Bob Rae

[Food Safety, September 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the gang that brought the Canadian public Walkerton is in no position to lecture the people on this side of the House. I did not hear from the minister an answer to a very simple--

[Food Safety, September 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could ask the government to explain why the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was informed by the American border services on September 4 that there had been an E. coli contamination with respect to products from XL.

I have a simple question for the minister. Why did it take 12 days before a recall notice was put out by the Canadian government?

[Points of Order, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague from Souris—Moose Mountain wants to make a statement to the House. We all shared his concern before question period. Perhaps he could fill us in now on the news from Saskatchewan.

[Human Rights, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, now that the Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Foreign Affairs have said that the establishment of gay rights around the world is a priority for the Canadian government, could the Prime Minister tell us if this now means the Government of Canada will provide the necessary financial support for the celebration of gay rights in Canada, in large cities right across the country, every summer that they take place and can we assume he and his ministers will join members of the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party across the country in celebrating gay rights here at home?

[The Economy, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the real question is: why did government members vote against undertaking a study on family inequality at the Standing Committee on Finance? The Prime Minister and his colleagues voted against it.

The fact is that the government is refusing to acknowledge that the challenge of our times is to ensure that Canada's wealth is shared fairly by everyone and that no one is excluded.

Why vote against that?

[The Economy, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the Prime Minister can pick up the “fossil of the year” awards that are still waiting to be claimed by the government.

If the Prime Minister agrees with Governor Carney that income inequality is indeed a problem, could he explain why the government is still clawing back part-time benefits for those on employment insurance? Why is the government raising employment insurance taxes? Why is the government continuing to discriminate against low-income families who do not qualify for tax refunds?

[Business of Supply, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at this issue from both a personal and a historical point of view. It is important to recognize that our country—like the United States, Europe and other countries—is being confronted with a major challenge. There was an agreement made in the years following the Second World War: if people worked hard and made an effort, then they would get a pension and could avoid certain problems if they became ill, and life would be good for everyone. This was not complete equality because it was recognized that everyone's circumstances were different, but there was still a spirit of solidarity.

This spirit of solidarity is disappearing in our economy. That is the big problem that we have. The current lack of solidarity means that people are not seeing a place for justice or opportunity in our economy.

The government, whether at the provincial or federal level, has a shared responsibility to use every means possible to make the economy fairer. That is the government's job. We believe that this is a common, fundamental task, and we are going to continue to work to ensure that this is what happens in the future.

[Business of Supply, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member makes an excellent point. I am sure he will not be surprised to hear me say that.

I was very encouraged by the words of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, because Mr. Carney is a very thoughtful individual, an exceptional public servant of Canada. He has had a chance to see the impact that this issue is having, not only in our country but in the United States and every industrialized country.

I do not think we can possibly explain the declining rates of participation in elections, the sense of cynicism and the sense of frustration that many citizens are expressing about our democratic life, precisely because they feel they are working harder, they are getting less for it, they are doing a little less well than they would like to be able to do, and they are very concerned about what will happen to them and what will happen to their families as they see their debt levels growing. They have this preoccupation now with how they are going to do and how they are going to survive in this very difficult situation.

Yes, it has a corrosive impact on our democratic life. I do not think there is any question about that.

[Business of Supply, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, a broader question is this. What is the cost of not doing it? The member will say it would increase government debt. I would say to the hon. member that refusing or failing to do these things simply passes that debt on to consumers who are not in a position to bear that debt.

Consumer debt, personal debt, the debt of ordinary families is higher today than it has ever been in the entire history of Canada. People are only able to afford this debt because of very low interest rates. It is not right that this debt be passed on to each individual. It is better that we share the responsibility we have to make sure that economic prosperity does not come at the expense of ordinary people.

[Business of Supply, September 25th, 2012]

moved:

That the House call on the government to take several simple and immediate actions to reduce the growing income inequality in Canada including: (a) a roll back of its recent Employment Insurance Premium hikes which inflict a higher relative burden on low to modest income workers; (b) ending the punitive new claw back of Employment Insurance benefits that are discouraging many Canadians from working while on claim; (c) making tax credits, such as the Family Caregiver Tax Credit, refundable so that low income Canadians are not excluded; (d) making the Registered Disability Savings Plan available to sufferers of chronic diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis; and (e)removing interest charges from the federal component of student loans.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the chance to address this issue in the House today. We all recognize, or at least most of us recognize, that income inequality is a growing issue. Whereas in the years between about 1945 and the mid-1990s, the growing economy created greater equality not only because of the well-paying jobs that were created but also because of a range of government programs that sustained people who were in difficulty.

Since the governments came to grips with the impact of deficits in the early 1990s, right up until today and most emphatically in the last five years, we have a seen a decline in income equality and we have seen a growth of inequality. Those are the undeniable facts.

If I could quote someone who is not a radical figure but a very responsible one, the Governor of the Bank of Canada said this recently in a speech in Halifax, on the subject of income inequality.“The people who say it's not an issue are wrong, and the people who say it is an issue and who then want to create class warfare are wrong. The focus needs to be on ensuring equality of opportunity.... It's a massive issue; fundamental to society. It's not right if big swaths of society become discouraged and marginalized.”

What we have proposed today in the motion is quite practical. It is saying to the government and to the House that there is a series of very discrete and practical steps that we can take to reduce what is an undeniable trend that certainly has accelerated over the last five years because of the impact of two things.

First is the impact of the financial crisis, which has affected the entire world and has naturally had an impact on Canada in terms of rates of growth, the increase in joblessness, the increase in youth unemployment and the loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs, a trend we had seen over the last 30 years and we have seen it accelerate most recently. Second is because governments sometimes have taken steps that have in fact accelerated inequality rather than moving things in the other direction.

What we are asking the government to do is to, first of all, recognize that this is a problem, not to dismiss it. We had to work very hard to convince a number of Conservative members of Parliament to allow the finance committee to study this question, and I am delighted that my colleague, the finance critic for the Liberal Party, has been able to persuade people that this is something that the committee needs to study.

However, we need to go even further in looking at these practical measures. We want the government to roll back the increase in employment insurance premiums, a tax that is regressive, that has a greater impact on lower and middle income people than it does on those who are better off. We want to end the clawback because, again, the clawback is going to have a negative effect on people on lower incomes and not help them in the least.

We want to make sure that tax credits, such as the family caregiver tax credit, can actually be taken up by people who have no taxable income. We want to make it refundable. It does not make sense to say that this is not going to be available to low-income people who are in fact going forward and taking care of their mother, father or someone else in their family who is disabled, that it is going to be available to people who have a taxable income but not available to people who do not.

Also, we want to make sure we make the registered disability savings plan available to sufferers of chronic diseases, because that is what it was intended to do.

Finally, we want to remove interest charges from the federal portion of student loans, because right now the federal government is actually making money on student loans, and we know that student debt is in fact an ever-increasing issue.

Before I proceed further, I just want to make it clear that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Cape Breton—Canso, who has been sitting here with a great deal of anxiety and concern that I might take up the full 20 minutes rather than just the time I agreed to as my share.

This is an important issue as it concerns our current economy. Globalization has created extraordinary possibilities for Canada. Our country is rich in natural resources. Our education system compares favourably with that of other countries. Our country has great advantages, but, at the same time, we must recognize that inequality has continued to grow over the past five years, and the past five years have been just as difficult as the 1990s.

I do not believe that this is really a partisan issue. The government could say that we had problems in the 1990s and that the Liberals have nothing to say about that. But we have to admit that during recessions and periods of government cutbacks, the government has the complex task of ensuring that inequality does not get worse. Quite frankly, this government does not want to take on that responsibility. It does not want to deal with this problem and even denies that there is a problem.

However, there is no doubt that it is a problem because we see that well-paid jobs continue to disappear and are being replaced by jobs that are lower paying, short-term and part-time, and do not have the same benefits.

Mr. Speaker, this is my first opportunity to congratulate you on your elevation as the Deputy Speaker of the House. You and I both remember the days in Windsor when we saw the transformation of an economy, which had powerful trade unions, which had good well-paying jobs, which performed important work in manufacturing, where members had pensions that they were assured would be there for them when they retired. Yes, frankly, they were good times. People were well off, people were able to buy cottages and take care of their kids. Those years are definitely not with us any more.

We are now in a time when workers are being asked to take further cuts and further drops in benefits, when a defined benefit is becoming very much the exception rather than the case, where we understand that there are greater and greater inequalities in how we are able to face life together.

There are a couple of false routes, as the Governor of the Bank of Canada said. Class warfare is a false exit. Trying to pretend we can stop the world and get off is a false exit. Pretending that we can somehow hold back all the forces of globalization is a false exit. However so is denial, pretending that if we continue to prosper as a country then obviously everyone will be able to share automatically in this prosperity.

President Kennedy said in the 1960s at the very height of the period I was describing, when things seemed to be all in balance, that the rising tide will lift all boats. Now we are in a situation where the rising tide lifts some yachts, some very big boats, but it does not lift a lot of other boats. That means that government policy has to take the steps that are necessary to increase equality, to increase real opportunity and to understand that prosperity, social justice and sustainability are not necessarily enemies, are not necessarily at war with one another, but need to be brought together.

However, in order for that to happen, it will take deliberate, thoughtful, intelligent government policy. Some might say the steps we are proposing today are not radical enough. I would say they are very practical. They involve saying that we want the employment insurance premiums hike to stop at a time when we are in recession, at a time when people are hurting. We are saying that tax credits should be refundable. That is to say that if people have no taxable income, they should still be able to get the credits. We are saying that for students—particularly when we see youth unemployment on the rise the way it is today, up to 15%—it is really unconscionable that the Government of Canada would be making money off the loans we are giving to students in order to allow them to go to college and university.

This is why this is in fact the issue of our time. We cannot assume that prosperity will be fairly shared and we cannot take prosperity itself for granted. We have to avoid the mistakes of the extreme right and the extreme left, and we have to come up with practical proposals that will make a difference to ordinary people and ensure that our prosperity is truly, fairly, deeply and widely shared.