Ken Epp

[Agriculture, May 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in his response to a question from the member for Palliser, the Minister of Finance said something to the effect that money being allocated for agricultural aid was not real money but merely a journal entry. I think that was what I heard him say.

My question has to do with the money being applied to the debt. Is that real money or is that too just a journal entry?

[The Economy, May 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this issue is very important to seniors. An inflation rate of 2% means that the value of a dollar goes down to about 82 cents in 10 years. The 3.6% rate, which is the rate the seniors are interested in and the actual rate, not the fudged one that the bank uses, means their dollar goes down to about 70 cents in 10 years.

This inflation is a hidden thief of savings and purchasing power for everyone and it is hard on seniors. What does he propose—

[The Economy, May 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the bank needs to reduce interest rates to stimulate our economy but it needs to increase interest rates to fight inflation and to save our sinking dollar.

How will the finance minister solve this dilemma?

[Jessica Koopmans, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, as the grandfather of four grandchildren, including five year old Kayla, my heart is grieved over what happened to Jessica Koopmans in Lethbridge. This five year old was innocently on her way to her friend's house when she was abducted and brutally murdered.

How could anyone so violently attack a little girl? It is totally beyond comprehension. The person who did this is really sick.

While the federal government dithers on a registry of sexual offenders and child molestors, the provincial governments are going ahead to set up their own. However it would be much better to have a nationwide registry since it would track offenders everywhere instead of just in their home province. Alberta is fast-tracking the setting up of such a registry, following the lead of Ontario and British Columbia.

I cannot understand why the federal government is doing nothing to set up a national registry to protect our children. It would make a great deal more sense than registering the long guns of law-abiding citizens who go hunting in fall.

[Blood Samples Act, May 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by commending my colleague for introducing this bill. It is a very good bill. One of the things that has really impressed me in my years as a member of parliament is that many of the good ideas that come into the Chamber are brought in by private members. These are the people, all of us, who on the weekends and in the weeks out of the House rub shoulders with our constituents. We find out from them what is really important to them. To me that is the essence of representative democracy: to bring to the Chamber the ideas that our electors back home implore us to deal with.

I am very pleased that my colleague has introduced the bill. I am also exceptionally pleased that in our grand lottery scheme he actually had his bill drawn and was then able to somehow persuade that so-called independent committee that it was actually worthy of a debate longer than one hour and worthy of a vote. We will actually be voting on this.

That is truly remarkable and it should not be. If I digress for just a few seconds, Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will not mind. There should not be occasions when members bring forward ideas that they consider important enough to occupy the House's time which are then automatically discarded without resulting in a decision, by vote, of the members here.

Quite a bit has already been said about this bill and why people should support it. If I may, I would like to add my ideas and my argument in favour of supporting the bill.

There are a number of important issues. The one I would underline is the conflict that appears when we have presumed conflicting rights. We have these all the time, no matter how large the society.

Our children are all grown up and have left home, so our little society in our house consists of my wife and myself. Every once in a while we have little conflicts on whether she should get her way or I should get mine if we disagree on something. I have learned over the years to simply compromise and do what she wants, not always but most of the time. It keeps peace in the house. I know if she gets word of what I have said here, I will be in trouble when I get home, but we will debate that further at that stage.

This situation arises in a democracy, in a society, regardless of whether there are two people or 30 million. There will be times when the rights of people collide. How do we evaluate which right takes precedence over the other?

The issue before us today is one of those cases where one does not have to be a very deep-thinking person to realize that it is almost an open and shut case. I know that we want to defend the right of privacy in the country, and justifiably so. We do not want a society where people are looking over our shoulders and watching everything we say, do and think.

Notwithstanding that, we seem to have that situation in the country. We have agencies of the government like the CRTC, for example, which is very involved in determining even which radio stations can exist, what their formats will be and what they can broadcast. That to me is an intrusion on a personal freedom. If people have financial backing and want to have a radio station on a certain theme, they should have the right to proceed. It should not be up to a government bureaucracy to decide that they cannot.

However we have situations like the one before us today where one person, having done the right things, is potentially at risk of contracting a life threatening disease, whereas the other person has the risk of giving a sample of blood or other body tissue that he or she does not want to give so that an evaluation can be made as to whether or not the person who is the victim has been infected.

It seems to me that this is not an issue we have to think very hard about. The rights being protected are worlds apart in magnitude. One is very important and the other one, the necessity of giving a sample of blood or whatever, is a very small loss.

When I was younger I used to donate blood at the Red Cross clinics. It was not very painful to give. In those days we measured things in quarts and gallons. I would go quite regularly and give a quart of blood with no problem.

How can a person say that my rights are being violated if I am asked to give a little vial of blood so that another person can find out whether or not he or she has been infected? To me it is totally clear.

I am going to run out of time very shortly, but I would like to appeal to all members of the House to simply use their intelligence, analytic abilities and independence to vote in favour of this very good bill.

[Income Tax Act, May 11th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to stand in this place to speak in defence of those who perform the mechanical repairs on our vehicles.

This issue has been ongoing for many years in parliament, certainly all the years I have been here. I am up to the challenge today of persuading 172 Liberals to vote in favour of the private member's bill. I hope I can convince at least half of them. As for the others, I do not care if they vote against it. If I can get half the Liberals to support the bill then finally the injustice would be stopped.

What injustice are we talking about? I am speaking about the fact that a taxation principle is being unfairly applied when it comes to the tools used by mechanics. The general tax principle is that people can deduct from income money that is expended in earning an income. For example, if a farmer requires a tool in order to do the work of earning an income on the farm, the cost of that tool is a deductible expense when it comes to filing income tax. In other words, they can buy a tool that they need without having to pay income tax on the money earned to purchase it.

There are many other professions where this applies. When I walk down the mall in some of my communities I see a doctor's office with a sign that says professional corporation. That designation is so that the doctor can deduct the cost of the expense of the equipment which he or she needs to earn income. Lawyers deduct the cost of all tools they need to do their jobs. Accountants register themselves as professional corporations thereby being able to claim all the expenses of earning an income and avoiding income tax on that portion.

Almost everyone can deduct from income money that is spent to earn income, either instantaneously as an expense or through some form of depreciation. While we are talking about a straight deductibility for mechanics, the government may also want to look at providing a system of capital cost allowances. Costs could be depreciated year by year until the value has been totally written off.

I remember a real estate acquaintance of mine who took an old used door that he had in his basement and put it on top of two milk cartons, set a chair in front of it and called it a desk. He was able to deduct from income tax the proportional cost of his house as he worked as a real estate agent. He was able to deduct a presumed cost that he had in earning his income.

When it is an explicit requirement that a mechanic have tools to do his or her job to earn income, why is it that the government and all governments before have discriminated against mechanics by not allowing them to either deduct from income the cost of their tools or to depreciate them on an ongoing capital cost allowance basis?

That is blatant unfairness and it needs to be corrected. That is why I am so passionately pleading with 172 Liberals and other members of the opposition to vote in favour of the bill. The bill, in one form or another, has been in front of every parliament since I came here and the government has scuttled it every time by letting it go on and on until finally there was a prorogation of the House and the bill was dropped.

I know quite a bit about the use of tools. I used to do all my own mechanical work. The very first car I owned was a 1959 Meteor, a fantastic gift from my parents. It was my primary vehicle for 25 years and I drove it every day. I always said that I would drive it to the moon, and the mileage on it when it finally cratered was just 5,000 miles short of having driven the equivalent distance from the earth to the moon.

The reason I did my own mechanical work was that I was not a very rich kid. My dad's friend gave me a grease gun so I did my own grease jobs. I bought oil in bulk and did my own oil changes. When something needed fixing and I did not have the tool, I went to the store and bought it so I would have it the next time. In one of my vehicles I had the major task of replacing the bearings in the differential. I borrowed a gauge for the very precise measurement of spaces that was required for that job. I bought an expensive Craftsman tool at Sears so I could take it apart. I still have the socket even if I only used it once. I do not claim to have the right to deduct it from my income. However, one thing I did learn was that accumulating tools was a very costly thing and all I had were the basic tools. I could not afford a winch so when I did a motor job on my Honda Civic I took the head off it before I took the motor out. Then I lifted the motor out so I would not need a winch.

Tool costs are extremely high. When most mechanics are hired by garages and service stations a condition to their employment is that they have their own tools. Without their tools they could not touch a thing, just as I could not. If I did not have the right tool I had to buy it. The same thing is true for mechanics. When they do not have the right tool they go out and buy it unless they can persuade a fellow worker to lend it to them. Once they have it, it is in their toolbox.

An empty toolbox without any tools that rolls on the floor costs between $300 to $400. Mechanics must invest between $20,000 and $50,000 in order to do their job. It is high time we recognized both the importance of the work they do and the unfairness that is being perpetrated on them by not allowing them to deduct the tool expenses from their taxable income.

As has been mentioned, those tools also have to be replaced because they wear out and some are lost. I have on numerous occasions picked tools up off the highway because I know the value of them. I also know that if they are left on the road they can be kicked up and cause damage to a vehicle, such as puncturing a tire or even causing injury to another person.

I have picked up a few screwdrivers and other things which I have found on the road. It is pretty well impossible to find out from where these things came. Likely a mechanic left them sitting on some part of the motor when he was working on it and forgot to remove them. The person for whom the work was done drove away and the screwdrivers fell onto the highway. This is another source of loss.

Losses have to be replaced. That is a cost item. I plead with all members to agree that there is no reason in the world why these people should not be treated the same as anyone else who has a cost of employment to that extent in earning their income. I again emphasize my plea to members to please vote in favour of this bill so that finally this inequity will be solved.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000, May 11th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I listened with intrigue to the member's speech. He is a fellow member of the finance committee. When members of the finance committee listen to witnesses and debate among themselves a lot of interesting ideas come out.

During his speech the member made a passing reference to ACOA. ACOA has been used by various governments as a means of currying political favour come election time. However its long term economic benefit to Atlantic Canada has been much less than advertised. The member said the same thing and indicated that a good system of tax breaks would be of much greater benefit. I think along those lines as well.

Could the hon. member enlarge a bit on the role of ACOA? What vision might he have for bolstering, or setting free the economy of Atlantic Canada? Would he be kind enough to respond?

[The Economy, May 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I guess that shows the flaw of reading the answer to the question he thought I would ask.

Integrating earned income with dividend income for tax purposes is a very necessary measure. This is an ideal time to do this since it can be done with tax cuts rather than with tax increases. Will the minister do this?

[The Economy, May 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in giving testimony to the finance committee yesterday, several of Canada's leading economists suggested that the current surplus position of the government gives it a perfect opportunity to make fundamental, needed changes to the tax system. This would promote investment, employment and economic growth.

Will the government use this opportunity to strengthen our productivity, economy and investment and thereby improve the status of our lowly Canadian dollar?

[Ottawa Taxis, May 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, since I have been a member of parliament, now a little over seven years, there has been a curious thing happening here in Ottawa and I would just like to draw the members' attention to it.

When we go to the airport, the taxis can only carry passengers in one direction. There is somehow a rule somewhere that says one company gets the right to haul passengers from the airport into Ottawa and the other companies haul passengers from Ottawa to the airport. Therefore, every other cab is empty.

This has huge implications to costs. Some of these taxi drivers running empty half the time are making very little money. They are not able to pay as much taxes. It is definitely tough on the environment because we have all these vehicles spewing exhaust gases.

I think, if the federal government were responsible, it would look into this and not only give permission but require taxis to carry passengers in both directions.