Bernard Trottier

[The Budget, April 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport for his sage remarks and establishing some global context for what we are trying to do in Canada with our economic action plan 2012.

Economic action plan 2012 positions Canada for economic growth, job creation and long-term fiscal health. It is based on creating a climate for private sector investment, innovation and opportunity.

With this economic strength, Canada can give families and communities all the support they need. This means developing sustainable social programs and secure retirements.

Underpinning all of this is getting the federal government's house in order by returning to balanced budgets. This enables Canada to keep taxes low and leaves more money in the pockets of Canadians. It also means Canada will not kick the fiscal can down the road and will not leave large debts for future generations.

Canada's economy has expanded for nine of the last ten quarters. It has created over 610,000 net new jobs since July 2009, which is the strongest job growth in the entire G7.

Fitch ratings, Moody's and Standard & Poors have all renewed Canada's triple A credit rating, keeping Canada's borrowing costs manageable.

For the fourth straight year, the World Economic Forum has ranked Canada's banking system the soundest in the world. Canada has the lowest overall tax rate on new business invested in the G7, which gives us a distinct competitive advantage.

The reason that venerable Canadian institution, Tim Horton's, moved its headquarters from Delaware to Ontario recently was to take advantage of our low corporate taxes.

Canada's net debt to GDP ratio remains the lowest in the G7 by far. The influential Forbes magazine ranked Canada number one in the world for business to grow and create jobs.

However, our Conservative government cannot take anything for granted. Advanced economies around the world are struggling to create jobs and to balance their books. Last week, Spain, whose economy is about the size of Canada's, announced that it would cut government spending by 23 billion euros. In addition, it would increase taxes by about four billion euros. The result has been general strikes and a chill on private sector investment.

The United States, our largest trading partner, struggles with trillion dollar deficits and legislative gridlock to fix its situation.

The global economy remains fragile, which is why our government is taking reasonable, careful measures to respond to the challenges we face. Investment and innovation are the keys to long-term prosperity.

The Government of Canada is making significant investments in scientific research, but we can and must do more to encourage private sector investments in innovation and commercialization. These activities create high value-added jobs that generate productivity and prosperity.

That is why economic action plan 2012 proposes, among other things, $400 million to help increase private sector investments and early stage risk capital; $100 million to the Business Development Bank of Canada to support its venture capital activities; $110 million per year to the National Research Council to double support to manufacturers and other entrepreneurs through the industrial research assistance program; and $95 million over three years starting in 2013 and $40 million per year thereafter to make the Canadian innovation commercialization program permanent and to add a military procurement component.

While I am here I would like to note the contribution of some members of the NDP and the Liberal Party who studied the question of the commercialization program, notably the member of Parliament for Louis-Hébert and the member of Parliament for Markham—Unionville. We all agree that this has been a very good program, which is why we have recommended that it be continued.

Another requirement for investment is to streamline the process for regulatory reviews. As we know, over 75% of the world's mining companies are based in Canada, with the greatest number of those based in my city of Toronto. The Canadian government is proposing legislation to realize the objective of one project one review within a clearly defined time period. That is good for jobs and good for the economy.

Via the major projects management office initiative, we have shortened the average review time for major natural resource projects from 4 years to just 22 months, while improving accountability by monitoring the performance of federal regulatory departments. These measures would create economic activity and job opportunities.

In economic action plan 2012, we propose extending the hiring credit for small business to reduce employers' EI costs by $205 million. The opposition always says that it likes small business, until they become successful and become big business, then it is against them.

Economic action plan 2012 proposes enhancing a youth employment strategy to help connect young Canadians with jobs in areas that are in high demand.

Finally, economic action plan 2012 includes enhancements to the opportunities fund to enable more Canadians with disabilities to obtain work experience with small and medium size businesses.

I would like to talk about how economic action plan 2012 helps support families and communities.

The budget contains many measures to strengthen Canadian and Ontario families. Highlights for Ontario include: ongoing support through major federal transfers, which will total more than $19 billion in 2012-13, and almost $11.4 billion of that is through the Canada health transfer, which is an increase, I should mention, of $3.7 billion since 2005-06, and $97 million of that is for the wait times reduction funds as part of the 10-year plan to strengthen health care; over $4.6 billion will be transferred to Ontario through the Canada social transfer; and $197 million will be transferred to Ontario for labour market training. I should also mention that $3.3 billion will be transferred to Ontario through equalization, which is a situation that we Ontarians hope to rectify. Hopefully, we will be transferring money to other provinces in the future.

Of particular note is the plan to provide fair compensation for employers of Canada's reservists. Economic action plan 2012 commits to providing financial support to employers of reservists to offset costs, such as the hiring and training of replacement workers or increased overtime when reservists serve their country in deployments. This is good news for reserve regiments like the Toronto Scottish Regiment, which is based in my riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore. It has had soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and other parts of the world.

I will now talk about some of the sustainable social programs and how economic action plan 2012 provides a long-term stable retirement future for Canadians.

The budget takes action to ensure the retirement security of all Canadians now and into the future. As we all know, the age of eligibility for OAS and GIS will be gradually increased from 65 to 67 starting in the year 2023, with full implementation by 2029. This gives plenty of assurances to seniors who are about to retire that their OAS will remain intact and it gives plenty of time for those who are looking at retirement in the future to plan their retirement accordingly.

This builds on the measures our government has taken to improve the economic security of seniors. We have removed 380,000 seniors from the tax rolls. We introduced pension income splitting. We increased the age credit amount and doubled the pension income credit. We increased the age limit for RRSPs to RRIF conversion from 69 to 71. We also established the tax free savings account.

In economic action plan 2012, we are announcing measures to improve employment insurance to make it sustainable for the long term.

Notably, our government proposes to ensure stability in the EI premium rate by limiting rate increases to five cents each year until the EI operating account is balanced.

Economic action plan 2012 will invest funds to improve efforts to connect EI claimants with the necessary skills and with available jobs in their communities. The budget proposes to invest in a new national EI pilot project that will ensure claimants are not discouraged from accepting work while receiving EI benefits, by cutting the current earnings clawback rate in half.

Let me talk about balanced budgets.

Our government has reduced the tax burden on Canadians to the lowest level in nearly 50 years, that is, since the 1960s.

To get our fiscal situation on track after the global economic downturn, our government proposes to reduce spending after careful analysis and study. We have the lowest net to GDP ratio in the entire G7, and we intend to enhance our competitive situation even further.

While the NDP and Liberals want to engage in a reckless spending spree, our Conservative government is committed to getting back to balanced budgets. We are refocusing government, making it easier to deal with and streamlining back-office administration to achieve $5.2 billion in ongoing savings to taxpayers. About 70% of the savings will come from eliminating inefficiencies in the internal operations of government, making it leaner and more effective.

Unlike the NDP and Liberals, our Conservative government will not take the easy route by raising taxes, and unlike the previous Liberal government we will not slash transfers to the provinces for health care, education or support for seniors. Our Conservative government will provide the stable, responsible government that Canadians elected to protect our country's future now and for the long term.

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I can tell the hon. member for Winnipeg North what happened in Etobicoke—Lakeshore. That is something I had some responsibility for and a hand in winning.

What we did was to organize volunteers, very thoughtful people who spent a lot of their time, dedicating time away from their families, to volunteer on the campaign. We also engaged call centres with good reputations and who do good work. We always tell our voters that we are calling on behalf of the Conservative Party of Canada and ask them to please support the Conservative candidate. In this case, that was me.

In a world of finite resources, volunteer time and money in this case, we would not waste time calling voters who told us not to talk to them.

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to election spending the purpose of the Canada Elections Act is really to make sure that no one can buy an election.

We do a good job, I would say, on this side of the House in raising funds. We are very transparent in the sense that every campaign puts together its financial return, which is audited at the local level and again by Elections Canada. There are some thorough controls in place to make sure there is no untruthful or inaccurate information.

I know there are perhaps several members of the official opposition who did not run campaigns and yet ended up in the House of Commons and, I guess, good for them. However, for those of us who did work hard and identified our voters and encouraged them to vote, this is what we do: We call them, we ask them if they will support us, and then we remind them at the advance polls and on election day to please vote.

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is absolutely correct. There have been allegations coming from the Liberal Party, as well as the NDP, that there is some kind of subpoena or court order out there. In fact, it is false. They are making that up: there are no subpoenas, there are no court orders. Elections Canada is doing its work and we are co-operating fully and providing it with information.

I just want to get back to the history. As the Minister of State for Science and Technology, he understands that building computer systems to assist with an election campaign is a fairly new development. However, the task of identifying voters is really as old as the hills. I will just read a little quote here to that effect:

—organize the whole State, so that every Whig can be brought to the polls..... [D]ivide their county into small districts, and...appoint in each a subcommittee...to make a perfect list of all the voters...and to ascertain with certainty for whom they will vote.... [A]nd on election days see that every Whig is brought to the polls.

Who said that? It was Abraham Lincoln in the Illinois State Register, February 21, 1840. So there is nothing new here.

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the opposition, the Liberal Party in particular, are alleging some nefarious use of a mysterious database. As any member would know, databases are constructed by human beings and so they sometimes contain errors.

I want to build on what the interim leader of the Liberal Party mentioned earlier, that he did not know his party had a database like this. I actually find it shocking that the interim leader was unaware that the Liberal Party has its own database to track voters. It is called Liberalist, but he does not know his party is actually using it. It is making its own phone calls and supplying its own information to its own call centres and has spent millions of dollars itself. I will present to the House that it is very possible that its own call centres made mistakes in informing its own voters.

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we are of course co-operating fully with the investigation in Guelph. The member should also know that Elections Canada is doing its work. It is doing what it needs to do to get to the bottom of the inappropriate activity that took place in Guelph and we are co-operating fully. The opposition is asking us to provide information over and above what Elections Canada is asking for. We are co-operating and collaborating with it fully and we hope to get to the bottom of what happened in Guelph.

Having run a campaign in the city of Toronto, I know that when it comes to spending resources on what the opposition is alleging might have happened, that would have been a really silly use of resources. What we do is to identify our supporters and give them a call and encourage them to vote, and that is exactly what we did in the last election.

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to wish all the women in the House of Commons and across Canada a happy International Women's Day. I commend the enormous contribution all women make to this great country.

I am pleased to take part in today's debate on the opposition motion moved by the hon. member for Hamilton Centre.

We are not opposed to the motion. We certainly are supporting the work of Elections Canada by making available all of our records from the last election for its investigation of the situation in Guelph.

Although we are not opposed to the motion, we must consider that the motion has been brought forward while the parties opposite have been conducting a baseless and unsubstantiated smear campaign against our government and our party over the course of the last several weeks.

There is nothing stopping the opposition from supporting Elections Canada's work right now. It could easily provide all of its records relating to phone calls and phone contracts made in the last election to assist in the agency's work. The Conservative Party of Canada is doing exactly that and will continue to do so. We encourage the opposition to do the same.

The opposition spent millions of dollars on hundreds of thousands of phone calls during the last election. This information can only assist Elections Canada in its work. If the opposition really wants to support the work of Elections Canada, it should provide all of its records relating to phone calls it made during the last election.

I repeat: we not opposed to this proposal. At the same time, however, I wish to make it clear that we are giving all of our information to Elections Canada. Nothing is stopping the NDP from providing its information to Elections Canada as well.

The motion, which is very vague, asks that:

(a) Elections Canada investigation capabilities be strengthened, to include giving the Chief Electoral Officer the power to request all necessary documents from political parties to ensure compliance with the Elections Act;

(b) all telecommunication companies that provide voter contact services during a general election must register with Elections Canada; and

(c) all clients of telecommunication companies during a general election have their identity registered and verified.

The existing Elections Act already gives the Chief Electoral Officer and the Commissioner of Canada Elections a number of powers in that regard. I would like to provide a few examples to the hon. members present in the House.

Let us first take a look at the Chief Electoral Officer. Canada has a very strict federal political financing regime that is intended to ensure the integrity, fairness and transparency of the electoral process.

To achieve that objective, the Canada Elections Act includes rules respecting the contributions and expenses that can be made by five types of political entities, namely: political parties, riding associations, candidates, nomination contestants and leadership candidates. The act also sets a limit on spending by a third party during an election.

All these political entities must submit detailed financial reports to the Chief Electoral Officer, within the prescribed timeframe. The political parties are carefully monitored and they must submit three types of financial reports.

First, each year every party must submit a financial transactions return that includes its revenues and expenses, and also a list of its donors. That requirement is found in section 424 of the Elections Act.

Second, a political party that is eligible to the quarterly allowance must also provide, for each quarter, a report on contributions received during that quarter. That is under section 424.1.

Finally, following a general election, every party must submit to the Chief Electoral Officer a report on all its election expenses. That is provided under section 429.

The Canada Elections Act already provides that the annual financial report and the report on a party's election expenses must undergo an external audit. To this end, the auditor for a party must have access to all the party's documents, as required under sections 426 and 430.

In order to increase the scope and effectiveness of this external audit, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs proposes to give to this auditor, who already has access to all the relevant documentation, new responsibilities regarding compliance. The government is currently looking into this recommendation.

When the Chief Electoral Office receives a party's annual financial report or its report on election expenses, he already has the authority to ask the registered party to correct its report, in the timeframe that he sets. That authority is found in section 432(2). For example, he may do so if the report seems incomplete or erroneous.

The Chief Electoral Officer also has another power. He can withhold part of the electoral expense reimbursement of a party that does not comply with its reporting obligations. Indeed, the Chief Electoral Officer does not issue the certificate authorizing the receiver general to pay to a party its electoral expense reimbursement until he is satisfied that the party and its chief agent have fulfilled their obligations.

I am now going to talk about the powers of the Commissioner of Canada Elections. There are more examples. While the Canada Elections Act provides stiff sanctions for a party that does not fulfill its financial reporting obligations, it also includes the necessary investigative authority to ensure compliance.

Thus, the Canada Elections Act provides for the appointment of an independent investigator: the Commissioner of Canada Elections. The commissioner is not appointed by the government, but rather by the Chief Electoral Officer. The Commissioner of Canada Elections has a well defined mission, to ensure that the Canada Elections Act is enforced and implemented. He has very broad powers at his disposal in carrying out this role.

If he believes that the public interest warrants it, the Commissioner may take all necessary steps, including spending for the purposes of investigations he conducts under the Canada Elections Act. A provision of the act also stipulates that investigators working for the Commissioner are public servants in accordance with section 487 of the Criminal Code. This provision enables the Commissioner and his investigators to request a search warrant from a judge when deemed necessary.

When he has reasonable grounds to believe that the Canada Elections Act has been violated, the Commissioner refers the matter to the director of public prosecutions who decides whether to prosecute with a view to punishment. If he makes this decision, the Director of Public Prosecutions Act guarantees that the director of public prosecutions is wholly independent from the attorney general or, more generally, from the government.

The Canada Elections Act also confers other powers upon the Commissioner of Canada Elections, including requesting an injunction during an election or entering into compliance agreements. A compliance agreement is a mechanism the purpose of which is to enforce the Canada Election Act. It is more flexible than prosecution, and it enables the Commissioner to enter into an agreement with the person who has broken the law. Under this agreement, the person acknowledges having broken the law and undertakes to follow it in the future. These agreements are conditional. Failure to honour such an agreement may lead to prosecution.

Elections Canada already has considerable powers with existing laws. Therefore, although we are not opposed to the motion, we are not certain that it really adds anything to the overall powers of Elections Canada and the director of Elections Canada to undertake its work.

In the motion, the opposition is proposing:

--that in all future election campaigns: (a) Elections Canada investigation capabilities be strengthened to include giving the Chief Electoral Officer the power to request all necessary documents from political parties to ensure compliance with the Elections Act; (b) all telecommunication companies that provide voter contact services during a general election must register with Elections Canada; and (c) all clients of telecommunication companies during a general election have their identity registered and verified.

We have no objection to such a proposal, but at the same time, it must be stressed that we provide Elections Canada with all our information. Nothing prevents the NDP from also providing Elections Canada with its information.

The NDP has sponsored this motion, yet that party has failed to provide its telephone activity during the campaign to Elections Canada.

There have been media reports about an investigation into a specific case in the riding of Guelph. Voter suppression is extremely serious and if something inappropriate occurred, the perpetrators should be punished. The national campaign team of the Conservative Party did not organize any such activities in this riding, and has no knowledge of the matter, but is cooperating fully with Elections Canada.

The opposition spent millions of dollars on hundreds of thousands of telephone calls in the last election campaign. If the opposition wants to help Elections Canada, it should hand over all its files on calls made during the last federal election.

In closing, as we can see, the Canada Elections Act contains many provisions to ensure the integrity, equity and transparency of the political financing system: contribution and spending limits for political parties; the requirement to produce a number of financial reports, and the requirement to have them audited by an external auditor; as an administrative measure, the possibility for the Chief Electoral Officer to ask that a report he deems incomplete or inaccurate be corrected and the possibility of withholding a portion of the election expense reimbursements from the parties if they fail to comply with these requirements; extensive investigative powers for the Commissioner of Canada Elections, an independent investigator appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer; and the power for the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether to initiate a prosecution under the Canada Elections Act, independently of the Attorney General or the government.

I repeat, we have no objection to such a proposal. The Conservative Party of Canada ran a clean and ethical campaign. It should be noted that we are giving all our information to Elections Canada. There is nothing stopping the NDP from giving its information to Elections Canada. If the opposition wants to help Elections Canada, then it should provide all the records relating to the calls made during the last election campaign.

The opposition spent millions of dollars on hundreds of thousands of phone calls during the election campaign, and it too should provide this information to Elections Canada.

[Interparliamentary Delegations, March 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian Branch of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, respecting its participation in the parliamentary seminar, “Taking legislative action to end violence against women and girls” of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the National Assembly of Burkina Faso, held in Ouagadougou, from March 30 to April 1, 2011; the meeting of the Political Committee of the APF, held in Liège, Belgium, from May 1 to 5, 2011; the meeting of the Cooperation and Development Committee, and the meeting of the Parliamentary Network for the fight against HIV/AIDS of the APF, held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from May 23 to 27, 2011; and finally, the seminar on the roles of women in political, civil and family life, and on the APF's implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, held in Budapest, Hungary, from October 26 to 27, 2011.

[Ethics, February 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday Canadians discovered that the Liberal Party was behind the reprehensible personal attacks against the Minister of Public Safety. This is just the latest in a long history of Liberal dirty tricks.

For example, last year during the election the Liberals were caught stealing opponents' signs. During the same campaign, a Joe Volpe campaign worker was caught removing Green Party literature. Adam Carroll, the staffer blamed yesterday for the attacks against the minister, was a former Volpe staffer. In 2004, the Liberal member for Scarborough—Guildwood condemned his own party after it admitted to a push poll insinuating that the Conservatives were taken over by religious organizations. The list of Liberal dirty tricks goes on and on.

The interim Liberal Party leader needs to answer the following questions: Did Adam Carroll use taxpayer resources for his reprehensible campaign? Is the Liberal Party going to reimburse this House and Canadian taxpayers? Finally, were the personal, vicious attacks against the Minister of Public Safety endorsed and encouraged by members of the Liberal caucus?

[Families, February 17th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to salute families in my riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore. People across our community recognize that the family is the foundation of our society.

Families provide the nurturing environment for raising our children and looking after our elders. The deep bonds of family strengthen our community and make it safe, prosperous and beautiful.

On this coming Family Day weekend, Etobicoke—Lakeshore families will enjoy the skating trail in Colonel Sam Smith Park or take a stroll along the banks of the Humber River or Mimico Creek. They will enjoy the sights and sounds of our vibrant communities, from Alderwood to the Kingsway, from Islington Village to Humber Bay, from Sunnylea to Long Branch.

Families are at the centre of Canadian culture and values. That is why our government has implemented measures like the universal child care benefit, income splitting and children's arts and sports tax credits. We have also introduced tax credits for transit and text books. Measures like this help to strengthen families across this great country.

We are here for Canada and we are here for Canadian families.