Bill Casey

[Income Tax Act, March 31st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise following the parliamentary secretary who just gave us a little speech on the historic tax reductions. What he did not mention was the historic tax additions that the Liberals added on over the last 10 years which have put us in this mess where we find ourselves the most highly taxed country in the world. The historic tax reductions are much less than the additions. That goes for the employment insurance premiums too that we have paid over the years, which are exorbitant and unjustified.

However I am certainly pleased to rise today to speak on Motion No. 293 which speaks to tax benefits for the working artists in Canada. It is a very worthwhile motion and actually was first brought before the House in similar form in the year 2000. It is a testament to the noteworthy underlying principle of the motion on which the House once more has had an opportunity to reflect.

As an Atlantic Canadian from Nova Scotia, one of the most culturally diverse regions of the country, we value a tradition of excellence in the arts. In fact there are economic opportunities for all Canadians in recognizing and harnessing the power of arts and culture. These types of success stories are worthy of recognition, however we have to do a lot more to help artists when they are starting off.

The motion is very admirable from the perspective of the hon. member's desire to help but there are some difficulties in the concept and in the eventual implementation. I would like to point out a couple of those difficulties that we find with the motion.

I am not sure how to get around this, but the motion is ambiguous in terms of describing who qualifies and how the term “artist” fits a specific individual, whether that can be defined and the definition defended effectively and categorized as to exactly who is or is not an artist and who qualifies. Where would the government draw the line as to who is an artist? Would it just be the painters, sculptors and musicians? What about the people who claim that their work is art, yet no one sees it that way but themselves? Who makes that decision and how could one make that decision?

One must ask why struggling artists should benefit more than other struggling members of society. Why not give an income tax break to mechanics like Ted Embrie who helps keep the old car of the struggling artist on the road well beyond its normal life, in order that the struggling artist can attend an art exhibit to sell his or her paintings several hundred kilometres away? Ted is an artist too. He not only has the training but he has an inherent ability that is natural to him to make these repairs. In my view, that is an art.

What about the struggling plumber who helps the struggling mechanic? What about a journalist like Darrel Cole compared to an author who would consider himself an artist, who basically writes for a living while the journalist does the same thing? What about a sign painter like Bus Dobson? He truly is an artist. Although he paints signs, he is every bit an artist and has incredible talent.

Again, I would like to reiterate my position that this motion recognizes a problem which should be recognized and dealt with. Also, it is noted that artists are on a financial roller coaster. An artist may go for several years without payment and then receive a lump sum payment, recognizing the contributions he has made over a period of time. However many other trades and professions have the same problem and I have been in some of those.

The average income of an artist in Canada currently is estimated at about $13,000. The issue raised by the hon. member can be addressed in a more broad based way by significantly raising the basic personal exemption for all Canadians and thereby eliminating the problems of designating who qualifies and who does not.

The Progressive Conservative task force, which reported in January 2000, recommended an increase in the basic personal exemption to $12,000. This would help significantly, considering that the average income of an artist is $13,000. That being the case, we should move, over a period of time, to raise the basic personal exemption even higher. In future days ahead, it will not be unheard of to call for the raising of personal exemptions.

The hon. member recognizes that tax relief can play a very important role in helping artists pursue their chosen fields in culture and art, thereby keeping them in Canada. That is important because it indicates that she recognizes the importance of lowering taxes for all Canadians to ensure that Canadians, regardless of their careers or life pursuits, can choose to stay and prosper here in Canada. Whether it is in dot com, e-commerce, biotech or traditional industries, Canadians can have and should have a bright future right here.

The hon. member clearly demonstrated that she recognized the important role that tax policy plays in encouraging or discouraging pursuits of particular activities. In that vein, she would agree with me that we should continue to be vigilant in ensuring that the tax burdens of all Canadians should not be excessive when compared to those of other countries in comparative trades, professions or the arts.

Whether Canadians wish to pursue careers in the arts, the new economy or the traditional economy, we want them to be free to do so right here. I am sure she would share with me the need to reduce taxes for all Canadians based on her basic premise that decreasing taxes would help encourage people, in this case artists, to pursue and maintain a certain level of activity.

The issue of capital gains also needs to be addressed. We currently tax donations of publicly traded or listed securities to charitable foundations or institutions. Whether it is a hospital, a university, an endowment fund or a cultural activity, we tax the capital gains made through such donations. Inclusion taxes are taxed for donations of publicly traded or listed securities. In the U.S. there is absolutely no capital tax on contributions of listed securities.

Over the years that has led to a significant disadvantage for Canadian universities, hospitals and the arts community. It has created a distinctive disincentive for high net worth Canadians to contribute listed shares of publicly traded companies to the cultural and health foundations in universities.

The Progressive Conservatives, in numerous prebudget, budget and various committee reports, have always recommended the elimination of the capital gains tax on gifts of listed securities. That would go a long way to encourage high net worth individuals and those of relatively modest means who may have done very well in equity investing in recent years to help foster a greater environment for cultural activities in Canada. That is another way that the hon. member's concerns could be addressed.

While I may disagree with the particular vehicle chosen by the hon. member to help create a better environment for cultural and artistic diversity, I can assure her that the Progressive Conservative Party remains committed to work with other parties in the House towards this goal. We must seek better ways to support and encourage the arts, and all the types of creative endeavours whether they be graphic arts, the dot com universe, painting, dancing or even playwriting.

One of the things that defines us as Canadians is our unique cultural vibrancy from coast to coast, and with proper support and encouragement we can ensure that our cultural vibrancy and diversity, as expressed through the many forms of artistic creations that adorn Canada today, will remain solidly entrenched through the years to come.

[National Defence, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, strangely the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is advertising to hire a senior project officer for nuclear submarines.

Considering that all seven of our current submarines are tied up in Halifax and not one of them works, why is the Minister of Foreign Affairs advertising to hire a senior project officer for nuclear submarines?

[Iraq, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada is determined that we will not participate in a military offensive in Iraq, but that does not mean we cannot play a very important role. Canada has resources and connections that could help right now. We also have the ability to play a leadership role in any reconstruction effort at the end of the war.

First, Canada could immediately dispatch a field hospital unit to Iraq to help deal with the mounting casualties of war on all sides. Second, Canada could lobby hard to influence other countries to see that the United Nations is given the mandate to lead the reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Third, our ships in the Persian Gulf should be asked to provide a safe passage for the large number of ships containing humanitarian supplies just waiting to get into Iraqi ports.

Canada has been invisible until now. It is time that we got off the sidelines and made our contribution to ensure the best possible outcome and the least number of casualties in this conflict.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Oh yes, he is a very dangerous man, this doctor.

How could we have confidence in a system that the government said would cost $2 million and then all of a sudden it is at a billion dollars?

I believe that there has been a lot of misleading information. I talked to a former employee of the gun registry. He told me that when the computers broke down employees were instructed to tell people they were upgrading the computers when in fact they were just broken. These are the billion dollar computers.

I do not understand how we can spend a billion dollars when all that is being done is the creation of a databank with firearms and owners in it, tying the two together and providing access. I do not know how that could cost a billion dollars. But the employee was told to mislead Canadians citizens when they called and tried to get their registration done. They were told to say they were upgrading the computers when in fact the computers were just broken.

We remember the words of the Auditor General who said the House was kept in the dark. I do not know how we could have confidence in a system like that.

This is not about gun control; it is about gun safety. We should talk about gun safety. That is the issue here. How can we make guns more safe, how can we make storage more safe, and how can we improve the storage and ensure that they are safe? Registering them does not make them safe. A registered gun can still be used for the same purposes as an unregistered gun.

We have required handguns to be registered for decades in this country and they are still used for criminal acts and violence against people. Does registering them do any good? It is about squandering valuable funds. It is an incredible waste of money.

These funds could buy according to one estimate, 200, 300, 400, 500 or 600 MRI machines in the country. Every single person in this Parliament has people waiting to have an MRI. MRIs could save far more lives than registering rifles. In fact, I do not believe registering rifles will save any lives.

The same amount of money could be used for drugs for seniors and the disabled. Speaking of safety, it could help buy helicopters. We could do drug research. Instead, we are pouring the money down a black hole. How could anyone spend this much money on a databank, a computer that takes people's names and their gun details, and associates them and gives access to it. It is not complicated and it should not cost millions of dollars. I predict that some day when the auditors get into this and find out where the money went, then we will find some awful information.

Last December the government asked for $72 million more to add to this program. Then for some reason it withdrew that amount. Now the government is asking for $59 million. I wonder where the $13 million difference went? Did the government not need it in the first place, or did it find someplace else to bring it in from? Why did the government ask for $72 million then and $59 million now? Next year it is projected to be $113 million.

We say enough is enough. People who say they support the gun registry regardless of how much it costs is a stupid thing to say. Do they say we will have the gun registry whether it costs $2 million as it was originally projected or a billion now, $2 billion, or $3 billion? Does cost not matter? I do not see how that response can be accepted. We certainly do not accept it. Every dollar must be spent wisely.

We must get value for our taxpayers' dollars because it is their money. We should be responsible and ensure that it is spent wisely and that it is accountable.

The Conservative Party is against the gun registry. We are totally in favour of gun control and gun safety. We brought in Bill C-17 which was a wise and sensible approach to gun control. However, before all the aspects of Bill C-17 were even implemented the Liberals brought in this other layer of gun registry even before they knew if Bill C-17 would work or not. It has worked well and most gun owners now comply and agree, use it and value it.

Before it was even allowed to be totally implemented the government brought in this other registry for long guns. Officials told us that it was not even sensible and viable.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motion and I too will refer to the government's request for more money.

The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle came here in 1968, but I came in 1988. I was retired in 1993 and was recycled again in 1997. When I was here during the first term, our Conservative government explored the options for gun control. I clearly remember our caucus being given presentations on the different things that were available. Based on the advice from the department we were told the most appropriate things to include in a proposed gun control bill.

We chose safe storage of firearms, training and firearms acquisition certificates, but we specifically ruled out the registration of long guns. It was for a number of reasons, one of which was the cost, and department officials indicated there was no purpose in it. It was a possibility but the cost far outweighed any advantage so we took it off the table.

If I remember correctly we brought in Bill C-17. It passed and has done well but there was no long gun registration. For some reason the justice minister of this government decided on his own when he came in--like a private mission--that he was going to have a long gun registry no matter what the cost, inconvenience or benefit. He was going to ram it through.

I understand that the government has now said that this will be a confidence vote. That raises questions about how one could have confidence. How could anyone have confidence when the Auditor General said it has been a cover up, that the government has not consulted Parliament, and that its cost overruns have gone from $2 million to a billion dollars to implement the program?

How could we have confidence in that system? I have a man in my riding who registered one gun and he received five registration stickers. What does that tell us about the ability and credibility of the gun registry? He got five stickers so he could pass them out to his friends if he wanted to. If the police were to check the guns they would look like they were registered but they would not really be registered anywhere. They would be the wrong guns. It is incredible.

Another man brought in a cancelled cheque. He paid his bill in 2001. The registry will not acknowledge that it received the money even though he has a cancelled cheque. It is stamped on the back that it was deposited by the firearms registry but it does not know where the money went. How could we have confidence in that?

Another gentleman, a doctor in Springhill, who registered five guns only got three registrations back and he still does not understand what is going on.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member for South Shore a question.

I was talking to a member of the board of the directors of a publicly created company the other day. He was telling me that when the company has a capital cost project of any consequence at all it has a standard cost overrun procedure, an accountability automatically built in. He said that if a project estimate goes over 5% the officials and engineers or whoever is involved with the account must come back, report to the board, and explain why it is over 5%. If it goes to 10% or looks like it is going to be a 10% cost overrun the project must stop. That is a publicly traded company in the private sector.

Does the member think the same standard should be applied to the government? We know that when this bill was sold to Parliament and Parliament voted for it we were told that it would cost a net of $2 million a year. Now the Auditor General says it will be $1 billion in the end. This is a cost overrun of unbelievable precedent setting proportion. Does the hon. member think the government should be held accountable and should there be some kind of accountability for the government the same as there is in the private sector?

[Supply, March 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have that idea. What I said was that Canada is not involved. I did not say that one group was involved. I did not say that there was only one country. What I said was that Canada is not involved. It is not at the table. It is not at the United Nations trying to develop a resolution. The British and the Americans are, but Canada is not there. We are not part of this formulation of a resolution to develop reconstruction.

The member suggested that we do not support freedom and the destiny of the people of Iraq. That is absolutely not true. We agree with the goal. We disagree with the strategy. We believe there were still steps that could have been taken and that did not involve a military conflict. The world did not exhaust every option before military conflict was resorted to. That is our position.

[Supply, March 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear a question but I am happy to respond anyway. She said she was incredulous that I suggested the government was invisible. She is right. It was not invisible. It just changed positions so many times that it neutralized every comment it made. One minister would say that Canada will participate and then the next time that it will not participate. Then it will participate with UN resolutions and then it will not. Then it will no matter what, and then maybe it will.

The fact of the matter is that it was visible, but it neutralized all of its points. The media recognized that and finally gave up on reporting the position of the government. It was visible but it was a shame. No one has to take my word for it: they can just read the editorials.

[Supply, March 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak to a subject to which I wish we never had to speak. Last night I watched the short one liner by the spokesperson for the President of the United States who came on television to say that the disarmament of Iraq had begun. We are in it. It is underway. We have started.

I will move to the comments made by the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, who said that the government has been involved with this and it has tried really hard to build a bridge. That is true. It did try to build a bridge, but it was at the very end.

The problem is that the government was invisible for the first six months of this operation. We should have been involved from the very beginning, trying to influence some of these decisions and directions where other parties went that are now active in this war.

If we turned on the television we could see the position of Belgium, Portugal and Spain, but we never saw the position of Canada unless it was changing one direction or the other night by night. The problem is Canada was invisible.

However now we have another opportunity and we should not be invisible. We should be very active in helping the countries that will be involved in the restructuring to develop a plan to reconstruct the country and provide aid to the people who will starve. As one member of our committee pointed out this morning, 16 million people in Iraq will be depending on government services for food and medicine. They have no access to that food and medicine and no one is there to help them.

We can play a role here. We missed the first part of this. We were not involved in developing policy. We can be involved right now and we should be. Every indication is that we once again are invisible.

Right from the very beginning we said that we would follow the United Nations and respect the United Nations resolution 1441 and that we would do everything we could to see that the parties complied with it. We directly communicated with senior leaders in Iraq to encourage and demand that they comply with 1441. We went as far as we could go to convince them to do that.

Resolution 1441 is the unanimous resolution that engaged Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors to go to Iraq, do their job, complete their job and report back to the United Nations with a final report. The Security Council was authorized to take steps then and only then, and no one else. We still support that. We think Hans Blix should still be there and should still be allowed to complete his job for the very people that supported the resolution in the first place. All the countries that supported him in the first place should continue their support and allow them to continue. However, that is gone now. It is over. Hans Blix and the weapons inspectors are gone.

The awful thing is that there was an agreement by all countries about the problem. There was probably even a consensus on the eventual strategy, if necessary. The problem is in the way it was invoked and in the way it was approached: no consensus was sought or found. Now we find ourselves in a split world which, to me, was unnecessary in many ways.

I do not believe the war has to be now. There should not be a war and there should not be the split in the international community. There could have been a consensus on a strategy if the countries on both sides of this debate had been just a little flexible. However they were not flexible and here we are with a split world, a split United Nations and a very dangerous situation.

Once again I will say that we were invisible in the beginning of this process and we should not have been. We should have been involved from the beginning, trying to encourage the British, the Americans and other countries involved to restructure their proposal and seek a consensus but we were invisible.

We should not be invisible now. We should be very active in helping the people. We should be very active in helping to formulate the procedure to reconstruct and help the people of Iraq.

I hope the government will be very active and proactive in that field and take a leadership role, and not be invisible again.

[Question No. 125, March 20th, 2003]

With respect to the Canadian Pension Plan and the Disability Pension (CPP): ( a ) what was the percentage increase for the year 2003; ( b ) how is the increase calculated; ( c ) what is the inflation rate for the year 2002; ( d ) is there a correlation between the inflation rate and the CPP increase; and ( e ) if not, what criteria does the Department of Human Resources and Development Canada use to justify increases and decreases to the CPP?