Bill Casey

[Small Communities, November 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue. It has been very helpful to me. I have been keeping score tonight and I will go down the list of members who have spoken.

My riding had a decline in population of 1.4%. Then the member for Algoma--Manitoulin spoke, and his riding has suffered a decline in population of 2.3%. We then heard from the member for Calgary Southeast and his riding's population is up 19%, just for emphasis. The member for Quebec's riding is down 1%. The member for Dauphin--Swan River's riding is down 3.2%. So 80% of the speakers tonight have had a decline in their riding's population. That just goes to show how serious this is. The riding that had the increase was up 19%. It is hard to imagine what it must be like to have to deal with that.

I even checked your riding, Mr. Speaker, and your riding is down 1.6%, but the people are so well represented I am sure everything is okay. I also want to point out that the riding of Gander--Grand Falls is down 9.8%. They are fortunate to have such a dynamic and extraordinary member to represent them because they are going to need all the help they can get.

It emphasizes my point. Eighty per cent of the members who spoke tonight have had a decline in population. Does that mean we are a growing country? I do not think so in those areas. It emphasizes my point and I hope that the government takes note of this.

We did not solve the problem tonight. We did not even come up with any specific solutions. We had some good ideas and suggestions, but my goal tonight was to at least raise awareness of the problem. By virtue of the fact that four out of five speakers have suffered a decline in population, it does bring that home.

From a rural Canada perspective, from one who is really proud to be from rural Canada, who loves to be from rural Canada and cannot wait to go home tomorrow to rural Canada, it is a critical issue. This migration of population within our country is going to change the face of our country more than any other single thing we deal with.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly will be glad to help you with your population decline if I can. This is a serious issue and if I can, help I will.

[Small Communities, November 7th, 2002]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the recent census taken in 2001 confirms the significant momentum of population towards cities in Canada and given the negative impact this trend will have on smaller and rural communities, the government should take urgent steps to reverse this dangerous trend, namely: (a) changing immigration laws in our country; and (b) implementing a real economic development program for the provinces which are experiencing a real decline in population.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to thank the seconder of my motion, the hon. member for Dauphin--Swan River, and I know everyone will join me in saying hello to my wife Rosemary who is watching this debate and hanging on every word.

I moved the motion because I became alarmed when I saw the recent 2001 census, which indicated so much movement of our Canadian population to urban areas, specifically to four cities: Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Even within provinces there is a very dangerous and major trend toward living in urban areas, resulting in a decline in rural areas.

Many of us in the House represent rural areas and have experienced a decline in our population. In my view, this decline will make it impossible for smaller urban areas, smaller towns, smaller villages and smaller municipalities to maintain their infrastructure, their health care, their education and their highways. As for the urban centres that are increasing in growth, this movement of population will put a major burden on their infrastructure as well. This will put a burden on their health care systems and their educational systems and it will cause social problems that they are not prepared to meet. So even the urban areas that are getting the benefit of the increase in population will pay a price for this dangerous trend.

I want to refer to some of the actual numbers that I think will change the face of our country more than anything we deal with, more than even the Kyoto accord or the war on terrorism. This movement of population within the country is going to have a bigger impact than anything we ever have to deal with. I say that because in my own riding we have suffered a population decline in the county of Cumberland and in my own riding of Cumberland--Colchester. I checked the statistics a minute ago. The seconder of my motion, the member for Dauphin--Swan River, also suffered a decline in his riding. My colleague from Gander--Grand Falls has suffered a decline in population in his riding of 9.8%, an almost 10% decline from 1996 to 2001.

The situation is much worse than the numbers show because the decline involves mostly our young people. Our young people are going where the opportunities are. This is leaving a tremendous vacuum in regard to people starting new businesses, people buying houses and people taking over properties and maintaining our communities, as well as our volunteers. They are just not going to be there. As our older generation moves along, there will be no younger generation available to pick up the slack in our charitable organizations and community work. All these communities will suffer. In the end, the urban communities, which probably think this is a good thing in some ways, will end up with larger transition or transfer payments if smaller communities cannot deal with the problem.

I would like to home in on a couple of provinces from the Statistics Canada census. In Newfoundland, every single federal riding suffered a decline in population. It is hard to imagine that: Every single riding in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador suffered a decline. In my province of Nova Scotia, seven ridings suffered a decline while only four had an increase. Those four ridings are closely associated with Halifax, the capital of our province. This decline in population will make it difficult to maintain the tax base, to maintain health care and to maintain education. There will be a smaller tax base.

Again, it is the people who are leaving now who would have increased the tax base, and not only by numbers. These are the people who would have built the businesses, built the economy and created the growth and wealth in our communities. We are losing them and the government has not recognized this fact. It has not even acknowledged this. It has not come up with a specific set of programs to deal with this issue.

Moving on to the province of New Brunswick, it had a decline in seven of its ridings. Only three ridings came out ahead. In Quebec, 27 ridings suffered a decline in population. Even Ontario saw declines. Many of the ridings in northern Ontario suffered a decline, so we can see that it is not only the provinces in Atlantic Canada that are suffering. The province of Manitoba had seven ridings with a decline in population. It did have seven that came out ahead. Saskatchewan was even worse, with 10 ridings suffering a decline in population and only four coming out ahead. Alberta is a completely different story. It had an overall population increase of 10.3%.

This is a very serious problem and it is not going to resolve itself. It will be resolved only if we take action. That is why I was moved to bring forth the motion today. My riding is a rural riding, like many ridings represented here today, and I believe that we must move quickly to protect these ridings.

There are two issues that I have identified in the motion. One is an immigration policy that will help direct immigrants to the rural areas rather than just the concentrated urban centres, which is what happens now.

The other issue I have raised is that of having an economic development program that is really focused on economic development. My observation is that the economic development programs we have across the country have lost their focus. They have lost their vision. They have lost their direction to really home in on real hard economic development. I believe they have lost their direction. They are involved with so many other issues, with park development, for example, and with many aspects other than economic development. These are important issues and they have to be dealt with, and while the economic development programs play an important role in regard to these issues, with the programs focusing on some of these other areas they have lost their direction or their goal of addressing economic development issues.

Let us consider the fact that 6 out of 13 provinces and territories have declined in population. That is how bad it is. Half of our country's provinces and territories have lost population. It is quite a scary number. Newfoundland alone lost 7% of the population. It will make it impossible for the provinces and territories to maintain their quality of life, their infrastructure and the standards they have now. Let me point out that the situation is not one that may happen or one that is a possibility: It is happening right now. Newfoundland is the worst case, with its loss of 7% of the population.

If we were operating a business with our market declining by 7%, it would be really difficult to survive and maintain our business. We would have to increase our market share dramatically just to offset the decline in market.

The provinces cannot do that. When the people leave, they are gone. There is no option. The provinces cannot increase their market share. They cannot increase tax revenue from any other source. They cannot replace it. It is just gone. This will put a tremendous stress burden on the provinces that are suffering a decline, and 98 out of 301 ridings, or 32%, have had a decline in population. The prospects due to the results of this decline are truly frightening: The infrastructure will just not be maintained.

How do we address this? We have some ideas. We are not the only ones who have ideas on this issue. I really want to raise public awareness of the problem. I want to raise awareness on the government side, too, so that it will recognize that this problem must be dealt with.

The first possible solution I want to talk about is an immigration policy that will address some of these needs. Since I proposed this motion many months ago, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has come up with some unique ideas. He has acknowledged that there is a problem. I am glad he has acknowledged it. He has come up with some ideas on how to encourage, or even more than encourage, immigrants who come to Canada to go to the rural areas.

I went to the minister with a pilot project proposal that actually came about as a result of an effort in my riding in the town of Truro, a very progressive and positive community. Truro wanted to bring five Korean families to Truro, five families at once. There is very little immigration as such to Truro, but an organization wanted to sponsor five Korean families to come to the town and make their home there.

The immigration rules would not allow them to come together. They had to come one at a time. Due to that rule, the first family would not take the chance and move to Truro and be the first ones there, the first ones and probably the only ones to speak the Korean language and share their culture, religion, language and their way of life. They would not come. That family went to Toronto instead. Then the second family went to Toronto when it was approved, and then the third one and so on.

Because the families could not come as a group to Truro, none of them would be the first to establish in a new area. This brought to our attention a situation in the immigration rules which discourages people from going to the rural areas. It results in people going to where there is already a community of their own nationality when they come to Canada.

The town of Truro proposed to the minister of immigration that he establish a pilot project to bring to Truro several families from another land. We do not know where they will be from yet, but we proposed that he consider bringing families to the town of Truro. The minister has agreed to at least consider this, and in fact I think more than consider it, because there is a tremendous amount of support for this in Truro. The mayor of the town of Truro, Bill Mills, the mayor of the municipality of Colchester, Mike Smith, several church organizations, social organizations, economic development groups, potential employers and just interested people and groups have come together to say that they want to try this. They want to try bringing families to Truro in this pilot project.

There has been a tremendous amount of support for this. The minister will come to Truro in the next month or so and meet with this organization of organizations to see if we can come up with a formula that ensures that the immigrants who come to Truro feel welcome. It is a very positive community that looks forward and is innovative and has a positive approach to everything it does. Hopefully we will be able to put together a package which will ensure that the families that come to Truro will feel welcome and hopefully it will be very successful in encouraging immigrants to come to rural Canada.

I believe it would be a lot better than trying to force them or make them feel an obligation to stay for a certain period of time or whatever. If we can make them want to stay and make them feel comfortable, I think the chances of success are much better. I compliment the minister on allowing us to explore this pilot project. We are all very excited about it. Hopefully it will come together very quickly.

The second issue that I feel has to be addressed is economic development. This has been a very controversial subject for a long time. There have been several tries at it. ACOA was established to replace an organization that operated out of Ottawa. ACOA was set up to operate from Atlantic Canada. It is like FedNor and Western Economic Diversification and all the economic development programs that were established to put the decision making in the areas where the services need to be applied. However, in my view they seem to have morphed into something that they were never intended to be. They have lost their distinct focus on economic development. Somehow we have to come back to a very focused and driven economic development program to address these issues.

Those are two of the many components that I think should go into a strategy to at least slow down this incredible movement to urban Canada from rural Canada, because again, everybody is going to pay a price.

Urban Canada will pay a price and there will be a tremendous overburden on its infrastructure. Rural Canada will pay a price. We will not be able to survive and maintain our standard of living, health care, education, even highways, all the things we have come to enjoy. We will not be able to depend on such services as social services and so forth because the tax base will simply decline. The tax income will not be there for the municipalities and provinces. Even the federal tax base will decline in the rural areas.

I feel it is very important. The first step to solving a problem is recognizing it and realizing that it is an urgent problem. Many things with which we deal are problems that may happen. However this is a problem right now. From 1996 to 2001, the population in 6 of 13 provinces and territories decreased. Again this is not a potential problem. It is real and it is urgent. It will change the face of our country more than anything we deal with on a day to day basis.

I am thankful for the chance to raise this issue. Hopefully this will raise public awareness of the problem. Hopefully I have created an interest for the government side and other opposition parties to recognize that perhaps this is a problem and that we had better look at it. If we do not change this almost migration of population within our country, down the road it will be very expensive to fix.

[Fisheries and Oceans, November 6th, 2002]

On the contrary, Mr. Speaker, it is not relevant to the Treasury Board. This is the government that is supposed to be running the country, not the Public Service Commission and not the Treasury Board.

There is another job that was posted just five days ago. Again if people live in the political minister's county of Digby they can apply, and again if people live in my county their applications will be rejected.

No matter what the reason, will the political minister use his political power and authority to ensure that all Nova Scotians have equal opportunity when it comes to Government of Canada jobs in Nova Scotia?

[Fisheries and Oceans, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have a political question for the political minister of Nova Scotia, who also happens to be the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Recently his department advertised a job opening in Halifax. The job description indicates that if people come from the political minister's own county of Digby, their applications will be considered. However, if people come from my county, Cumberland county, their applications will automatically be rejected even if they are more qualified for the job. My county is closer to the job than his county.

My question is to the political minister: Is this politics?

[*Question No. 20, November 4th, 2002]

With respect to reports that 32,736 cases of people who applied to come here from Thailand, but whose files were reported missing in May 2002: ( a ) has the RCMP initiated an investigation; ( b ) if an investigation has been initiated at what stage is the probe; ( c ) if no investigation has been initiated, why; ( d ) has it been confirmed that the missing files did not belong to anyone who had entered the country from Bangkok; and ( e ) what action has been taken to ensure that the National Archives of Canada is indeed the only department destroying files when required?

[Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2002, November 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill S-2. The previous speaker brought up the subject of the disability tax credit and I am glad he did. I had not thought to raise that issue in my remarks, but I will do that now. I have raised the issue in the House several times and I have been very troubled with the way in which some of my specific constituents have been dealt with.

Last night the Minister of National Revenue spent a long time helping me go through the system. I very much appreciate her taking the time to do that. I am still just as concerned as I was before, but I have a much better understanding of the process. She was very good to have spent the time with my staff and me to help us understand why this review happened, why the changes are there and what the philosophy is behind them. I would like to extend my appreciation to the minister for that.

In those discussions last night I talked about two people in my riding who had been receiving the disability tax credit for some time and then had it cancelled. One is Don Pryor, a man who was run over by a train. His leg was amputated and his internal organs were damaged. He has gone through a great deal of grief and pain since I think 1979. He was receiving the disability tax credit and then with this new review, it was taken away after all that time.

Obviously he still does not have his leg and suffers from all the injuries, but he has been denied his tax credit. We will to appeal it once again, as the minister instructed, and hopefully we will have it reinstated. That is an example of the shock that hits people on this issue.

Again, I want to thank the minister for taking the time last night to help me with this. I really do appreciate it. It was very helpful. Perhaps if we all had access to that, we could understand what is happening and we could help people with disabilities through this very troubling program.

My staff and I came away from that meeting much more informed and better prepared to help because we all care about disabled people. We all have them in our ridings. They are all coming to our doors with these situations. It is much more than just a review to them. It is almost intimidation by big government. They are afraid in some cases to even fill out the form and return it. They go to their doctors and the doctors are sometimes not cooperative. The forms that are filled out are supposed to be free but now some doctors find it necessary to charge for them. There are a lot of questions and it is very complicated for people with disabilities.

I never had a lot to do with people with disabilities until I came to Parliament. Now it is very much a part of my job because of the hurdles thrown in the paths of people with disabilities at every turn. Whether it is a disabled person applying for Canada pension or simply trying to find ways to afford to put a ramp into a house or to change the facilities in a house or receiving the disability tax credit, it is very complicated for that person.

In my view it results in many cases with people with physical disabilities ending up with very troubled emotional situations because they have lost their ability to contribute in some cases. They have lost their ability to support their families in some cases. What starts off as an emotional disability ends up as a financial disability because they cannot work, they cannot earn a living like they used to, they cannot join the workforce and the hope for promotions and recognition for the good jobs they have done is gone.

When someone is totally disabled, it has a big impact on them, much more than just a physical disability. I have learned to appreciate that from meeting some of the people with disabilities. I admire them for handling their situations.

I have a letter from a Mr. Sherman Bent. This man is incredible. He was a hard worker all of his life. He never had a day off in his entire life until he was diagnosed with a very serious cancer. He went through a full year of chemotherapy, which did not work. Then he had to go through a bone marrow transplant. That left him without 80% of his vision in one eye and 50% in the other. He is pretty much confined to a wheelchair. He requires help to do everything in his normal life that people without disabilities can do and not even think about it.

He applied for the disability tax credit some time ago and received it. Then this year he has been denied it even though he is totally disabled. As instructed by the minister, I will help Mr. Sherman Bent appeal this. I believe by any standards he should receive it and I will stay with it until he does. It is a big issue for all of us.

I would say that perhaps the case was not handled the way it should have been. Considering how serious it is to these people, perhaps we should all go back, take a look at this and try to learn more about it, which is what I did last night. It will change how we handle it.

I will move on to the subject at hand, which is what I am supposed to be talking about, Bill S-2. It just makes common sense to enter into treaties with other countries so that we can share information and make sure there is not double taxation. This came very close to home for me a couple of years ago.

Before a friend of mine moved to Bermuda he got all the rules and regulations from the tax department. As he was told by the tax department, he sold his house and completely transferred his whole life to Bermuda. He had a three year contract and is a professional. He did everything he could to avoid double taxation. He followed the rules exactly.

What happened was that a situation happened in his family. He thought it would be better if he came back to Canada before his three year contract was up. Of course that triggered a nightmare from the tax department because Bermuda charged him tax and Canada charged him tax. He had gone through this whole thing for nothing. He had sold his house and had taken all the steps that the tax department told him to, but because his circumstances changed it placed a great burden on him. It took a long time for him to sort it out.

I understand what double taxation can do. This was a Canadian who had gone to Bermuda to do a professional job. He ended up being audited by Revenue Canada when he came back and it determined that he owed a lot of tax money on which he already had paid tax in Bermuda. Again he had gone through the painful ordeal of selling his house, moving his family and completely uprooting himself exactly according to the instructions.

It can be very troubling when someone from another country comes to Canada or someone from Canada goes to another country and has to face this double taxation. This convention will help eliminate that.

The convention would actually ratify treaties with Kuwait, Mongolia, the United Arab Emirates and Moldova, but it would also correct treaties with Norway, Belgium and Italy, and some technical aspects of the treaties with Vietnam, Portugal and Senegal. It now means that Canada has negotiated tax treaties with 80 countries so that if Canadians do move to another country they will at least have a chance under these treaties not to be double taxed .

Unfortunately, every country has a different regime for taxation. Some have capital gains and some do not. Some have income tax and some do not, and so on, but at least now they will have some protection against double taxation. It should also facilitate investment from country to country, which is necessary for us all to grow and get the maximum benefit from the global economy.

The second purpose of the bill is to avoid tax evasion by people who go from country to country and try to break the rules. All of us as members of Parliament know that if the government establishes a set of rules, it does not matter whether it is a disability tax credit or fisheries, there are always some people who try to get around the rules. By previously allowing people to go from one country to another, and there was no sharing of information, the people who wanted to break the rules and take advantage of loopholes were able to do so. Perhaps this will avoid those infractions of our taxation rules. Perhaps it will ensure that Revenue Canada gets the taxation revenue to which it is entitled.

I will be supporting the bill. It is a timely bill and it would increase our participation in the global economy. It would make it easier for Canadians to participate and exercise their rights to travel and work in other countries.

[Question No. 19, November 1st, 2002]

With respect to reports of a breach of security committed by Russell Sanford who designed software that provided access to the Department of National Defence (DND) computer system: ( a ) what steps have been taken since that breach was discovered to ensure that the computer system is secure; ( b ) how many times had DND’s computer system been breached by hackers before this incident; ( c ) how many times has the computer system been breached by hackers following this incident; and ( d ) was classified material downloaded or copied in any incident to date, when the computer system was compromised by the hacker?

[Iraq, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will join me in wishing Rosie feels better soon.

Having said that, there is no war in Iraq and there does not need to be one. Iraq has said that it will allow UN weapons inspectors total unfettered access to all sites in its country. The solution is at hand but the UN weapons inspectors are still sitting on their hands while the UN decides what to do.

If Iraq is truly serious about letting weapons inspectors in, I propose that it locate its own interim, credible, international inspectors, bring them to Iraq and put them to work now. Iraq has the right to do this, the same as any other country does.

If Iraq does allow unconditional access to all its sites, it will only be a few weeks before the whole world will know that Iraq intends to keep its commitment and the situation will be diffused. There will be no war.

There is no reason to wait. Iraq should move now to send a signal to the entire world that it is determined to cooperate.

[Correctional Service Canada, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, meanwhile there are hundreds of people in the United States who have been misled by people who were trained by Corrections Canada. We brought this up on October 10. On October 12 the senior vice-president, forensic, for KPMG was brought in to investigate the program. On October 15 it was shut down.

Is it true that, contrary to all of the rules and assurances by the minister, the KPMG report determined that inmates did have access to personal information about the citizens in Idaho and Washington who were called? Has the government notified the American government that their citizens may be at risk because of the security breach?

[Correctional Service Canada, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in the telemarketing scheme from Westmorland Institution in Dorchester, New Brunswick, inmates were trained by Corrections Canada to call residents in Idaho and Washington regarding condos in Fiji and free gambling junkets to Las Vegas. The inmates were instructed by Corrections Canada to say they represented a Washington company, but actually they were in a prison in New Brunswick.

Did Corrections Canada get prior assurance from the attorneys general of Idaho and Washington to ensure that this operation was not an offence under their state consumer protection laws? Did anyone ever stop and ask what the people of Washington and Idaho would think?