this law unamended.

I want to be a little more specific here. We have in our society a number of arrangements for how we live together. It used to be in our family, when we had all of the children still at home, that I as the dad often got my way, but just as often I did not. As a matter of fact, I was outnumbered four to one when it came to a family conference. I had to use arguments of persuasion if I wanted the family to agree on a certain task.

I also live in a little community. We happen to live out on one of those little acreage developments where there are 16 neighbours on a 40 acre or 80 acre parcel of land. I am not exactly sure how much it has extended beyond. For 17 years I was treasurer of our residents association. We had different rules that regulated what our association could and could not do. We agreed on those. We had meetings where we set up, in essence, a charter. That charter said what was permitted and what was not. When the neighbours came along and said that they wanted to have a big party and that the association should pay for it, I was the treasurer who said that we would not do that. I said that if they wanted a party they would have to collect from each of the people who came to the party and that would pay for the expenses of the party. I told them that they could not use our association money for that because it was to be used for other things, such as grass cutting, running the lights in the community and those types of things. We had those rules.

We also lived in a municipality and there are all kinds of rules in a municipality. I cannot build my garage any closer than four feet from the boundary of my property. I must put my garbage out on Tuesdays or they have no obligation to pick it up. I must pay my municipal taxes, which, by the way, I must pay with money that I have already paid tax on. That is why I have a private member's bill that says that property taxes should be exempt from federal income tax. One should not have to pay tax on money earned for the sole purpose of paying tax. However that is what we get in this federal government.

Beyond that, I am a member of the population of the province of Alberta, so I have to comply with provincial rules and regulations. One of the rules is that I must drive on the right side of the road, with which I comply most happily. Another rule says that on the road from my house up to the main highway I shall not exceed 80, with which I also comply very happily.

I believe we have rules that regulate us in that society. Now we get to the crunch. We are also Canadian citizens. Every one of us who calls Canada home is subject to the rules and laws of the Government of Canada. Those rules include a whole bunch of things, like the necessity of paying income tax, EI, CPP and complying with different aspects of the criminal code and other things. Of course the laws of Canada also provide us certain protection.

There is a myth going around that unless it is in the charter it is not necessarily a right. I disagree with that. There are many items and aspects of our lives which I believe we all have in an inherent right. It is not granted by the charter. It was not granted by Pierre Trudeau and his crew way back in 1982. In some instances the charter simply articulates rights which we already had. We have to ensure that we remember that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is simply an articulation of some of the rights that we have, but at any rate it is a rule that we have to live under.

If Bill C-11 is passed without amendments, I am very concerned about the application of the Charter of Rights under the bill. It is tremendously troubling.

I can live in my county and have all the rights of the charter that apply to me. If I were to live in the Westbank, suddenly I would not have some of the rights or at minimum it would be questioned whether I could apply those rights. I would have to go to court, as a citizen of that part of the country, to demonstrate that the charter applied to me. That is a very serious error, and I beg those 170 some Liberal members over there who are patiently listening to this to think like a chess player. Think about what will happen after the bill passes and somebody gets up to challenge it.

I know we want to trust the natives. Of course we do. We want to all trust each other. The purpose of the law is to restrain those who prove not to be trustworthy by themselves. The present government seems to be doing fine in the Westbank. However, some time in future the Westbank government may decide to do certain things which are deemed a violation of someone else's rights who live there. In fact one could even argue right now about the demand by it to collect property taxes, which it is already doing. That demand is one of the things which it presumably can carry on with, yet we find that the people from whom it is collecting taxes have no right to vote in respect to that municipal-like government.

Is that not a violation? Why would we put into law the ability of that local government to have a serious violation of our country's laws in terms of the ability to vote for the government that has control over our lives and property? That is a serious error. Why would the government want to pass the bill unamended and allow such a potential error to come in to part of the governance of the country?

In conclusion, this is a very serious matter. It is not one to be rushed through suddenly before Parliament prorogues and we have an election. It is one that requires serious thought. We need to look at the moves beyond just the passing of the legislation. We need to look at the consequences. I persuade, I beg, I cajole the members who are in majority in the House and who have the control to act wisely and to make wise decisions as our prayer says every morning.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, April 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to the budget implementation Bill C-30.

What the hon. member on the other side just said is, shall we say, questionable. He has indicated that we on this side are always against everything the government does. As a matter of fact, we have pressed very hard over the years for balanced budgets. We were the ones who first made it politically correct to even talk about stopping the endless borrowing.

Shall we say that we should praise the government for something. I will give the Liberals a reluctant nod of approval for the fact that they actually followed our advice and stopped borrowing money in order to top up the money that they collected from taxpayers in order to provide services to Canadians. We are glad the budget is balanced, absolutely. When the member says that we always criticize everything unequivocally, that just is not accurate.

Bill C-30 would implement some of the provisions of the budget that was handed down in the House in March. Some of the provisions are worth supporting and of course some we would somewhat criticize.

One of the things the bill would do is renew the equalization plan and make a few changes to it. I am sure we cannot persuade the Liberals to do this, but I would like to urge Canadians to write, phone or e-mail their members of Parliament and ask them for a copy of Bill C-30, the beginning pages that deal with equalization. If after having read these technical changes that are being made they can make heads or tails out of it, then we should recommend them for a Governor General's award, because it is a tremendously complicated and convoluted formula.

I will not waste my limited time talking about it but it talks about formulas: .016 times X1, times Y1, where X1 is the sum of two-thirds of the national per capita equalization. It goes on and on like that for about 10 pages. It makes fascinating reading.

I remember when I was on the finance committee we asked some officials from the Department of Finance to explain how the equalization worked, whereby the government collects money from all the provinces and then some of the provinces, currently every province except Ontario and Alberta, those provinces actually get money paid to them out of this equalization formula and it comes to the billions. Quebec, for example, typically receives around $10 billion a year out of equalization.

I am in favour of the principle of equalization. It is in our Constitution and I believe it is to the benefit of every Canadian and every province that the governments in the different provinces are able to deliver to their citizens comparable levels of services at comparable levels of taxation. If that were not done, then we would see a massive migration based totally on taxes and services. In other words, if a province were not able to deliver the services of health care and education, then clearly families would migrate to the provinces that could deliver them. So it is in our best interest to make sure that those services are delivered in every province.

Furthermore, if the provinces could only do this by massively increasing their rate of taxation, then again Canadians would react by migrating. It is just a natural human thing to move to areas or jurisdictions where the tax rates are lower, especially if people could not balance their household budget because the tax bite was so large.

We have learned this directly from our Prime Minister who, instead of paying the 40% to 50% that all Canadians pay in taxes in Canada, has arranged for his businesses to pay I think around 3% in Barbados and other countries. He obviously knows what it means to move to a better jurisdiction when tax rates are too high. Unfortunately, our farmers, business people and families cannot simply move their business interests and incomes to other countries and still manage to live here and enjoy the benefits of this country.

I would like to refer also to the fact that the bill deals with a number of other issues. One that is high on my personal agenda is EI. The bill once again gives to cabinet the sole right to set EI premiums. You have no idea, Mr. Speaker, how upset I am about this.

Just about all Canadian workers, because some are not covered, including our students who work in the summer, pay into the EI fund. Every dollar that is put in is matched by $1.40 by the employer. Can the students get their money back when they go back to school in the fall? No, they cannot. They are forced to buy this insurance from which they cannot possibly benefit. It is like forcing my mother to pay car insurance when she does not have a car. She can never collect that car insurance because she does not have a car. The same thing is true for students and many other people who pay into this, but because of their circumstances are unable to collect any money.

Bill C-30 gives to cabinet the right to once again set the premium rate. We know that it has been very high compared to the actual needs. As I recall, I believe with this budget and with the anticipated rates that the government will set, that fund probably will reach about $47 billion accumulated surplus over the last six or seven years. That was never the intent of the employment insurance fund. It was to be an insurance program to help people who had a temporary loss of employment, so they would have income while they looked for another job or while they were retrained. There are so many anomalies in this.

We hear many members, especially from this side of the House, draw to the attention of the government the shortcomings of EI in actually meeting the needs of people who become unemployed. They are either ineligible, the waiting periods are too long or the amount they receive is inadequate. Yet still people have to pay.

What does the government do? It rolls that money into general revenue. As a matter if fact, one could say that all of the surpluses that the government has enjoyed have come totally and solely on the backs of the employers and employees who blatantly are being overcharged on a program that is supposed to be self-sustaining.

The chief actuary of the EI fund has consistently recommended lower rates. The government has consistently overshot that target by a large amount in order to generate this money. Then the former parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance can gloat that it has balanced budgets. It is solely and totally on the backs of the members of the working public. I believe we need to correct that anomaly and we need to correct it very quickly.

Finally, there is this issue of the municipal GST rebate. Yes, indeed, all governments are cheering this. If one stops to think about it, it is only consistent with the principle that in Canada different levels of government are not to tax each other. The federal government has been taxing municipal governments through the nose for how many years and now finally it is going to stop doing it. Will I cheer that? Yes, indeed. Do I remind the Liberals about their promise on the GST in 1993? I cannot help but do it. They said that it would be gone for everybody, but it is still here.

My time has elapsed. I appreciate the privilege of being able to address this issue.

[Sponsorship Program, April 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in the past two weeks I spoke with hundreds of my constituents at two trade fairs in my riding. What is their number one issue? It is the blatant misuse and abuse of their hard-earned taxpayer dollars in the shameful ad scam scandal.

At first the Prime Minister feigned outrage and anger at this, but the President of the Treasury Board is trying to make Canadians believe it is no big deal. He challenged the Auditor General's number of $100 million, and then backtracked. He cited Ernst and Young, and then backtracked. He promised details on Mr. Chrétien's unity slush fund, and then backtracked. Obviously, the Liberals want to keep Canadians in the dark until the election, but they want to be seen as clean and transparent.

I say the time for truthfulness and honesty is now. Election or no election, Canadians deserve better.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in our intervention earlier, I asked the member specifically whether he thought it was incorrect of the government to put large amounts of money into general revenue. He answered my other questions with respect to the EI fund to the best of his ability, even though we may not totally agree. However, he did not address the question of the money going into general revenue and there was no mention made in the budget that it would be changed. I would like his comment on that.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask this esteemed colleague a question with respect to his speech. He indicated that basically the government has done a great job on this budget and everything is so fine and so well. I wonder whether he does not actually have some serious questions about some of the elements of the budget.

For example, one of the things that has come through loud and clear for many months now is the fact that the government is rolling into general revenue a huge windfall from EI.

We have the NDP on one end saying that this is a crime because people who need to have their benefits are not receiving them, and I would echo that. I think that we buy insurance because if we need it we want to be able to collect on it. Particularly in his area, that has to be a serious shortcoming. Meanwhile, we have the government rolling this money into general revenue and using it for whatever other reasons. That is specifically not a purpose of the EI fund: to just be a source of general revenue for the government.

I would like him to comment on those two things: the ineligibility of those who should be entitled to benefits and the fact that way too much money is being collected relative to what is being paid out.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to what the member was saying. He talked about EI and the fact that so many people who pay into EI are not eligible for benefits when they need them. This is a matter of considerable concern to me as well.

EI should be set up in such a way that for example students who have jobs in the summer or whenever and pay into EI should at least get their premiums back if they go back to school, for which there is no EI eligibility.

The other thing which is very offensive to all of us, and I am sure to the member opposite as well, is that the government year after year rolls billions of dollars from the EI fund into general revenues for which it was never intended.

I would like to say by way of comment that it is one area where I certainly agree with the member. We should insist that the government follow the rules that were intended for EI.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the member has given this speech. He has indicated that the Sydney tar ponds are close to where he lives, I presume.

I would like to ask him a very pointed question. The fact is, the Sydney tar ponds have been mentioned specifically in a number of previous budgets. Could he please tell the House and the Canadian people whether or not there has actually been any physical work done in cleaning it up? In other words, have there been backhoes in there to clean it up and so on, and to what extent has that work progressed?

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I regret that I cannot speak louder today, but I hope I can be heard.

The member spoke to a number of different topics, but one twigged my interest. She talked about the cleanup of the toxic sites. I do not think the Liberals will ever clean up the Sydney tar ponds because if they did, they would have nothing to put into their annual budgets. It has been there every year for the last five or six years. Every time there is a budget, they put in money to clean up the Sydney tar ponds. Yet, as far as I know, nothing has been done on that at all.

I would like the member to comment on her concern as a member of the governing party that the government keeps promising but it never delivers.

[Petitions, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition on behalf of my constituents in the former part of my riding of Elk Island, people from Beaumont and Rolly View. Is that not a wonderful name for a town for a person of my stature?

The petitioners are very concerned and are pleading with the government to protect the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman exclusively.

The second petition contains 159 signatures on the same topic. This time it is from people who are presently in my riding but who will not be after the next election. They are from the towns of Radway, Thorhild and Redwater, but of course Sherwood Park will be in the riding in which I am running.

These people are also very concerned about the lack of response from the government on the same issue, that the lifelong union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others should be the definition of marriage.