Bill Casey

[Telemarketing, November 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand a letter from the government of the State of Washington confirming that the telemarketing schemes from Canadian prisons contravenes several Washington statutes.

The Solicitor General of Canada recently told the House that the prison telemarketing schemes had only been suspended and were under review. The Washington authorities have requested, and I quote, “to ensure no further acts of this nature occur”.

Will the minister comply with this request to permanently stop this embarrassing telemarketing scheme that targeted citizens of Washington and Idaho?

[Goods and Services Tax, November 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, that is why there are millions and millions of dollars worth of abuse.

The form is really just an order form for a government cheque. People could just pencil in the amount they want and wait; $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, no paperwork involved, no documentation required, and a cheque will be in the mail.

When will the minister implement a documentation process that will even allow a minimum of accountability on these claims for government money?

[Goods and Services Tax, November 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue.

If a company registered for the GST, sent in the GST reporting form which included a fraudulent input tax credit entry in box 106 for $30,000 with no amount collected, no receipts, no documents, no paperwork to back up the claim, would Revenue Canada send that person a cheque for $30,000?

[Goods and Services Tax, November 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, we have detected things wrong for a long time, years and years now. This affects consumers, taxpayers and legitimate car dealers. Somebody has to take action.

Government documents we have obtained through access to information indicate that there is $26 billion in input tax credits each year. Will the Minister of National Revenue inform the House how much of the $26 billion could be or is suspected of being a product of fraudulent claims?

[Goods and Services Tax, November 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue just said they are going to investigate the GST scam perpetrated by crooked car dealers and prosecute. Over four years ago car dealers came to me to bring it to my attention. I in turn brought it to Revenue Canada's attention and four years ago it told me it was going to investigate and prosecute then. Now four years later CBC reports that this growth industry has climbed to $1 billion.

I ask the Minister of National Revenue, why does she not stop the scam now and then go back and investigate and prosecute?

[Supply, November 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I was first elected in 1988. I have seen my job as a member of Parliament change a lot with the cutbacks to government offices, HRDC, CCRA and the Canada pension plan. In many cases I have become the front line for people in my rural riding. If they need to contact the government, it is done through my office when before they had other places where they could go.

Was the member for St. John's East or his staff given a briefing on the proposed changes and how they would affect the disabled people in his community? Was the staff told how to deal with people with disabilities? I ask this because I did have a briefing with the minister a couple of weeks ago. It was very good.

[Supply, November 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could answer the member's question, but I cannot because I did not get that information. However, I will say from personal experience that people with emotional disabilities had the most difficulty qualifying for Canada pension disability and also for the disability tax credit. When someone has an emotional disability an x-ray cannot be taken of it to show the problem.

It is so difficult to define it and difficult for people with emotional disabilities to convince the authorities that they have a disability. It is the most difficult type of disability to qualify for and it is difficult for people to go through this process. When people with emotional disabilities receive these government forms, demands, appeals and rejections, they cannot handle it. They already have an emotional problem in many cases.

In my experience people with physical disabilities end up with an emotional disability as well because they cannot contribute to their families any more, they cannot work or contribute to their communities. This must be taken into consideration. We throw all these hurdles in front of them and make it more difficult for them to receive the Canada pension disability as well as the disability tax credit. I know that we must have rules and parameters, but it seems to me that we throw more hurdles in their way than we do trying to reach out to help people with disabilities.

There is a third disability that eventually affects almost all people with disabilities. First of all, they start with a physical disability and end up with an emotional disability because they cannot contribute. Then they end up with a financial disability because they cannot work.

I refer to the man that was run over by a train in 1979. He cannot contribute. He cannot earn a living and his disability tax credit was taken away after having received it since 1979. He has now been informed that he is no longer disabled. The man has a sense of humour. He looked down and said, “My legs are gone, but I have a letter saying I am no longer disabled”. God bless the man for having a sense of humour and being able to handle that, but what the government has done is wrong.

In answer to the member's question, there is no way to tell how many of these people are emotionally disabled and how many are physically disabled, but often they are both.

[Supply, November 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this issue, even though we really should not have to have this debate. I will be sharing my time with the distinguished member for St. John's East.

We should not be having the debate because this should never have happened. The system was working before and the whole restructuring of the disability tax credit system should not have happened.

What seems to be happening now is that every effort is being made to eliminate people, not include people, with disabilities. The concept is simple to me, it costs more when a person is disabled. It costs more for transportation, alteration of a house, devices to help a person get through a day, and medication and treatments. This is a sensible program. The government must allow people to deduct a certain amount from their income tax to help pay for these extra costs. Certainly, in most cases where someone is disabled, this does not even address those additional costs. It is only a token of the additional costs disabled people run into.

I had a meeting with the Minister of National Revenue over this issue. The minister took her time and went through all the issues with me. The only conclusion I could draw at the end of the meeting was that it was too bad not everybody had the advantage of that discussion. It was very helpful to me. It really homes in on the fact that there was a poor communication process as this unfolded, poor consultation and poor decisions as well. I do appreciate the minister taking time with me. It does not change the fact that the program is poorly directed and has the wrong concept.

The concept or the goal is to cut costs, when the goal should be to help people with disabilities pay the extra costs that they must pay.

I will run through three examples of cases. There have been many cases that have come to my attention. This is how I became involved in the first place.

Don Pryor from Truro was run over by a train in 1979. He had one leg amputated and there were a lot of other serious injuries. He has not been able to work since that time. He has many extra costs relating to limbs, transportation and medication. This man has an artificial leg. Suddenly after 20 years of qualifying for the disability tax credit, some smart person in the department wrote him a letter and said, “Mr. Pryor, you are no longer disabled.” This is a shame.

I want to mention Sherman Bent, a real gentleman, who was diagnosed with cancer some years ago. He went through the full chemotherapy treatment and it did not work. Then he had an entire bone marrow transplant. He has lost much of his hearing and vision. He cannot get around and he is totally disabled by any standards. He is another person who received a letter from the Department of National Revenue saying, “Mr. Bent, you are no longer disabled and we are denying you the tax credit.”

I received a call this morning from Mr. Albert Comeau of Rothesay, New Brunswick. He is the chairman of K.V. Committee for Disabled Persons. He has not been able to work since 1989. He has leg problems. He has had his knees replaced and he is impaired in many ways. He cannot even get dressed by himself. He cannot walk; he cannot negotiate stairs. He too has extra costs relating to braces, canes and extra medication. Why can we not give these people this small disability tax credit?

These are all examples of people with real disabilities who have been turned down and denied the disability tax credit.

We are debating the details of this legislation and the criteria, but we should be talking about the concept. The concept is to help people with disabilities cover the extra costs that most of us who do not have disabilities do not have to deal with. It is so simple, yet we seem to be focusing on how we can get more people off the disability tax credit rolls.

The Department of National Revenue sent a form to people with disabilities to determine whether they were disabled. It was also sent to their doctors. It states in one section:

Answer the following questions as they apply to your patient's impairment.

Can your patient walk?

Answer no only if, all or almost all the time, even with therapy, medication, or a device, your patient cannot walk 50 metres on level ground, or he or she takes an inordinate amount of time to do so.

If you answered no and your patient is confined to a bed or a wheelchair, how many hours per day (excluding sleeping hours) does this apply?

I cannot even understand that. What it is saying, Mr. Speaker, is if individuals can walk from me to you and back again they are not disabled. That means somebody with two artificial legs that could negotiate down there, even with medical devices, from me to you and back again but not up the stairs, just on the level floor here, he or she is declared no longer disabled. That is not good enough. Because someone can traverse 50 metres on level ground, the fact that he or she is not able to climb stairs does not count. It is entirely discriminatory. It is offensive the way that is handled.

It first came to my attention as a member when people would come and ask me about this. I thought there were a lot of people who were asking about this so I put in an access to information request to find out how many of these letters went out to people, how many answered the letters, and how many were disqualified.

As of May 2002 we learned that of the 106,000 letters that went to people who were already deemed disabled and qualified for the program for years and years 36,000 did not even reply. They were automatically removed. These were people who had been on the disability tax credit rolls for years. They were automatically removed because they did not reply.

Of the 70,000 that did reply, 22,000 at that time had also been denied. Therefore 58,000 of the 106,000 people at that time had been ruled out. These are people who had already qualified for it and had enjoyed the benefits of it for years, some as many as 20 or 30 years.

I asked if there was any attempt to contact the 36,000 people who did not respond to find out why they did not respond. Was it because they could not read or could not see? Was it because they had an emotional disability or their doctor would not fill out the form? I questioned why 36,000 people did not return the forms. Maybe it was because it was so confusing. I cannot even understand it. I asked that question and it has never been answered.

The government has a responsibility to contact all the people who did not reply to the first form, now that it acknowledges it was wrong, confusing and difficult. It should contact every single one of the people who did not respond the first time and give them a second chance to respond when and if it ever gets a new form developed that can be understood and interpreted. It should also contact all of the 22,000 people who were denied and the 70,000 who did reply and inform them that they can appeal, especially now because the process is undergoing another review process to change the rules.

I call on the government to contact all of those people who were denied the tax credit. It is incumbent upon the government because it owes it to them. We would not be here today if there was no problem with the readjustment of the program. The government is acknowledging there is a problem and it is going to change it. It should go back and address all of the people who were excluded when the first form went out, the first criteria that were outlined to the doctors, the patients and the people with disabilities. Let us go back to those people. That is what this is about. That is what we should be doing here. We should be trying to help people with disabilities. We should not be trying to get them off the disability tax credit roll to save a little money. We should be reaching out to these people.

I am asking the government now to contact those people who did not return the form in the first place. I am asking it to recontact the people who did return it and were turned down now that it acknowledges that the criteria were wrong in the first place. I make that request on behalf of disabled people in Canada. I hope the government will change its attitude on this and say, “How can we ensure everybody that needs it gets it?”, instead of, “How can we get people off of it?”

[Remembrance Day, November 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, every year November 11 is marked with ceremonies, wreaths and moments of silence for those who have served our country with heroic dedication and courage, those who have given up the precious gift of life for our freedom.

Much of the focus is on wars of long ago, but this year is the first that Canadians have actually been lost in battle. We are clearly reminded of the incredible contribution of our military personnel and the contribution they make to our country and their selfless dedication to our safety and security.

While all Canadians will pause and remember the efforts of our military on Monday, those in my riding of Cumberland--Colchester will feel firsthand the fresh impact of remembrance. Private Nathan Smith, 27, of Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, was one of the soldiers that was lost during the Afghanistan campaign. He was a young and heroic Canadian who like many before him served with dedication and whose sacrifice will never, ever be forgotten.

[Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act, November 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on Bill C-14. Normally when we bring up the subject of diamonds we do not think of conflict, misery and poverty, but the diamonds we are talking about today play a big role in those issues. These diamonds are often referred to, surprisingly enough, as conflict diamonds or blood diamonds. Especially in Africa, they have fuelled violence and conflict in many countries, such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and more. The profits from the unregulated sale of rough diamonds have been used to fund the military and armed conflicts. As a result, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, mutilated or abducted. Whole countries have been destroyed with the use of the funds from these uncut and rough diamonds.

There has been very little control of rough diamonds and the bill is about bringing Canada into line with newly established international standards for regulation, control and certification of rough diamonds. The bill would bring Canada into line with almost 50 other countries and it should help stamp out the international trade in these illicit rough diamonds that are being used to fund violence.

On December 1, 2000, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on the role of diamonds in fuelling conflict, seeking to break the link between the illicit transactions of rough diamonds and armed conflict as a contribution to prevention and settlement of these conflicts. In taking up this agenda item, the General Assembly recognized that conflict diamonds are a crucial factor in prolonging the brutal wars in parts of Africa and underscored the fact that legitimate diamonds contribute to prosperity and development elsewhere in the Congo.

In Angola and Sierra Leone, conflict diamonds continue to fund rebel groups such as the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola and the Revolutionary United Front, both of which are acting in complete contravention of the international community's objectives of restoring peace in these two countries.

In March 2002, an international agreement was reached on a plan to require a paper trail for diamonds to help throttle the trade in so-called blood diamonds, blamed for financing most of these bloody wars in Africa. As of January 1, 2003, all gem quality diamonds must be certified according to standards outlined in the Kimberley process or they will not be allowed into other countries.

Unfortunately, Canada does not have a diamond regulatory body. Canada Customs does not have a centralized port of entry for diamonds and does not require proof of origin for diamonds. Importers can simply declare them to be from the last port of call, such as a processing centre in Antwerp.

My colleague from the South Shore has been very much involved in this debate and on this issue. He has been following the topic very closely for some time. He has spoken on it many times here in the House and has been following it through the committees involved with the legislation. He has raised a particular concern on the point of entry and exit of rough diamonds in Canada. In doing so, he proposed an amendment in the clause by clause process, which was defeated. Clause 34 of the bill states:

designating any place as a point of entry for importing rough diamonds or as a point of exit for exporting them.

The member for South Shore was not satisfied that the clause referred to more than one point of entry or exit. Therefore his argument for the amendment was to designate two or more points of entry or exit. However, the government could not go along with this and it defeated the amendment. It did not feel that it was important to make that designation. It does not make sense for rough diamonds to be exported and imported through only one port in Canada and it probably will not happen.

This is a very important piece of legislation for many people. It is important for the people in such countries as Sierra Leone, Angola and Liberia because it will stop the conflict due to blood diamonds in these countries. It is also important to our country, because we are on the verge of mining production in Canada and we are becoming a major player in the diamond business. Canada's only diamond mine, the Ekati diamond mine, employs 650 people and produces three million to four million carats of gem quality rough diamonds each year. This is equivalent to nearly 4% of the current world diamond production by weight and 6% by value. We are becoming a big player. Another mine will begin operation in 2003. Two more projects will open in 2007. These four mines could provide direct employment for 1,600 people and could bring total annual production in Canada to approximately $1.6 billion.

Overall, this is a good piece of legislation and many will benefit from it in the true sense of the word. The Progressive Conservative Party does support the bill at third reading. Even though the member for South Shore proposed important amendments to improve the bill and they were not accepted, we feel that it is so important that the bill go through we will support it even without them.