Ken Epp

[Committees of the House, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have observed that though the whips have taken their seats there have been a number of members who have come in. Is that rule of the House now being suspended?

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is important for members to know that the legislation does not say rounded off. It says rounded down and that is an important difference.

[Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few brief statements on this bill. I would like to reiterate what I said way back when the rules were changed so that committee chairs and vice-chairs received additional compensation. As we know, this was not done until just a couple years ago.

I objected to that and I do so again. Indeed, chairs of committees work hard and perhaps there could be some additional compensation for them, but vice-chairs should not be receiving additional compensation as in the current agreement that we have for compensation for members of Parliament.

The reason is simple. Generally, when one works harder, one should get more money. When one works less hard, one should get less money, or at least the same. There are a number of duties which we have as members of Parliament, which we accept as part of the job, and being a vice-chair of a committee is one of those.

I had the privilege of being the vice-chair of the finance committee for a while and frankly, I did nothing to earn that money. I attended the committee regularly, as I would have whether I was the vice-chair or not. I was there every time that committee met. There were a couple of times when I sat in the chair. To be honest, I did not work as hard when I was in the chair as I did when I was getting ready for the opening question. As a member of the official opposition in the committee I always had to pay close attention to what the witnesses were saying and to prepare for that opening question. Very often other members of the committee would carry on with the thread that I started. That was hard work. But I did not do that because I was the vice-chair of the committee. When I sat in the chair, all I did was determine who would speak next and I was happy to do that.

I would simply reiterate that even though this is in that bill, I object to the fact that there is additional compensation for vice-chairs of committees.

I want to make a comment about this rounding up, rounding down, or rounding off. I am an amateur mathematician and I always took exception to that. To take a number and say it works out to $5,998 and then round it down to $5,900 does not make any sense. I have seen actual cases where that has happened. This necessity to round down to the nearest $100 and call that a devise that is necessary for administration is absurd on two points. First, what about calculators and electronic computers? This was done way back when everything was done by hand, and sure there was some merit to working in multiples of $100 but that is no longer the case. Second, the rounding is done down and not to the nearest, which is mathematically indefensible.

Lastly, and I find this very ironic, the rounding to the nearest $100 is done on an annual basis. When one divides a number that is a multiple of 100 by 12, one gets a fraction to the nearest fraction of a penny in many cases. One still has to compute to the nearest penny on the monthly salary cheque. The defence of this rounding down for administrative purposes is totally specious. It is just an absurd thing.

I am opposed to that and we ought to do better. I will challenge the House leader in future revisions of the compensation for members of Parliament. He should correct some of these anomalies and do a better job at it.

[Justice, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the people in Sherwood Park, a major residential area in my riding, are extremely upset these days. In the last several months two violent sexual predators have been released into their community. This causes great concern because these individuals have demonstrated no remorse for their violent crimes against women and have shown no desire or intention to not repeat these offences.

I spoke to one lady who lives near one of the offenders and she told me that she is so afraid that she goes out with her husband whenever he leaves the house. She cannot stay alone in her own home in this previously peaceful community. Others tell me that they are now in constant fear for the safety of their children. They must now escort them as they walk to and from school, and cannot leave them out of sight when they are playing outdoors.

I call on the government to change the rules. Offenders who choose not to participate in rehabilitative treatment while incarcerated, and who are judged dangerous and likely to reoffend, must be kept in custody until we are certain that they will not again attack our women and children.

[Income Tax Act, May 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add a few words to the discussion on Bill C-325, put forward by my hon. colleague from Lethbridge.

He of course has my undying loyalty since his daughter lives in my riding. I have to pay a great deal of attention to make sure that all my constituents are happy. I have to be loyal to the member for Lethbridge because of that.

I recognize the history, especially in the remote areas of the country, of volunteers for emergency services. We think of firefighters and ambulance drivers. Not that long ago people from all walks of life were doing this voluntary work and they did it to the best of their ability. Sometimes they were ill-prepared for it because of lack of training and lack of proper equipment in the communities. However they do the best they can and have done so over many years.

I remember quite distinctly, when I was probably five or six years old, living on the prairies. I think I have mentioned in the House before that my father was the one who arranged for a new telephone network. None of us had phones until then. My dad was the one who kicked off organizing phones. These phones were the hand cranked ones. The young people here will really wonder whether I have escaped from the museum recently.

However we had these hand cranked phones. I still remember that our ring was two longs and one short. When our phone rang everyone on the whole network could pick up and listen to what we were saying. It was called a party line at that time. The intention was that one of our neighbours was calling and we would respond because it was our ring.

The practice in those days was that if anyone needed help in an emergency they would get on the phone and crank the thing. It was one very long ring in which case everyone would get on the line. We cannot do today because the present technology does not permit it.

However one morning there was a very long ring. My dad answered the phone and found out that our neighbour had been involved in a farm accident. In fact, my dad was one of the persons who arrived there as soon as he could. He found out that the tractor had actually taken the life of one of our neighbours. This was the lady who was calling to her neighbours asking for help. She said that she needed help.

As a little aside, those were wonderful communities in those days. I also remember that was the year all the neighbours got together and harvested Mrs. Pasch's fields before any of them did their own. That was the kind of community relationship that gave rise to the volunteers who then had the opportunity to go for more training and become better equipped to help people when they were in need.

Bill C-325 reflects that that spirit of co-operation and kinsmanship is still very much alive. It is quite evident in all of the small communities in my riding and certainly in others as well.

My colleague has put forward this bill, which, in a very small way, would give a small monetary recognition to the people who work as volunteers. I commend the member for that. He is obviously reflecting the sentiments of many people who believe that those who volunteer in these emergency services deserve more recognition than just sort of a passing thanks.

As has been mentioned on numerous occasions already in today's debate, this provides for a deduction from taxable income of up to $3,000 for a person who volunteers for a minimum of 200 hours. I am sure my colleague will not mind if I say to him that I certainly support his bill in principle. I would like to see it go to committee, but there are a few revisions which I would recommend to my colleague and to the committee when they study this bill. I think that perhaps he might be open to some of these revisions.

First, as an amateur mathematician I have a bit of a problem with the 200 hour cut-off. This is called in mathematics a stepping function, where it has one value until a certain place, at which point it has a completely different value. To explain what I am referring to I will use an example. If someone worked 195 hours, according to this bill that individual would be entitled to nothing. It is the same for a person who worked 196, 197, 198 or 199 hours, but as soon as they get to the 200 hours suddenly they can deduct up to $3,000 from their taxable income and thereby have a considerable saving in the amount of taxes they would pay.

I would like to see some thought given to changing it from a stepping function into one that perhaps has a little more uniformity to it as it goes along. I know there is a bit of a problem in terms of bookkeeping, but I think it could be done. It would make it much more fair instead of having this instantaneous threshold. That is one little suggestion I have.

I also would like to counter the argument put forward by the parliamentary secretary in terms of the amount of book work required. I think this is an item which is already being done in many instances and it is also, just like our income tax system in totality, based on the honour system. I think it would not be a huge increment to ask a person who is a volunteer to keep an annual log that would contain three columns: the date, the time in and the time out. It would show the hours worked that day. Every time a person was involved in an activity as a volunteer in emergency services it would simply be entered into a log. I really sincerely doubt that it should take more than between five and eight seconds, which is my estimate, for that book work to be done. Then in the end the person would simply have to add it up, put a signature to it and declare that it is accurate; of course there is a rule against providing inaccurate information.

There is something else I would like to recommend, and here I agree somewhat with the parliamentary secretary. I think an amendment should be made to make this into a refundable tax credit so that not only those who have other income get this reward. Very often we find that people who do this kind of volunteering are people who have more free time. Many of them do not have a great deal of independent income, so again, what would happen here I think is a potential unfairness. There could be two people side by side, both of whom meet the criteria but one with larger income who can thereby reduce his or her taxable income and get a benefit, whereas the other person may have little or no income or not even be in a taxable bracket. This would thereby not provide for that individual a thank you in a compensatory form.

I would like to close by commending my colleague for the recognition of a very important element in our society: the work of the volunteer, the person who says, “Yes, if someone is in distress I will be there to help. I will put my own life and safety at risk if necessary and I will do what I can to help my neighbours”. I think this is a good step forward.

I cannot resist saying in my closing 12 seconds that we should probably consider very, very strongly increasing the basic exemption for all Canadians since they are all being taxed to death.

[Income Tax Act, May 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have one quick question and I am not sure that my hon. colleague will be prepared for this. If he is not, I will accept him getting the information to me later.

The question is in regard to estimates. Has he done any research on what the average cost would be to the federal government in a year? This would be of course based upon the number of individuals and some estimate of which tax bracket they are in to be able to claim this deduction.

[Employment Insurance Act, May 2nd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I will just take a few minutes to speak on the bill. When I rise during private members' business, I am always in the habit of congratulating the person for being drawn. In this particular case he was high enough on the list so that he actually has a bill that we can debate.

Interestingly, one of the bills that I have in the works also deals with unemployment insurance and I will call it by that name because that is what it is. It is not employment insurance. It does nothing to insure that one has employment. It would be better if it was called perhaps income insurance. That might be a better name, but employment insurance is definitely a misnomer. I for one objected vehemently when the government spent millions of dollars to change this name two or three years ago.

Undoubtedly employment is a more positive word than unemployment, which is what the objective should be. We should have government policies and do everything we can to drive our economic indicators so that we have the maximum number of jobs. The ultimate program is one that would create long term meaningful jobs with benefits available to the workers and their families.

I would like to commend the member for being able to have his bill debated and to talk about the employment insurance act as it now stands.

There is no doubt that the government has done the workers and particularly small businesses of the nation a tremendous disservice by taking billions of dollars out of their pockets and rolling it into general revenue where unfortunately the government wastes so much of it through boondoggles. The overrun on the gun registry is the biggest one that we have in front of us these days. What a shame it is when there are many people who are either overtaxed or, as the member contends, not benefiting from the insurance program for the unemployed.

As my colleague from Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan said earlier, we cannot say theft or embezzlement, so we have to say some other things. However, it is money that is taken inappropriately for reasons for which it was not originally intended.

I also wish to commend the member for wanting to have a trust fund independently administered so that the government cannot get its clammy hands on the workers' money.

[Parliament of Canada Act, May 2nd, 2003]

--but the problem is exactly the same in that the power is all exercised by the Prime Minister.

The hon. member opposite who just spoke indicated that government members would like this passed really quickly. He is hoping that he can send it back to committee.

Having been one of the members on that committee, I would like to report here that it has been a really great experience. I have really come to respect the people from all parties who have worked on the procedure and House affairs subcommittee where we studied this bill and put together this report and the recommendations.

However, when the government House leader indicates that it was all unanimous, it was not without a lot of convulsions. It was not without a whole bunch of really deep concerns and the largest concern is undoubtedly the method of appointment of the ethics commissioner for the House of Commons.

It is true that the report was unanimous in the sense that we chose not to file a dissenting report. However, the reason for doing so was that we were told our requirement to have a super majority or a double majority to approve that ethics commissioner for the House of Commons would have required a change in the Constitution since the Constitution says that all votes in the House of Commons are decided by a simple majority.

We would really like to see the ethics commissioner have a higher level of approval because of the fact that this officer of Parliament would be unique in the sense that he or she is going to have jurisdiction over individual members of Parliament from all political parties. It is absolutely mandatory that the ethics commissioner have the support of all members in the House, not just the Liberal government.

Let us review what Bill C-34 does in terms of the appointment process and the ratification process on reappointment. It has a serious flaw. If everybody were wonderful and getting along with each other, there would not be a problem. People are congenial and they are kind and nice, and we would like to think that where it requires that the Prime Minister consult with leaders of other parties in the House prior to putting forward a name, that is in essence all very well. But all the bill says is that there shall be consultation with the leaders of the other parties in the House. There is absolutely no requirement in the bill that those leaders agree or that the majority agrees on the appointee being put forward. All it states is that there shall be consultation.

With a lack of definition of what consultation means, and without actually specifying that there be some degree of agreement on it, this really could turn out to be quite a sham. The Prime Minister could pick someone he wants and then talk to each of the House leaders and ask them what they think. It would not matter what they think or say about that person in response, the Prime Minister could say he has consulted, that he met the requirements of the act.

Further, Bill C-34 states that there is to be a ratifying vote in the House of Commons. Here again, we have observed that in a majority government, like the Liberals we have had here for the last nine and a half years, these Liberals tend to vote pretty well the way the Prime Minister wants them to, as directed by the party whip. So there is the possible scenario of the Prime Minister choosing someone objectionable, then talking about that individual with the other House leaders, and that would be as far as that goes; then he could then come in here and tell his members, “Hey, if you want to get out early, vote in favour of the appointee I am putting forward”. So either by persuasion, by hanging out a carrot, or by some whipping by the whip, the Liberals would get their majority vote and the commissioner would be in place.

Yesterday I talked to somebody about what would happen if I were offered this position, although I do not think it will happen because of other disqualifications, namely in the area of language, so I am disqualified from most of these positions in our country. But if I were offered this position and in a vote in the House of Commons the majority government voted in favour of my appointment but all other parties voted against it, I would feel obliged to thank the Prime Minister for his offer but decline the position. I hope the person offered the position will have that same degree of honour in accepting it. It is absolutely mandatory when this person is going to delve into our personal lives as members of Parliament on both sides of the House that the person have integrity and the trust of all members of Parliament.

Even though the actual double vote is probably impossible because it would require a change in the Constitution, I would hopefully expect that there would be a very high degree of support for this person upon appointment.

Now here is the dilemma, Mr. Speaker: My time is up and of course I would like to speak for another hour or so on this topic because I have covered only one of about eighteen objections. However, it will go to committee and hopefully we will have some good work there.

[Parliament of Canada Act, May 2nd, 2003]

Minister of State. Sorry, I tend to get his titles wrong.

The minister takes great pleasure in saying that the committee has studied this and agreed unanimously; therefore, we need not debate it any further, let us just do it. Let us jam it through.

We have been informed that unfortunately in the Liberal caucus the other day there was actually almost a veiled threat, well, not a veiled threat, it was given as a carrot, I guess, with the Prime Minister saying that if they would pass this quickly he would allow us to leave earlier. Oh no, that was the other one, I think, the one on financing of political parties--

[Parliament of Canada Act, May 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand in this wonderful place, the House of Commons of Canada, where all of us call each other hon. member, which is the requirement, and where the Standing Orders say that we because we are honourable obviously we will never say or do anything that is dishonourable. We cannot, according to our Standing Orders, even imply that it could be done, because that is a violation of the Standing Orders.

Here we have in this particular environment the need for a code of ethics, which is a strange outcome if we consider the fact that we are all here to be hon. members. Really what we are doing is introducing a bill that says there will be a watchdog to make sure that everybody is honourable. Indeed, it has become a necessity because of the foibles of this and previous governments.

I would like to make some points for anyone who happens to be listening. Back in my riding right now it is twenty minutes after eight and I am sure that probably 3,000 or 4,000 people there are watching CPAC. They are very interested in this. Really, our debate right now is whether or not the bill should be sent to committee before second reading.

When we first came here way back in 1993, that had not been done at that time. It was a new innovation that bills could be put to a committee before second reading. My first evaluation of that process was a positive one. I thought it was great that before the government entrenches its position and then at every stage in the bill marches its MPs through votes on command on the bill, it should be sent to committee so that there is more input into the bill.

I originally favoured that process, but it has turned out to be not so good for us because in a way it becomes a way of limiting debate. By sending the bill to committee before second reading, we have today an opportunity at this stage for only ten minute speeches and for a maximum of three hours. That is not really enough time to debate an issue of this magnitude and to see whether or not in principle we really should support the bill.

Second, when that process is done, then the government and the Secretary of State and Leader of the Government in the House of--