Ken Epp

[Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2002, November 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I was not going to speak on Bill S-2 today, but in listening to the riveting debate taking place in the chamber in the last hour, I have been motivated to get up and say a few words about this very important bill.

This bill emanating from the Senate is about a treaty with different countries on a very important financial matter, that is, taxation.

First I would like to say a few words about this concept of double taxation. It is incredible to me that we are willing to enter into agreements with other countries to avoid double taxation when double taxation is rampant for our own citizens within our own country.

I could give many examples. The best one, I suppose, is the one of my private member's bill, which I hope will come forward one of these days. In nine years I have never yet been picked in the lottery draw on private members' business, but with the rules being changed hopefully I will get an opportunity to debate it now. It is a double taxation bill because it deals with the fact that every one of us has to pay income tax on money that we earn in order to have money to pay our property taxes. We have to pay taxes on money that we earn solely for the purpose of paying taxes. That is double taxation. I hope I can get a chance sometime soon to have that private member's bill brought forward so that within this country we can avoid the kind of double taxation which Bill S-2 addresses with respect to our citizens who have businesses abroad or some of our citizens who live in other countries who still have business interests back home here.

Another example of double taxation, and really it is triple taxation, is that when we buy fuel we first have to pay income tax on the money we earn so that we have some money in our pocket when we pull up to the service station. Lo and behold, about one-half of the cost of fuel these days is taxation in one form or another if the income tax that the energy companies pay is included. Really, it is a 100% rate of taxation. I pay 30¢ for the actual fuel and the rest of the bill, 30¢, is for taxation at various levels. It is a 100% rate of taxation on gasoline, but when I pay it I am paying it with money on which I have already paid taxes. That is also a form of double taxation.

I could go on. There are many examples of this. Every time I buy something I pay the GST. It does not matter what it is. In Ontario, when I escape from the wonderful province of Alberta, I end up paying not only the federal tax but also the provincial tax, even on a simple thing like a $7 meal at McDonald's. Although I should not admit that I sometimes eat at McDonald's because it gives away my diet plan, I do eat there occasionally. The other day I think it came to about $7 with a tax bill of approximately $2 on it. It was incredible. I still think I got ripped off, but more by the taxman than by the young lady who served me a Big Mac. That is double taxation. That is a very expensive Big Mac, and please do not tell my wife because she thinks I am still on my diet program. That was my one occasion this week when I sort of dropped the ball.

Double taxation is to be avoided on principle, so I support Bill S-2 because it states that people who have business interests in other countries do not have to pay taxes in both countries. There is an agreement made to pay in only one.

One of my colleagues just pointed out to me that when we buy fuel we pay GST on the excise tax. I remember very early on, way back in 1994 in his first budget, that the hon. member now seeking the leadership of his party, and to become the next prime minister, got up and said they were going to increase the taxes on fuel by 1.5¢. I remember saying then that it was not 1.5¢ but actually more. It was really an increase of 1.605¢. When we add the GST to it, there is a tax on a tax. We actually pay GST on the excise tax that we pay when we buy gasoline: absurdity of absurdities. Of course we need to get rid of double taxation. I would like to see us make a treaty with ourselves so that our citizens do not have to pay double taxes. I am looking forward to that.

The other thing that I want to address very briefly is of course this idea of treaty making. Some of my colleagues, especially the member for Edmonton--Strathcona, drew some attention to this. I too think it is totally outrageous.

I scanned Bill S-2 before I got up to speak. I find it interesting that in Bill S-2 there is a whole section for each country with which we are entering into an agreement. It is put out in detail. It is the actual wording of the treaty. I expect we will pass Bill S-2, because I am sure the Liberals will vote for it, I am going to vote for it and I imagine most of my colleagues will. It will most surely pass on the strength of the Canadian Alliance vote in the House today.

It will pass, but what we have is the actual passing of actual wording of treaties right there in the bill. That is what is being passed in the House. We must compare that to what we have been seized with in the last couple of days, this Kyoto affair. What we have there is a simple motion that says “let us ask the government to sign a blank cheque”. There are no details in it. It is just a motion that says we ought to ratify Kyoto.

Why can we not get this lame duck government to bring into the chamber an actual treaty and let us debate it and let us vote on it? Instead, what the government is saying is to give it the authority and it will ratify the treaty and will not bother telling the House any of the details, the costs, the implementation plan or anything, none of that; it is just “let us ratify it”.

I trust my wife a lot. She writes cheques occasionally on our account, but I never ever let her even write a cheque without reporting back to me immediately and usually in advance how much it is for and who it is to. I need to know that.

The Prime Minister and the government are asking us to sign a blank cheque. Then, of course, in the debate a couple of days ago and in some of the challenges, the parliamentary secretary had the audacity to get up and say that it does not really matter if it is not passed by the House, because the government has the right to ratify it anyway.

What kind of a democracy is that? I do not think it is a very good democracy and I would like to see that improved.

With respect to Bill S-2, my comment is simply this. Let us apply at least the same standards to Kyoto that we are applying to Bill S-2. Let us have the treaty. Let us have the voting. Let us have an actual authoritative Parliament ratify the treaty instead of this garbage that we are having to put up with from the other side on the Kyoto treaty.

Mr. Speaker, I will restrain myself. I know I have more time, but I am going to just say that this is enough for this particular occasion.

[Ethics Counsellor, November 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we wonder if the Prime Minister, who was to receive this report on September 30, sent it back for reworking. It is unbelievable that this bland report was submitted to the Prime Minister late. It says nothing that we did not already know.

What was taken out of the report before we were given the sanitized version?

[Ethics Counsellor, November 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday the first annual report of the ethics counsellor was tabled in the House. After eight years in office, there is a surprise.

The Prime Minister had asked for this report by September 30 but it was only tabled on November 20. Why did we have to wait an extra two months after eight years for a report that says nothing new?

[Canada Health Act, November 22nd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I find it rather interesting to be told over and over that my party has chosen not to speak to the bill, since I like to hear debates. I like to hear people's arguments. I like to find out what they have to say. Because I do not have a prepared speech I wanted to hear the points of view of different members before I got up to speak. It was rather unfair of my colleague to say that the Alliance has chosen not to speak just because I did not get up immediately after the member. I think that was an unfair comment.

I would like to make a few comments. We have had some experience recently with the medical system. The issue in the bill before us, as the member who presented it has said, is to make sure that health care is available universally for people in Canada.

My family has had some recent experience with the medical system. I saw my mother suffer for eight hours waiting for health care for a fractured hip. This happened on the day of my dad's funeral. I know where I would put the money for health care. I would make sure that competent staff is available so that health care is available in a timely manner for someone suffering as my mother did. It was distressing for us to leave her in the hospital while we went to my dad's funeral waiting to know what was going to happen. Nobody was able to look after her. After eight hours the hospital finally decided to move her by ambulance over Saskatchewan's roads to the Regina hospital. Very frankly, that caused us more distress than the fact that we were to attend my dad's funeral. I do not think anyone would argue that a viable health care system is high on everyone's priority list. I do not think there is an argument there.

With respect to the availability of healthcare in the provinces, it is very interesting that this member should have this bill. I had a visit from a constituent, a couple of years ago now, who had the misfortune of having a heart attack when he was visiting his relatives in Montreal. He was in the middle of a heart attack and needed health care, but before the hospital would serve him he had to post a bond or give the hospital a cheque. The hospital in Montreal would not accept his Alberta health care card. It was not an issue of language at all. He had to write the hospital a cheque before the hospital would look after him. He came to my office to complain about this. He asked if this was what the Canada Health Act was about and wanted to know what was meant by universality. We checked into it and found that there had been a little glitch in the system.

I support the member when he says that health care should be available. Maybe I should not be throwing out ideas just off the cuff because someone is liable to say it is Canadian Alliance policy. I want to emphasize that it is not. It is a question, though, that we should ask.

There is a massive intrusion by the federal government into our health care system. As my colleague from the Bloc said, the government did it originally by the simple brutal application of its spending power. It was able to tax Canadians. It was able to give money to the provinces for health care. The government originally put 50% into health care and there was hardly a province that could say it would not participate, because that is an awful lot of money. Over time the government has so eroded its health care contributions that some provinces are receiving less than 15%. Less than 15% of their health care costs, in some cases, is derived from the federal government.

Now I am putting out a little feeler. Maybe we should seriously start considering changing our Constitution so that we in fact have a national health care system. Perhaps we should change our Constitution so that the federal government does have a role to play. This would ensure that Canadian citizens, when they go from Alberta to Quebec or from any province to any other province, can present their Canada health care card and receive proper medical service right then and there, no questions asked, instead of having this interprovincial thing.

I also hold the federal government totally responsible for the fact that it has been unable to negotiate between parties, between the provinces, so that there would be a full accession to the universality clause in the Canada Health Act. It has to be there. If we are going to have a Canadian health care system that meets the needs of Canadians, then we had better be able to go anywhere in Canada, present our card and say, “I am entitled to this kind of service”.

I also want to say something with respect to the language part of the bill. In hospitals I have visited, I have observed the need to be able to communicate. That is absolutely critical. In one instance I am thinking of right now, there was a person who spoke neither of Canada's official languages. I would like to say, with great respect for the particular hospital involved, that it bent over backwards to find a person who could interpret from the language of the person into, in this case, English, so that the communication between the doctor and nurses to this individual who could not speak either language was facilitated.

I saw the same thing not long ago at the airport. A person spoke neither English nor French and a member from the Air Canada staff spoke to her in German. I know just enough German to be able to understand that it was German she was speaking, notwithstanding that was my first language. Over the last 40 years, I have lost it.

I would like to say it is true that if one wants to retain a language over time one has to take extraordinary measures. In my family that is very obvious. Our family came to this country not speaking English. Now all my cousins, all their children and mine, and all the grandchildren and everyone are fully unilingual English and almost none of them speak German. We lost that language because we were assimilated into the English language. If one's goal is to maintain the French language, then yes, one must take extraordinary steps to maintain it and that is a whole other debate.

I am very pleased to participate in debate on the bill. I found the debate very interesting and certainly it is an issue that we should pay a great deal of attention to, particularly on delivery of health care services to all Canadians regardless of where they happen to be at the time within our country and irrespective of their ability to pay.

[Parliamentary Reform, November 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, since I was mentioned in the member's speech, I feel privileged to respond to him.

I begin by saying that of all of the members I have seen chair committees, that particular member has to be one of the best. He is fair, very efficient and I have always enjoyed serving on the committees when he has been chairing. I have not done that too much, but from time to time I have been involved in committees that he is on.

I would like to talk about the issue of free votes. He mentioned that we vote as a block more often than the Liberals do. I do not really think that is true. I would have to check the actual records to see how many dissenting votes there were from the Liberals.

The member may have been referring to private members' business and in that case, it is true. We all have the freedom to vote as we wish on private members' bills and as far as I know that is true for all parties in the House. On those occasions, yes, because there are some 170 members of the Liberal Party, a greater number of them would be voting on one side or the other.

With respect to government bills and whipped votes, I do not think we would find that to be true at all. Of course, in our party not only do we have the privilege of representing our constituents first and foremost instead of taking our voting orders from the party hierarchy, but we have an obligation to do so. I have always been very proud to be part of a party, formerly the Reform Party and now the Canadian Alliance, that stands for representing our constituents. However, I will say unequivocally that I have never once in the House voted in a way that I did not agree, in order words I was persuaded, not forced or coerced, and there is a fantastic difference in that particular measure.

I have used quite a bit of time. In deference to other members I will allow the member to respond, but in the event that no one else rises, I will be up again.

[Parliamentary Reform, November 22nd, 2002]

But not because we were forced to. That is the difference.

[Parliamentary Reform, November 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, to further follow up on our previous interchange, the member has the audacity to say that what member in the Liberal Party would not go against directions given from the party.

I was part of the finance committee when the whip signed herself in to get the correct number of people in committee to implement the Prime Minister's choice.

Furthermore, I cannot believe that the member thinks that only the Prime Minister can compute who are the best people for the job and whether they are the right gender or whether they represent the right region. As there will be secret ballot elections in the committee now, those facts will become known and they should then influence the voting decision of the member of Parliament, unless he has a brain the size of an asp.

[Parliamentary Reform, November 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member a question on one of the items that he spoke about. I found interest in a number of things that he said.

The item I am talking about is the one about members of Parliament actually choosing the chairs of the committees. If I heard him right, he said that he did not agree with secret ballots for the election of the chairs. I would remind him that the reason for the secret ballots was simply that instead of government members having to toe the line, as told by their party whip or the Prime Minister, on who to select as the chair, they could use their own judgment and choose the person who is best qualified for the position.

There would be nothing wrong with having public votes on this provided there was no coercion from the parties on their members. This is a way of freeing up the members from that coercion so they can use their own best judgment.

I need the member to explain to me why he is opposed to a secret ballot because it gives him the freedom to use his judgment which must, invariably, on occasion, be better than the judgment of others who would decide for him.

[Parliamentary Reform, November 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it was very wise of me to share my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley. She gave an excellent speech. The member made a comment regarding committees. I would comment that the committees themselves are controlled by the executive branch of our government.

In legal parlance we say it is not right for someone to be both the judge and executioner. There should be a separation. We have to have a government to administer the laws produced by parliamentarians. Parliamentarians should be able to use their own abilities, their research, their input from their constituents and other areas to have a reasonable representation in our laws of what the people want. The job of the committees is to do that.

There are examples in my committee work. In the finance committee we made some 80 recommendations. The finance minister in his budget chose about five of them and ignored the other 75.

There is the example of the air tax. Every witness who came before the committee said that the air tax would kill short haul airline services. We recommended that the tax should not be implemented. However the vote in the parliamentary committee was whipped and it went exactly opposite to what all of us in the committee knew should happen.

I commend my colleague for pointing out that very serious flaw in our legislative process. Committee work is a very important part of making good laws for Canadians.

Although it is not done publicly, at the beginning of each session we have a prayer. We pray for God almighty to help us make good laws and wise decisions. As parliamentarians we would love to do that. We would like to help the Lord to answer that prayer, but the Prime Minister, who considers himself an authority above all authorities, prevents that from happening by the coercive measures taken to control committees.

I commend my colleague for saying that. Perhaps she has a little more to add to the topic.

[Parliamentary Reform, November 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a matter of high privilege to stand in Canada's Parliament to debate the issues that pertain to our citizens, our taxpayers and, indeed, the future of our country. Pivotal to that whole event or that whole process, of course, is the operation of Parliament itself.

I always think eagerly of the enthusiasm with which our new pages come to the House every year. They are all excited. They have finished high school. They have been accepted into the pages program. They come here and are ready to observe how our Parliament works. I often think of them as being the embodiment of the youth and in fact the guarantee of the future of our country, representing thousands of young people across the country.

As a member of Parliament one of the things I do is visit schools quite frequently. In Alberta it is in the grade six year that there is a unit on government. I make myself available to the teachers in my riding and I visit the classrooms. These grade six students have very insightful questions. Very frankly, occasionally when they ask some of these questions it is really challenging to give them a really good answer and to explain to them how Parliament works or how it is supposed to work and how indeed our country is one of the best countries in the world because of our democratic system.

Deep inside, I always worry that I may not be actually telling them what they really should know and that is how dysfunctional their Parliament is. I try to downplay that, but I also mention to them from time to time that members of Parliament sent to Ottawa by their constituents very often have their hands severely tied and cannot really represent their constituents, for various reasons.

So the main emphasis in my talk this morning is going to be on the fundamental reform of Parliament that I think is desperately needed. We as individual members of Parliament come here with the express purpose of and also the dedication and the commitment to representing our constituents first, representing the well-being of the country second, and third, making sure that we look at the long term so that the country is stable, well run, economically viable and successful, and that our resources in the country are well utilized, well into the decades beyond the time when we will be here.

Mr. Speaker, I was remiss in not mentioning in my opening sentence that I am sharing my time with the hon. member for South Surrey--White Rock--Langley. I am very honoured to share my time with her since my uncle is one of her constituents.

Let us talk a little about the need for the idea of a free vote. It is a serious flaw here that we have disciplined votes. I do not mind a party having a stand on something. I think that is great. I think it is wonderful if we can go to the people of Canada at election time and say that we are going to stand for balanced budgets. That was one of our big themes in the election prior to 1993. We said that we were going to stop that incipient sliding into deeper debt which would totally hamstring the young people of the next generation and generations to come with them having to pay the interest and the debt.

For our party to have come here at that time with that as our primary theme, to balance the budgets and to stop borrowing, I think that was an excellent theme. I am very proud of the fact that as a party we were able to present a united front on that, to the point where a Liberal government, which means, as we know, Liberal spending, was actually willing to do the things that needed to be done, to a degree at least, to solve the problem of continued borrowing. It is also true that they were lucky in the sense that they came on to the scene at a time when, due to some of the policies of the previous government, free trade and an economic boom in North America, the revenues of the government increased.

If we were to look at the numbers, we would see that it was just a fortuitous stroke of good fortune that they came here at the time when they did since the government expenditures actually have increased substantially, but at least we were here with that agenda and we gave a united front.

My party persuaded me to join the party based on those policies. It persuades me to stand up and vote with it because I agree with those policies. I will concede that the Liberal members opposite probably often get up and vote with their party because they are persuaded that it is the right thing to do.

However, we know of a number of instances where individuals, and in some cases a large number of individual members of that party and perhaps other parties, have voted against their will because they were instructed how to vote because of party solidarity, not letting the government fall and all that stuff. That, I think, is deplorable.

I really believe that we potentially have in the House 301 talented individuals, most of whom are able to think very well. They are well endowed mentally. Many of them have excellent training academically and yet we find they sometimes go against their better judgment in order to vote for something because it is government policy. I would like to see that changed. That is the main theme of my talk.

There should not be punishment for dissent. John Nunziata should not have been punished by being given a chair beside me because he simply decided to vote against something in the budget that was not according to the way he thought it should be.

It is interesting that we have rules in our Standing Orders and in the Parliament of Canada Act. It is against the law to influence a member of Parliament to vote a certain way. Bribes are considered a high crime, yet for some reason we do not object when a prime minister, a party whip or any of the other party apparatus says that we must vote a certain way or else. To me that is a serious breach, especially because our laws provide that members of Parliament should have the ability to vote freely.

I remember being on a school board many years ago. It happened with great frequency that one of the members would make a motion. The motion would seem quite reasonable at first so someone would second it. Debate would start and suddenly one of the members would say that we should think of the consequences if the motion were to pass. Another person would pick up on that train of thought and say that something else could happen. It would not take very long until the consensus of the group was that we could serve the people best if we rejected the motion. We did our job as a school board.

I was the chairman of the board at the time and when I asked for those in favour of a motion to raise their hands, sometimes even the person who moved the motion had been persuaded that it was a stupid motion and decided to vote against it. The majority of the board was opposed and the motion was defeated. We went to the next motion or item of business.

That does not happen in here. We have this insane imposition on our decision making. Even though the Speaker says “the question is...” and he reads the motion that we are debating or that we are voting on, the people who vote are forced into the mode of saying that what they are really voting on is whether there should be an election. We cannot make decisions that way if the real vote is on a question other than the one we are voting on.

I simply make the point that the fundamental change we need in this Parliament is that we put together our collective heads as wise counsellors and we make the best decision because we are persuaded in that direction rather than being coerced into voting the way we do.