Alistair MacGregor

[Income Tax Act, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I read an interesting opinion piece in the paper a couple of days ago by Robin Sears. He said that one of the great facts of Canadian political life is that Liberals “always break progressive hearts”.

I did not come to this House to give myself a tax break, yet this bill is going to give me and everyone in this chamber $679. That is not the middle class I was sent here to represent. It is not the middle class I came to fight for.

Our friend across the way from Winnipeg North likes to keep talking about the child benefit. Yes, it pays out a maximum of $6,400. What he neglects to tell this House is that child care costs in British Columbia are double that, and there is a lack of affordable spaces.

I know my friend from Vancouver Kingsway is a great member of Parliament for his region, and I know that he has received feedback on this and many other Liberal bills. I would love to hear some of the feedback he has received from his constituents on the wrong direction the Liberal government is taking.

[Excise Act, 2001, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin I just want to extend a warm welcome to you and to all my colleagues in the House. I hope we all had a restful and productive summer. It is great to see everyone again. Also, I want to wish a warm welcome to this year's new crop of pages. I know they are going to do a great job for us, and we are looking forward to working with them.

I would like to thank the member for Huron—Bruce for bringing forward the bill. I am proud to be speaking in support of it, because I believe that actions like this that help the small craft distillers across Canada, and one in particular in my riding, are going to be very beneficial.

Bill C-232 amends section 122 of the Excise Act, 2001. Its main purpose is to reduce the duty on spirits that are produced in Canada. That is an important thing to underline, because we have heard a lot from the opposite benches about how this is all about trade, as well as some misdirections in the debate. This bill is primarily about helping small craft distilleries, ones that do not really have a market outside of Canada. In a very competitive market, these distilleries need some help from the federal government.

The excise tax, as it is currently written, establishes a duty rate for the absolute ethyl alcohol contained in spirits. Its current rate is $11.69. Bill C-232 is going to see the first 100,000 litres of absolute ethyl alcohol reduced to a duty of $6 per litre, and any production over that will be reduced by a small amount to $11 per litre.

This is a good way to go. I have reviewed the debates from the first hour on the bill, and I just listened to the member for Winnipeg North. Frankly speaking, I cannot really understand why the Liberals seem to be going the way they are with the bill. I have listened to them reasoning the fact that they brought in the Canada child benefit, that the middle income tax bracket has been reduced, and that it might be in conflict with WTO rules and such.

However, hoping that Canadians are going to be spending their child benefits and tax breaks on Canadian spirits is hardly the way to give our hard-working small batch distillers the support they need to thrive. I know that as a father of young kids, with regard to the extra money I get for my children, my immediate thought is not that I am going to go to a liquor store and spend it on a bottle of gin.

There is also the fact that the Liberals have a little bit of a mixed history in this 42nd Parliament about supporting small businesses. They came to the House with a promise to reduce the rate to 9%, and then they broke that promise. I would have thought that a measure like this would be something that they would latch onto, to show small businesses that they did break one promise but they are willing to listen to industry experts and introduce a helping hand.

My party acknowledges the large contribution that small and medium-sized businesses provide to job creation in Canada. In Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, we have some fantastic entrepreneurs. These people put in very long hours. They often pay themselves a very small salary as they are giving their all to their businesses.

With craft distillers, it really is an art and a science all in one. They put a ton of effort into what they do to make an exceptional product. They have to make an exceptional product, because it is a very competitive industry and they do not have access to the amounts of capital that the big players in the market already have.

I do not agree with all aspects of the bill, but I certainly agree with the part that reduces the duty on the first 100,000 litres. To my friends across the way in the Liberal Party, instead of arguing about things that we have not had much discussion on, we should at least take the time to pass the bill at second reading and send it to committee so that we can call forward industry experts and regulatory experts to get an honest view of what the bill's impacts will be.

I do not believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We should give the bill a chance at committee and see if it is going to do the things it says it will.

The government has stated that one of its goals is job creation and it has acknowledged that around 80% of the jobs in Canada come from small and medium-sized enterprises, so if we give our craft distillers a helping hand, reducing the duty on what they pay for their spirts, that is going to be a great thing.

I want to segue and highlight one distiller in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I have an award-winning distillery called Ampersand Distilling Company, which makes an award-winning gin and has moved on to vodka. Ampersand's market is Vancouver Island. It does not export beyond that. Some parts of the Lower Mainland are lucky enough to get its products, but it is not a big player. So far the duty is the same for all quantities of spirits produced. Ampersand does not come close to what big players like Seagram can produce. Even reaching 100,000 litres would be a dream come true for it.

That is just one example. I know that many MPs in the House are lucky to represent small craft distillers. If they are going to vote against the bill, I hope distillers in their ridings have very frank discussions with them about their reasons, because the bill does deserve a second look at committee.

Ampersand Distilling Company is a family-founded craft distillery. It is on a five-acre organic farm and is run by a father, son, wife, and a couple of employees. Giving them a hand-up would not only expand the beautiful product they make, but already the Cowichan Valley is getting a name for itself for producing amazing wines and if we can add craft spirits, that will be a big draw to tourism dollars.

We have been taking a narrow view. We have to look at the spin-off effects, the boost to tourism, and so on. It is already a difficult industry. It is a highly competitive market. Every litre of alcohol produced has to go through rigorous standards and be recorded and labelled. There have to be reports. Sometimes people from the Canada Revenue Agency pop in for snap inspections. It is a heavy burden. Some of these regulations are necessary, but we can ease the burden because larger businesses are able to bear regulatory burden much easier than small businesses. It is about giving these small businesses a leg-up.

Between 2004-12, statistics show the sale of goods manufactured by the Canadian distilling industry decreased by 2.4%. It went from $762.3 million to $744.2 million. During that time the import of spirits had an average annual growth rate of 6.6%, so our share of the domestic market has been shrinking. We have had a lot more imports coming in and our hard-working men and women in the craft distilling industry have to compete that much harder for a smaller slice of the market. As a result, imports represented a greater portion of the domestic market. They increased to 80% in 2012 compared to 74% in 2004.

The Association of Canadian Distillers did a lot of work on this issue and has recommended that the excise tax on the first 100,000 litres of absolute ethyl alcohol be reduced. That is something that I can agree with and I would love to hear more about if the bill is sent to committee.

For all the reasons I just mentioned, the bill needs to be sent to committee, but we can sometimes get lost in the rhetoric. The passage of the bill would certainly raise the spirits of our craft distillers and provide the industry with a great shot in the arm. I hope MPs will support the bill and raise a toast to the hard-working men and women and the great dedication they have to their craft.

[Life Means Life Act, June 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-229, introduced by the member for Calgary Signal Hill. Let me be clear from the outset that we in the NDP oppose the bill.

Bill C-229 is based on a measure from the dying days of the last Parliament. This is not a bill that was on the agenda of the previous government during its 10 years on that side of the House. Instead it was introduced in the pre-election period at a flashy campaign-style event. I am afraid it is a bill that is more about playing politics than making good policy. It is a costly and ineffective bill, one that runs against the grain of evidence and one that would continue with the very agenda that Canadians so decisively rejected last October.

Bill C-229 would lengthen the custodial sentences for a number of the most severe offences. We should bear several things in mind.

We should remember that life sentences are already applied for the most serious offences and, indeed, are already mandatory for some. We should remember that the mechanisms, such as Parole Board assessments and dangerous and long-term offender designations, already keep the worst offenders behind bars if they continue to represent a threat to society.

When looking at offenders who do not continue to pose such a danger to society, we should remember that overwhelming evidence concludes that punitive sentences do not make communities safe. In fact, while failing to deter potential offenders, mandatory minimums actually increase the risk of future offences.

In short, the bill offers ineffective solutions to a problem that does not exist. As an editorial last year in the National Post put it:

It is hard to imagine this bill surviving constitutional scrutiny, it is so disproportionate, so lacking in evidence either of its necessity or effectiveness.

However, worse than that, the bill, as drafted, would introduce a truly bizarre concept in our judicial system, and that is a mechanism for cabinet to control the release of particular offenders. Canadians know these decisions should be made by professional assessment, not at political discretion. We believe the only responsible approach is for parole decisions to be based on careful assessment of risk that an offender poses to the community and to public safety. Today, these decisions are made by the Parole Board of Canada, an independent administrative tribunal free from political interference. That board is clear that its paramount consideration in all decisions is the safety of the public.

Again, it is important for Canadians to remember that a life sentence already means just that. Let me quote from the Parole Board of Canada:

Myth... A life sentence in Canada means that offenders only have to serve 25 years before they are released. Reality: A life sentence means life. Lifers will never again enjoy total freedom.

The Parole Board makes the realities of our current laws very clear. I applaud it for providing this information to all Canadians to clear up some of the misconceptions that surround these issues.

Let us be clear. Offenders serving life sentences can only be released from prison if granted parole after an assessment to confirm that they do not pose a risk to the community. Even if they are ever released, they remain under supervision and various restrictions for the rest of their life.

Again, to quote from the Parole Board, “Not all lifers will be granted parole. Some may never be released on parole because they continue to represent too great a risk to re-offend.”

It is these individualized judgments that are crucial to keeping our communities safe. Removing them would also have a serious side effect.

The Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada has stated that lengthening incarceration periods or removing the possibility of even applying for parole can eliminate the incentive for rehabilitation and good behaviour, putting the safety of correctional staff at risk. That makes sense. Prisoners who are serving life sentences know that they have virtually no chance of getting out. What possible incentive is there for them to correct their ways to try to make themselves better members of society?

There is too much to criticize in this bill, and unfortunately, too little time in which to do it. However, let me turn to what we should be doing to not only improve public safety but to increase transparency and public trust in our judicial system.

The Liberal government has promised a review of the changes to our criminal justice system over the last 10 years, including the much criticized increase in the use of minimum sentences. This process, which should be a priority for the government, must seek to increase the use of proven alternatives to custodial sentencing, where appropriate and to implement the recommendations of the Ashley Smith inquest with respect to solitary confinement. It must also take real action to reduce the overrepresentation of indigenous Canadians in the criminal justice system. That is a statistic that is an absolutely shameful mark on our country's affairs.

Those are the priorities Canadians expect us to address in this House. I would urge every colleague in this House to join with us in the NDP on this side of the House in rejecting this bill, which is simply a remnant of an agenda Canadians have rejected. Instead, I hope that the government will soon bring to this House its own proposals for positive reforms to our criminal justice system.

Canadians have been very patient, but these are urgent issues of justice and public safety, and they deserve to be treated as priorities.

[Veterans Affairs, June 17th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, last year it was this Liberal Party that supported an NDP motion confirming Canada's solemn covenant with our veterans, but the Liberal government is betraying our veterans by breaking campaign promises on pensions, dragging injured veterans back into court, and shutting down vital long-term veterans care facilities.

The NDP, like Canadians, thinks veterans deserve our help through the service that they have done to our country, so why is the government continuing to shamefully fight our veterans in court? Why is it depriving veterans of the benefits they deserve?

[Income Tax Act, June 17th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I most certainly do not. I have met with so many low-income seniors that I have lost count, so many who are struggling. The CPP is one pension plan that went through the 2008 financial crisis relatively unscathed. It is a strong plan. It needs enhancement and if we are to have a serious conversation about low-income seniors in this country, we need to start having it now. A retirement vehicle that has survived previous shocks is a solid investment for our future.

[Income Tax Act, June 17th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, my colleague raises a very important point about corporate tax rates because the other question the NDP has always received is how would members have paid for their platform. No one in the House except this party has looked seriously at how low corporate tax rates are, how they have been on a downward trend for a decade now, how we are the lowest in the OECD with an average lower than the United States, and yet there has not been a corresponding investment by those corporations.

In fact, none other than the former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney has referred to the corporate bank accounts that are filled to the brim with dead money. It is not being invested, so despite the low corporate tax rates we have, we have not seen the corresponding investment by the private sector.

All we are asking is that corporations pay their fair share in our society. Their rates go up a little bit more to make life easier on the rest of Canadians and I think the member makes a very fine point because the tax burden for too long has been on the real middle class and that is the one that the NDP is proud to support.

[Income Tax Act, June 17th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, certainly if we do raise the wages, that is something that businesses will have to bear, but the part that the member leaves out is that if we have low-income workers in a jurisdiction with more money in their pockets, they tend to spend it locally.

In fact, there are several examples in the United States, notably the city of Seattle, which experimented with minimum wages, and it has shown that rather than businesses going out of business, they are actually thriving.

I believe in putting more money into workers' pockets. There are studies that show they spend that money locally, which helps all of our local businesses thrive.

[Income Tax Act, June 17th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan.

It is good to be returning to the discussion on Bill C-2. As we all know in the House, this is a bill that received its first reading all the way back on December 9, 2015. We have had quite a session since then, and it is good to be returning to some old familiar ground.

Bill C-2 covers a few different areas. It is a bill that would amend a few different areas of the Income Tax Act. However, I am going to be limiting my comments to two areas in particular. The reason for that is they are the areas that are most relevant to the constituents in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, and I suspect to constituents of most members of Parliament in the House as well. One area is the changes the bill would make to our tax code, notably to the area that the Liberals define as the middle class; and the second area is the reduction of the TFSA contributions from what the previous Conservative government used to have at $10,000 per year, down to a more reasonable level of $5,500 per year.

As part of my introductory remarks, I also want to speak a bit about my history as a former constituency assistant. I had the honour of working seven years as a constituency assistant. In that time, Canada Revenue Agency casework was one of the top three cases that came across my desk. It was some of the top casework that I got to see. I had a very privileged position, because over seven years I had very privileged access to many members of my constituency and their tax returns. I got to see the full range of their incomes, the very intricate details of their tax returns, and their relationship with the CRA because they essentially signed a contract with our office to give me unimpeded access to their tax returns and their tax history so that I could make some inquiries with the CRA on their behalf and try to solve the problems that they brought to the office.

One of the notable things that I saw during those seven years was the range of incomes. The range of incomes in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford would not be touched by the Liberals' tax measures. Incomes generally fell in a range of about $25,000 per year and maybe up to a high end of $50,000 to $60,000, so that the people at the high end would get some benefit but not much.

The key point I am trying to make here is that most constituents in my riding and I suspect most people across Canada would not receive any benefit from this tax cut, yet the Liberals keep on selling to the Canadian public that this would be a middle-class tax break. That is absolutely false.

I spoke to the bill at second reading back in February, when I was still getting used to making speeches in this hon. House. One of the things that I really loved to bring up during that speech, and I brought it up again during our discussions on Bill C-15, was the fact that the median income in Canada according to Statistics Canada is $31,000 a year. If we take the definition of median, which basically is the number separating the higher half of a data sample from the lower half, we could take $31,000 a year as a reasonable definition of where the middle class is. However, the Liberals' so-called middle-class tax break would not even start to begin giving benefits until people reach an income of $45,000 a year. They would max out when they get above $90,000 and into $100,000 a year.

To make it perfectly clear to everyone watching this debate, every member of Parliament in this chamber who earns $170,000 a year, which is on the public record, would get the maximum tax break of $670 per year, everyone. That is what the Liberals would do. They would give people in very high incomes a tax break, which frankly speaking we do not need. I do not know about everyone else in this chamber, but I was not elected to come to the House to give myself a tax break while the hard-working men and women of my riding get nothing. That was not what I was sent here to do. That is not the middle class that I came here to fight for.

The Liberals will say that it is okay because they are introducing the child benefit. It is a great concept, the child benefit. I will never, as a father of young children and knowing many constituents who have young children, argue against giving more money to the hard-working men and women of our country to help them raise their children.

However, I need to point out some evidence for everyone who is watching this debate. The Liberals' plan for the Canada child benefit will provide a maximum annual benefit of up to $6,400 per child under the age of six. Compare that with the average cost of child care in B.C., which is $14,000 per year. It is a drop in the bucket.

When I talk to families about the difficulties of child care, they say that more money would help but that what is really bugging them is the lack of affordable spaces and the lack of spaces overall. Furthermore, a lot of parents come up to me and say that their spouse works and they are a stay-at-home parent, and what would really get their family ahead is if they could actually hold two jobs. They cannot do that because the costs of child care are too high. They literally cannot afford to go and get a job.

That is what I hear. That is what I heard during the election. That is what I heard during seven years of working with constituents, right where the rubber meets the road, right at the constituency office.

I do not want any member of Parliament to tell me I do not know what I am speaking about, because I come here with evidence. I come here with testimony. I come here with seven years of experience of working with families. It is a shame that this Parliament is not doing anything to expand child care spaces in this country.

Furthermore, if we really wanted to give lower-income Canadians a leg up, we would pay attention to the wages they are receiving, and we would take this opportunity to show some leadership and institute a federally regulated minimum wage of $15 an hour.

A lot of people will say that is only going to affect a small number of jobs. That does not matter. It is about showing federal leadership. It is about having the House of Commons lead the way so that we put ourselves in the morally correct position of saying that we did it first and we expect the provinces to follow. I do not know how families make it on $11-an-hour wages. I simply do not. It is a miracle that they get by in the first place on those low wages.

I have spent a lot of time in my speech speaking about that particular tax change. It is a very passionate subject for me, as members can see. I do want to devote a little time on the TFSA, because that is one change in Bill C-2 that I agree with.

The Conservative government's plans in the previous Parliament to raise the limit to $10,000 a year would have been a huge cost to our treasury in later years. Furthermore, I do not know many families who could max out at $5,500 per year, let alone $10,000. When a family is earning a median income of $31,000 a year, how on Earth are they able to save $10,000 per year extra, to sock away? It is simply not possible.

That is a policy that benefits the top income earners in this country. Leaving the limit at $5,500 is perfectly reasonable, and it is something I can certainly support.

The costs with the TFSA increase to $10,000 a year would have risen to $132 billion by the year 2080. Conservatives like to portray themselves as the party of low taxes, and they like to really use the phrase “tax and spend”. The point I am trying to make is that if we are taking that much money out of federal revenue by those later years, that in itself is a tax on the programs that we use to support this society, to help low-income people get through.

If we are taking that kind of revenue out of the federal revenue stream, we are going to have to make cuts to federal programs. As much as we do not like to pay taxes, they are a part of living in our society and they are a part of building our infrastructure and building our supporting programs.

I will conclude by saying that we have been proposing some truly progressive things that could have made a real difference to low-income earners. I am sad to see that Bill C-2 did not live up to those standards and for that reason I will be voting against the bill at third reading.

[Main Estimates 2016-17, June 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, in defence of the Conservatives, their motion sparked some important debate on the spending that the minister's office does.

I was looking at National Newswatch, and this was the top story. I think it has achieved its desired effect. We have had a closer look. We have had the government come to the House and defend itself.

However, I was really intrigued by my hon. colleague's speech that touched on green infrastructure. I just wanted to provide a specific example from my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. We are increasingly seeing the effects of climate change with respect to the Cowichan River getting down to historical lows. One of the big things we need to do is build up the weir, to mitigate the effects of climate change. I think this is a case study that happens right across Canada.

Given the member's recent experience at the FCM and the many conversations he has had with municipalities, I just wanted to hear a little more about the feedback he has received about mitigating the effects of climate change and how important that kind of green infrastructure is to Canada.

[Main Estimates 2016-17, June 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister making himself available to the House for questions and for providing some context for the $835,000 figure, which is for 32 employees.

I first want to know if the minister could tell the House how many employees in the previous government were dedicated just to infrastructure when infrastructure and Transport Canada were together. Maybe he could compare and contrast that number with the 32 he has now and provide Canadians with more of an explanation on some of the different roles those 32 employees carry out. What Canadians really want, in the spirit of transparency and openness, is to ensure that government resources are being used as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.