Bill Casey

[Canadian Forces, November 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to enter into this debate based on the remarks made by the Minister of National Defence. There is strong support within the PC/DR caucus for deployment of our military to the conflict in central Asia.

We understand better than most the need for the Canadian armed forces to play a role in the ongoing terrorism war because we were in government during the gulf war and we learned a lot of lessons from that. Perhaps we did not learn enough, but we did learn some and we can understand the pressure on the minister, the department and his officials.

With all due respect to the minister I would like to say there are a few things that trouble me about this. I heard the minister this past Saturday on the CBC radio program The House or it might have been on television. When asked what our military would be doing, he said that we had not been told yet what they would be doing.

This bothers me because the Prime Minister during question period over the last few months, when asked the same question regarding Canada's role, has responded by saying that they had not told us what to do yet. We should be partners in the planning if we are to be partners in this exercise. We should not only be partners in the duties, the fighting and peacekeeping, but we should also be determining what the role is of our soldiers.

This comes down to leadership for our own people and we should reserve that right. I feel that right has been transferred to the United States and it will be deciding the role for our military in this battle based on comments made by both the Prime Minister and the minister. The minister and the Prime Minister have said that we have not been told what to do yet. Those words are troubling and discomforting. Perhaps they could find another way to say it even if it is true.

We understand the need for our participation in the conflict. There are no more courageous citizens than those who volunteered to serve. Although the military is involved, and we are talking about military involvement, there is a role for Canada through diplomacy not with Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan militant people but with other people in the Middle East. I believe Canada has a role.

I recently visited Iran, Syria and Lebanon with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Everywhere we went they were discussing the root causes of the conflict. Time and again they raised the issue of peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. It was seen as one of the key problems in causing the excuse for terrorism. I say the excuse for terrorism because there is no reason and justification for terrorism.

I believe Canada has a role to play in helping resolve the differences between the Palestinians and the Israelis. While we are sending our military to battle we as politicians should be doing all we can on the diplomatic side to try to resolve the issues and try to help those two peoples come together to find answers.

We further understand in the PC/DR caucus that in times such as these there will be details that cannot be shared with us in the House and with the public because it would put the security of our military at risk. Even though we understand that, we want to be involved with information. We want to know what is the role for Canadians. We want to be comfortable that the Canadian leaders are in control of the Canadian soldiers. We do not have that level of comfort based on what the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence have said.

The government is realizing that cutbacks to the military since 1993 to the present are coming home to roost. We are sending our courageous, brave soldiers to central Asia to fight on our behalf, to represent our country, and they do not have the tools to work with and that is very clear.

We read in the newspapers today that our Sea King helicopters, which we talk about over and over in the House, now have less equipment in them than they had in the gulf war 10 years ago.

It is incumbent upon us as a parliament and as politicians, especially the government, to ensure that if we are asking our military people to go and do battle for us that we give them the very best tools to work with, not tools that risk their lives or make them unable to perform their duties.

Although we support this, we still have many questions. We hope the minister reflects on our comments when he makes his plans.

[Foreign Affairs, November 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is probably a hard concept for a minister of the government to understand but perhaps someday the Liberals will not be over there. Perhaps another party will be over there and it will have no obligation to follow this rule.

It is ironic that at a time when Canadians are being asked to surrender certain rights under Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism bill, Bill C-35 is expanding immunity to foreigners.

Will the minister put into legislation a requirement to report to the House on who claims civil immunity and criminal immunity under this new legislation?

[Foreign Affairs, November 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, under Bill C-35 the Minister of Foreign Affairs is expanding immunity beyond traditional diplomats to a whole new additional category of foreigners.

Although the minister has agreed that he will report on a quarterly basis those who claim immunity under this new bill, there is no requirement in legislation at all for subsequent ministers.

Will the minister amend Bill C-35 to require an annual report to the House stating who claimed immunity under this new expanded criteria?

[Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2001, November 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill S-31, an act to implement income tax treaties between Canada and various other countries, namely, Slovenia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Senegal, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Germany.

This bill goes along with the coalition's position on approaches to international trade, international business and international agreements. Certainly with recent events it is obvious we are going to be broadening our international interests. This type of treaty is important.

There are two reasons to justify why the bill was brought forward. One is to avoid double taxation on foreigners working in Canada. The other is the prevention of evasion of taxes by foreigners working in Canada. I suspect the latter was the real catalyst that brought this bill to fruition.

We support the bill, but we would like to put some issues on the record about taxation. The bill raises other issues. In regard to competitiveness it tries to bring us into line with our international agreements and competitiveness, but there are other parts of our taxation system which leave us very non-competitive.

The first purpose of the bill is to remove barriers to cross-border trade and investment which is obviously in our interests as a trading country. Canada is very dependent on trade and it is important to us for this reason.

The second reason is to ensure unintended consequences, which means to not have tax evasion. This is done through the bill in a number of ways. It allows tax authorities to deal directly with each other to solve international transfer pricing issues, complete audits and engage in other discussions aimed at improving tax administration. Mostly it opens the lines of communication and sharing of information, which raises some concerns which I will deal with in a second. Basically, we agree with this philosophy, but it does raise concerns that should be watched. We must be careful and prudent.

With respect to the Canada-Germany agreement, this is the only set of treaties that provides for mutual assistance in the collection of outstanding taxes. We have other agreements with other major countries, including the United States and the Netherlands. We tend not to have such agreements with smaller partners.

Parts 1 to 7 of the bill implement tax treaties with Slovenia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Senegal, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. This is the first time that Canada has concluded a tax agreement with any of these states.

The tax treaties implemented by this bill reflect efforts to update and expand Canada's network of tax treaties, so as to have better access to information back and forth. This will increase the ability of Canadian companies to invest and deal in these other countries through financial agreements, business agreements and treaties.

There are some of the pros that we recognize. It goes along with a broader vision of international trade which the coalition and the Progressive Conservative Party have really established and led the way on with respect to free trade agreements. We have been traditional leaders in reducing the taxes and trade barriers between countries.

There is strong support for the bill in our party. Income tax conventions have been signed with countries where a commonality of security and other linkages was sufficiently and traditionally entrenched. In that way there would be some confidence in their taxation systems and they would mirror ours. There would be consistencies at least in the two systems.

The bill primarily seeks to serve the best interests of Canadian investors and the Canadian government. We support foreign trade. The bill allows countries that are not fully developed to create quality jobs and allows us to export our abilities, technologies, services, money, traditions and values. All of those certainly hold a lot of appeal especially to smaller countries. This will help us provide those services.

Canada's philosophy has always been to promote the economic progress of these countries. The more the wealth is shared, the more jobs and the more opportunities there are to educate the public. Again, the more the wealth is shared, the more stresses and tensions between countries are reduced, with a resultant lowering in terrorism acts and all kinds of different manifestations of misunderstandings and hate.

The more we work with other countries the more we understand each other by sharing cultures, business, educational ties and health care ties to better the chances of avoiding things like September 11 and the ongoing threats of terrorism.

We have some disagreements with this proposal which does not focus on the tax issues. They focus on the human rights records of some of the countries involved. We feel that we should encourage countries to increase their focus on human rights as part of these ongoing negotiations.

We do not want to be seen endorsing countries that have bad human rights records. We could be perceived to be endorsing their policies by signing treaties with these countries. We want to ensure that is not what we are doing. We are signing business treaties and not endorsing human rights policies.

There are parts of the bill that we applaud. The bill was in fact referred not only to the Senate banking committee for the study of tax conventions but also d to the foreign affairs committee for the study of human rights aspects. That was a good feature of the bill and we would support future bills of this nature going through the same process.

Canada's influence has expanded into other countries around the world. The tax department does not perform a full and complete country by country analysis of the acceptability of the taxation system and the procedures surrounding taxation to determine what issues in those countries were receptive to such an agreement. It goes back to the human rights issues and should be an integral part of the negotiation process.

Another issue that concerned us was the privacy aspect. There is a lot of information in our tax files on Canadian citizens. If a double taxation agreement was in place the information could and often would get into the hands of other countries. We want to ensure that our privacy laws and standards would apply to other countries that had access to our information.

The coalition supports the bill and encourages it as a further step in the enhancement of Canada's international relationships.

I mentioned earlier that the bill raises other aspects of competitiveness as far as taxation is concerned. There are many ways in which Canada is not competitive in its tax regime. The bill would attempt to bring some tax aspects in line with other countries. However it does not address Canada's income tax rate, which is much higher than the average rate of OECD countries, and many other aspects of our capital gains tax and other taxes that discourage competitiveness, investment and jobs.

The United Kingdom, Germany, Norway and Sweden have adopted more aggressive tax cutting strategies than Canada with respect to capital gains. Germany reduced its capital gains tax by 50%, Great Britain by 75%, and Norway completely eliminated all forms of double taxation on capital income. The United States has an accommodating capital gains rate of approximately 20%. Last year Canada reduced the capital gains inclusion rate to 50% putting it closer to the U.S. level of 20%, but there is still a vast difference. It discourages investment and people from withdrawing their funds from one investment and reinvesting in another way.

The coalition encourages the government to review taxation at all levels to see if there are other ways to reduce taxes which would put Canada in line with other countries in the same way it is doing with Bill S-31.

[Airline Industry, November 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the minister refers to partisan games, but just days ago I saw him on television huffing and puffing and boasting that the government did not extend loan guarantees to Canada 3000. Therefore the government has no risk. What he did not say was the plan put Canadian passengers, creditors and thousands of employees at risk.

The airline industry was in chaos long before September 11. Will the minister now tell the House if he has plan to end the chaos in Canadian air transportation?

[Foreign Affairs, November 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.

At this very important time in our history, incredibly the foreign service finds itself with 600 unfilled positions around the world.

The deputy minister testified at committee that he does not have the budget to hire new people and pay quality people fair wages.

Will the minister, in his upcoming security budget, make sure there is money available to hire and replace these 600 necessary positions at this very critical time?

[Customs Act, October 24th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I would ordinarily agree with the very hon. member, but we think it is a waste of money to bring in one set of changes, one set of rules and revamp the whole system when we know another change will come.

The member said we should be able to make decisions quickly. It brought to mind that the decision to buy the pills for anthrax was made very quickly. We now see how wrong that decision was. It is going to cost the taxpayer of Canada how many millions of dollars and has caused the government a great deal of embarrassment because it made the decision quickly.

We are saying that we should not make another quick decision when we know another bill is being drafted right now that will change many aspects of this one. It is just a waste of time and money.

[Customs Act, October 24th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question.

We cannot separate trade from security in our relationship with the United States. Eighty-four per cent of our trade is with the United States. Every truck, every shipment, everything that goes across the border involves security. Many aspects of Bill S-23 deal with allowing trucks to flow freely back and forth without inspection at the border by arranging for prior inspections. This is absolutely contrary to the atmosphere now in the United States and in Canada. We are not talking about expediting transportation now. We are talking about increased security. That is just the opposite.

Many aspects of Bill S-23 were to allow for electronically transmitted information and pre-clearance based on profiling and audits on previous business and things like that. We have to come to an understanding with the United States on whether or not it is going to accept that philosophy prior to passing any bill, either Bill S-23 or the proposed omnibus bill that we hear hints of from the government, which will deal with transportation issues. It is supposed to be the second bill after the terrorism bill, Bill C-36. We understand it is coming, that it is being drafted now. We have not seen it yet, but many aspects of it will impact on Bill S-23.

[Customs Act, October 24th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill S-23.

I say to the member who spoke previously that we certainly would have supported the tabling of that document. We think that access to information is an important aspect of parliament.

This bill is an act to amend the Customs Act and to make related amendments to other acts. We actually supported the bill throughout and thought that it had a lot of good practical ideas, until September 11, which made the whole thing obsolete in our opinion. It did propose a lot of good changes and enhancements to the systems that would expedite the process at border crossings and so on and so forth.

The events of September 11 in our opinion make Bill S-23 obsolete. The total focus is on our borders now. There is a great debate about whether we will have perimeter security, which I think we will have eventually. There is a great debate about increasing staff at border crossings, enhancing the procedures of control and assessment, increasing the focus on examining goods, services and people and identification at borders. It makes all of these things that were created to fast track and expedite border crossing obsolete until we finish the great debate on the philosophy of how we will treat our borders as a whole. Right now there is a proposal to increase funding by a lot for our borders.

I understand a second omnibus bill is being drafted to deal with terrorism. That one will focus on transportation issues and border issues. Bill S-23 will be superseded by that omnibus bill in many ways. We should shelve Bill S-23 for the time being until we see what the government puts on the table in the proposed omnibus bill. We have not seen it yet. We have just heard talk and conjecture about it.

The government is debating whether or not to consider a perimeter security system. The Americans will surely have a perimeter security system and we will be either inside or outside the system. Whatever decision is made will have a big impact on how we deal with our borders.

Many politicians in the U.S., such as the president, the vice-president, many senators and governors of states, have indicated that they want changes to the border crossing system. They have suggested that Canada is a safe haven for terrorists. We do not agree. However, they have certainly indicated that they have concerns about our border crossing systems. They will demand that we make changes, not the changes that are in Bill S-23 but other changes. If the bill goes through, we will go through a major series of changes to our border crossings and then we will have to do it all over again.

The U.S. has already tripled its staff at border control points which is an indication of the changes that are about to take place. Now Mexico is into the discussion about the perimeter security system. If the United States and Mexico are to have a perimeter security system, then Canada must be a part of that. I believe we eventually will be a part of it, which again will make many aspects of Bill S-23 obsolete.

In the last few days the official opposition has proposed motions that change job descriptions and functions at the border crossings. The official opposition has proposed that we change all the things in Bill S-23, completely reverse many positions, turn customs officers into law enforcement officers, remove the tax collection function from customs officers and give it to a whole new enforcement agency and so on and so forth. That is an indication of the changes we are facing.

Business groups, chambers of commerce, boards of trade and provincial premiers are also calling for changes at the borders which do not necessarily coincide with Bill S-23. We should put the whole bill on hold until we assess what we will do as a country and how we will treat the overall security system, the overall border system and our relationship with the United States.

Essentially there will be a revolution on how we deal with border crossing issues and because of September 11, everything will be different. Everything is different now. Much of our trade is halted at the border because of delays caused by examinations. I do not expect the United States government to agree that the aspects of Bill S-23 will expedite the smooth crossing of traffic and trade at the border and allow things to go back and forth freely. That is not going to happen. Bill S-23 in that way is a little obsolete.

Perimeter security is inevitable and Canada has to be part of it. Eighty-five percent of our business travels back and forth between the United States and Canada. The amount was as high as $250 billion in 1999. The bill was drafted prior to September 11, in a whole different world and under a whole different set of circumstances. In many ways we think it would be a waste of time to proceed with all of these changes, some of which were really good prior to September 11 and some of which may still be good. However, if the U.S. does not agree with them and they are not part of its overall vision it is going to be very difficult to proceed with them and we will have to bring in another bill to reverse or change them.

The bill should be shelved until these matters are dealt with and an agreement is made, even a fundamental decision as to whether or not we are going to be part of a perimeter security system and whether or not Mexico is going to be part of that system. There is no point in going ahead with these major changes if we are going to be faced with another series of changes, which we will be for sure. This is not a matter of if we are going to change our systems and procedures at the border crossings, it is a matter of when and how. We are going to change them.

Bill S-23 should be held off until we know exactly what the government's philosophy and position is. Until that happens, we would like to see the bill shelved.

[Armenia, October 23rd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to enter into the debate on private members’ Motion No. 328. I commend the member for Laval Centre for bringing the motion forward. We had a discussion earlier about the issue. It is very clear how strongly she feels and how committed she is to the cause.

We recently had another debate similar to this on a motion brought forward by the member for Brampton Centre. We had the same debate with him as well. There are certainly a lot of strong feelings about this issue.

The whole debate surrounds the terrible massacre of human lives between 1915 and 1923, with estimates in excess of a million and a half men, women and children who died.There was violence, deportations, internments, mass murders and all kinds of atrocities we in the House can hardly imagine.

To put it into perspective for me, we were all so moved and concerned about the September 11 tragedies in the United States. For every person killed in the United States in that horrible terrorist act, 250 people died in the period from 1915 to 1923. The Armenians were the victims. To put that into perspective, the disaster was 250 times worse than what we experienced in North America. We cannot imagine what these atrocities were like and what families and people lived through. We cannot imagine parents and grandparents seeing their families wiped out through mass murders, atrocities and deportations.

Obviously the events between 1915 and 1923 were terrifying and horrifying. They resulted in the terrible deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The Armenian people were the victims and suffered greatly, more than anyone else.

The opposition coalition abhors any mass slaughter or killings, whether they occur in Rwanda, the Middle East or Europe and by any country or any group. It is important that we remember these issues. This is exactly what the motion is doing today. It is helping all of us understand and learn about issues we have never been exposed to before. Personally it has been a learning curve. I appreciate the input by all the members who have shared their thoughts with me and the House.

Perhaps by discussing these issues and bringing them forth continually we will maintain public awareness. The healing process and reconciliation will be helped by the fact that we in the Canadian parliament are discussing these issues. Perhaps these discussions and motions will help avoid such atrocities in the future, although recent events are not very encouraging.