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NDP MP for Windsor West (Ontario)

Won his last election, in 2021, with 44% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984 December 13th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, if the government wants to appoint me as minister and if it would actually table its documents, maybe I would reciprocate. That is part of the privilege of the House: to keep democracy going in this process. I am going to finish reading the document. The end of the quotation is very important:

Thus, business profits associated with service activities could be subject to taxation for many Canadian companies. These rules are currently set to take effect January 1, 2010 if ratification occurs during 2008.

Therefore, what we have here is the situation of a service industry that could have new taxation added to it through this process. We know that right now there are some concerns with the service sector and the economy and we do not have a full economic analysis of it. That is what is troubling about this bill being brought forth in this manner.

There could be some very valuable elements to the treaty. I think there are. There are some general things that are very good, but at the same time, why do we not have those answers? I find that very difficult to accept, especially given that this is an opportunity to correct historically significant problems.

I also want to touch on the issue of social security and Canadians who have paid in the U.S., are doing so now and face extra taxation. I am going to read another very important letter that talks about the history of this change.

Once again, this bill is not going to address the issue of those Canadians who had the tax treaty altered on them. The government is going to send them to some arbitration process, which is not even described. It could take literally years. We have no idea. And that is if they win, let alone having to go through that and relive the whole situation. That is a real concern, because the government has a private member's bill from its own member for Essex, who has been pushing that issue, and the government has not even listened to him.

Why the government is not adjusting that specifically in the bill, I do not know. Why it is turning its back on many residents of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, I cannot understand. I want to read the letter for members because it describes, for the record, what has been happening to these ordinary Canadians. It describes what took place with the tax treaty and how it affects them and their lives. The letter comes from Mr. Craig Ridsdale and is entitled “Unfair Tax Laws Burden Seniors”. It states:

Many Canadian seniors across Canada have been sitting on their hands since 1997 waiting for the Liberal government to move forward on a pledge made to them to rectify a system of taxation that threatens to leave many of them, particularly low income seniors, in a very difficult financial situation.

In 1984, the Canada-U.S. Tax Convention Act was implemented, primarily to protect the citizens of both countries from being taxed twice on their pensions, be they Social Security in the States or the Canada (and Quebec) Pension Plan here in Canada. However, differences in our taxation systems (Canadians pay taxes when collecting benefits while Americans pay the taxes on their contributions) has meant that Canadians receiving Social Security benefits were being taxed twice.

A series of protocols to amend this bill have made matters even worse for many retirees. Specifically, the third protocol, implemented in 1995 and applicable for the 1996 fiscal year allowed the United States government to charge what amounted to a more than 25% withholding tax on Canadians' pensions. Previously, the second protocol to this treaty allowed only the country of residence to tax social security benefits. For many retired Canadians who paid into the American system over the span of their working lives, what this meant was that over one quarter of their income essentially disappeared overnight.

The fourth protocol, implemented after the disastrous third protocol, allows the Canadian government to tax 85 per cent of Social Security, an increase from the 50 per cent agreed upon in the 1984 act. It also provided the government with the latitude to reduce the 85 per cent limit which it has refused to do.

Since 2001, Canadians Asking for Social Security Equity (CASSE) have been lobbying the federal government to either restore the Second Protocol or at the least grandfather its provisions to include all seniors who were negatively affected by the Third Protocol. To this date nothing has been done.

It is also important that the current Secretary of State for Multiculturalism had a private member's bill on this back in 1998, so what is really troubling about this is that we have a pattern between the Liberals and Conservatives, who all have said that they want to fix the tax treaty.

Once again we are talking about pensioners, seniors, who are living in Canada. They worked abroad, they paid their taxes there and they paid their taxes at home, but when they actually got their social security benefits things changed and they now get taxed even more on those benefits. That is why the private member's bill to correct this would have been a more equitable situation. Why the government has not done that is unacceptable. This is a real hardship for many people.

We have had testimony at the House finance committee by individuals affected by this. They have come forward and talked about people in their circle who have been fighting this and who have died and about how others have had to sell their homes and how others are having a hard time getting back to the quality of life they thought they were going to enjoy when they retired. That is important, because the human dignity aspect has been lost with regard to this taxation bill.

We were talking earlier about the member for LaSalle—Émard and his issues related to his steamships, to his company and the flag and so forth. This issue is so important. I remember that in Windsor when the member for LaSalle—Émard, as finance minister, was attending the Caboto club, one of the most memorable moments was the fact that he had to slip into the kitchen to avoid the demonstrations out front. He used the back door and walked through the kitchen to go to the event as opposed to meeting with the individuals who were affected by this taxation policy that had been changed.

There have been many statements made by Liberals and Conservatives both, who are fighting over this. Members of the NDP have been consistent on it. What is unfortunate is that it has not led to any changes. I cannot understand that. I cannot understand who in their right mind would want to create an arbitration process for seniors at a time when they need their issue addressed now.

The member for Burnaby—New Westminster was right to ask the government and its officials how much this tax treaty is going to cost. What they estimate is half a billion dollars over three years. That is what is going to be lost in terms of government revenue.

We do not know whether the banks are going to enjoy that money. We do not know who is going to be the real net beneficiary of that arrangement. What we do know is that to fix this historic problem related to seniors who had double taxation, and who were caught in this crossfire of tax treaty analysis and neglect through the United States negotiations, it would cost around $60 million.

Thus, we have $1 billion for that sector, which we do not even have a prescribed analysis from. The department said it would come back with more information. At the same time, it would cost around $60 million if we did not tax at an increased rate seniors who paid their social security in the United States.

That is bizarre, because we know from the evidence presented to us that those individuals are going to spend that money in this country. They are going to use it to get by. They are going to continue to renovate homes and to be in our communities more, and they are going to be able to pay off some of their debts. That is important, because that economic push comes to that collective group.

I cannot understand this. Maybe it has been the hostility. I went on a national campaign for a seniors' charter of rights, which passed in the House of Commons. The member for Hamilton Mountain did a terrific job and pushed the issue through, but we have not had full implementation of the charter. The House and the government have ignored seniors in many respects.

I do not know why they are motivated to move in this direction. In conclusion, I find it really frustrating that the Liberals have joined with the Conservatives on this issue to prevent debate, analysis and full due diligence.

We do want to see our tax treaties updated. We are not opposed to that. They are very beneficial in many respects. Living on the Canada-U.S. border as I do, I have spoken at length in the House of Commons about the Windsor-Detroit border and its importance. We are not opposed to going forward on this, but why, for heaven's sake, are we not doing it properly? Why is it so convenient to let this group of seniors be basically thrust to the side, forgotten and left out of the whole picture? Why is that being contemplated? Why is that being allowed?

Why have the Liberals joined with the Conservatives to prevent the debate about this to even take place? I do not understand that logic. I do not understand why they could not at least have some hearings to get to the root of this structure or maybe move an amendment to fix the situation.

It really shows the lack of influence, I think, of the member for Chatham-Kent—Essex and the whole area around there and of the Conservatives in southern Ontario. When they have a tax treaty this significant and an issue that has been a thorn in the side of the Liberals because they broke promise after promise on it, an issue that has been politically manipulated over the years, they have chosen not to do anything on it in this bill. That is remarkable in itself. It speaks to why the ineffective Conservative caucus of southern Ontario is basically being swallowed up by the oil companies, because the petroleum club is served only by the government.

The Conservatives could not even get a minor tax treaty agreement passed to protect seniors as they had promised in their campaign. This shows disinterest. It also shows arrogance, which they have quickly adopted from the previous government. They are going to have to explain to people why they have to go through arbitration to get this fixed. This is going to be very traumatic.

It is a shame that we did not do the proper due diligence. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster wanted to bring forth witnesses to vet this so it could be a better bill and give us a better tax treaty. Most important, it would give us the chance to address historical problems that the House has never dealt with before.

Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984 December 13th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill S-2, which is an act to amend the Canada-U.S. tax treaty.

It is interesting to listen to my Liberal colleagues' defence of the member for LaSalle—Émard and his tax avoidance scheme in the Barbados. It is kind of like listening to the captain of the Titanic describe how well things went. It is unbelievable not to address the fundamental problems of reflagging and so forth.

I do want to segue a little into this tax treaty bill. It is tempting to spend half an hour or 20 minutes of our time on reflagging ships and also on the consequences to workers and so forth in the avoidance of taxation, but I do want to focus on Bill S-2 in particular.

There are some concerns in this process and in this actual tax treaty that do not resolve significant issues for my riding of Windsor West as well as Essex County and, greater than that, for individuals living in Quebec, New Brunswick and other places, where significant numbers of pensioners collecting U.S. social security and making contributions in the United States had the tax treaty changed on them.

This process still leaves them in limbo and is actually still counter to the private member's bill of the government's own member, the member for Essex. The government has made sure that the bill is basically squirreled away at the finance committee. It has not resurfaced, despite it having one hearing in the last session of Parliament, in which I participated. It has not seen the light of day. Jimmy Hoffa has probably seen more light of day than this bill in the last number of years.

It is very disturbing, because some seniors are being taxed extra. That is different to what they expected. They have had their lives put on hold. They have suffered significant consequences. In fact, some of them are dying. This is very shameful. We should be addressing it. However, this bill will only add an arbitration element for those particular victims of poor taxation policy. The shift happened and they got whacked twice. The private member's bill would rectify that by allowing the taxation system to be for only 50%. Without getting into technical details, it would have provided some equity.

I do want to touch on process, because I think it is important. I know that right now probably only a handful of Canadians are watching this as opposed to the Mulroney-Schreiber affair and the meeting going on right now, but this does affect people. It is important to set out for the record the concerns that we in the New Democratic Party have about why the Liberals and the Conservatives have rammed this through so quickly.

First of all, it is important to recognize that the bill originated in the unelected Senate. Senators are not elected. They are appointed by the Prime Minister, and in fact were by the former prime minister, who is having to explain right now how many bags of cash he took and why. If members recall, he actually loaded up the Senate at one particular point to force through the GST. The party that created the GST needed the Senate to push it forward. It is ironic that he is here today.

However, we have this bill today coming from an unelected house. Our side of the House, the New Democratic Party, has a concern about that.

What happened subsequently is really troubling. When the bill went to the international trade committee, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, who represents our caucus, asked for witnesses to be brought forth and for some type of study related to the bill, which is normally what would happen on most committees.

I have been part of a number of different committees where we have moved quickly through clause by clause and so forth when there was a will and the support to do so, but when we have witnesses requested, we almost always have that consultation. That never happened. The Liberals joined with the Conservatives to block that.

The government does have some issues with regard to the tax treaty and we do want to have some of those things improved here, but there are some major unknowns and questions out there. I want to read from a communication I received. It was sent in confidence to me, so I cannot say from which legal firm it came, but it is a reputable Canadian legal firm that is giving its opinion on the tax treaty. I want to read what it has provided me in terms of the new protocol:

On September 21, 2007, a new protocol to the Treaty was signed between the federal governments of Canada and the United States and is expected to be ratified by both countries in 2008. The protocol adds a new provision under Article V of the Treaty (the “permanent establishment” article described above) to implement rules with respect to service income. Once ratified, under the protocol a Canadian company may create a permanent establishment if it provides services within the United States and meets certain thresholds. Thus, business profits associated with service activities could be subject to taxation--

Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984 December 13th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right that there probably should have been some witnesses to come forward and speak about this tax treaty. Also, the bill went to the international trade committee and not the finance committee.

I would ask the member why, at that committee, did the Liberals join with the Conservatives to block witnesses? The NDP member for Burnaby—New Westminster asked for witnesses to be brought forward and the Liberals and the Conservatives blocked that from happening. Why did his party take that position?

Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984 December 13th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary to be clear on this because we are getting mixed information from research. Is it the government's interpretation that this bill would eliminate all double taxation of U.S. social security recipients who are living in Canada but who have worked in the United States? Would this bill eliminate the double taxation that historically has taken place? Would it meet the provisions in Bill C-265, the private member's bill put forward by the member for Essex?

I want the parliamentary secretary to be on the record for the government . Would Bill S-2 achieve that goal?

Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984 December 13th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, it is a very important bill. However, what people should understand is that the bill has come from the Senate, which is an issue in itself, but second to that, there has not been a single witness about this bill and tax treaty, and that is very important.

I want to be clear about this in my question for the parliamentary secretary because we are getting contradictory information about this.

Is it the government's interpretation that the bill would eliminate all double taxation of U.S. social security recipients? Is the parliamentary secretary 100% sure that constituents, like myself, who are collecting U.S. social security, will not get double taxed anymore and that this would rectify a historic problem that we have had with double taxation for U.S. social security recipients? Is he clear that the bill would end that practice?

Passport Canada December 4th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, a massive security breach in Passport Canada's website has allowed anyone access to personal information, including social insurance numbers, dates of birth and driver's licences of Canadians who have applied for a passport.

Privacy expert Michael Geist said, “One mistake can result in significant security breaches that can put huge amounts of personal information at risk”.

Could the Minister of Public Safety inform the House how many Canadians have had their privacy violated? Will he apologize to them and ensure that accountability measures take place with those who designed the software to ensure the breach is stopped?

Canada Marine Act December 3rd, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear from the member for Burnaby—Douglas, who has been a good advocate for Vancouver and that area. He is right in expressing concern about this.

One of the important things a local board can do with some type of representation is reduce conflict before it happens. It is able to identify those issues that might be problematic to the adjacent property owners, the adjacent users and, on top of that, the regional people they are serving. Those elements come to the surface a lot more quickly then than they do by having somebody appointed from Ottawa from some dark chamber somewhere. We are talking about having people on the ground floor who are able to deal with the issues on a regular basis and are able to unplug some of the difficult problems before they manifest themselves.

When we look at the reduction of boards, it sounds great. We want to reduce these elements, but at the same time, if we do not do it with the concept of being proactive, wanting to reduce conflict and having the foresight to think about what the community will be in 25, 50 and 75 years because we and our families are being raised there, we will lose an element that is very important for the strategic connection between a port and its community.

Canada Marine Act December 3rd, 2007

Mr. Speaker, those are two very good questions from my colleague.

With regard to user fees, what is happening in my region is critical with the private Ambassador Bridge, and the government is actually insistent on a move to a public-private partnership for our new crossing in the Windsor-Detroit region. We are adding another border tax on top of our structure, which is an unnecessary profit. Second, it affects competition, production and investment in our own area. Adding this cost structure and the extra tax regime very much impedes decisions for economic development in Canada.

I agree with the member that we have to keep those fees low. To do so, we should actually have a return that goes back into the investment. We should not create an empire for the sake of creating one, but for the sake of efficiency, and procure the development on that land, which will lower fees and make it competitive.

I worry about the ideological stance of the government to make everything a business, a micro-business in itself. In fact, it has been creating miniature bureaucracies. On top of that, it has been introducing new taxes, and that is not acceptable.

The second point the member made is in terms of just in time delivery. I will be very quick. One of the exciting things we could actually get into is short sea shipping. That is one of the things this country has not taken full advantage of. I would hope that it would be done with a national shipbuilding policy, because we certainly would have a great manufacturing base to which to return this element to Canada's historic platform, as it was before.

Canada Marine Act December 3rd, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-23 and I would like to thank the member for Acadie—Bathurst for his speech. I would also like to thank the hon. member for ensuring that I would be able to speak today. Having travelled from Windsor, I just arrived moments ago in Ottawa and rushed to the House. It has been an interesting process given today's snow day.

I would like to highlight a few things in Bill C-23 that are important: first, the elements of why ports are important for our modern infrastructure; and second, the relationship that they have relative to the communities where they are situated.

We have a number of large ports like Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax. They have played national historic roles. But we also have other smaller ports like Windsor, the Windsor Port Authority, which has played an important historical role but can also be part of a greater prosperity for all of us.

BillC-23 has some significant changes. The answers to questions that I have posed to the government have yet to be responded to. Some of the questions relate to how the ports actually operate and relate to the security provisions of the bill. Others relate to the fact that there really has not been that type of structural analysis done on the ports relating to how they operate with municipalities for example and land use agreements.

We are looking at a bill, Bill C-23, that will open up the ports in a very different way. They are going to be able to borrow more funds as they have difficulty with the process that is currently in place. It is very antiquated. The bill will allow ports to borrow up to 20% of a capital project for their actual operations. Second, there is a two-tiered system. One will be enjoyed by the larger ports and then the other system that is currently in place will be refined for the smaller ports.

I am not sure that having a two-tiered system is the most advantageous way to go forward. Therefore, I am hesitant to support that idea on the surface. We look forward to hearing from witnesses at committee about that to see whether or not the small and medium size ports feel they are at a disadvantage. That is critical.

When we look at a government that is run really by one individual, with very much a top down approach, the same philosophy can apply to the ports. We might have the larger ones enjoying a greater advantage over the medium and smaller ones which can actually provide some great economic development opportunities and might want to compete to become great ports in Canada.

We have to be careful as we amend this legislation not to constrict them too much, so that if they are competing among their peers, they do not have a disadvantage that the incumbents would take advantage of from this type of a situation. We want to make sure that this issue is going to be addressed. We will be looking forward to those ports coming forth and assessing the current situation.

One of the things highlighted in the bill, which is important and we have to wonder what the logic is behind it, is a reduction in the boards that we have right now.

For example, the Vancouver port will have a reduction from its current seven to fourteen directors. In wearing my old municipal hat, the municipality appointed the individuals to the board. They were independent and they reported back to the larger body of the board, but they also had some accountability because the persons would have very much the feel of the city and the community. They would have a commitment being part of the board of directors.

What we are seeing, it appears, is a hollowing out of that membership. Once again, and this is what worries me, we could have people hand-picked from Ottawa to sit on these boards. We could have problems with that.

Many people across the country who are appointed to boards of port authorities are very competent and sit there as representatives, basically for the public trust, but what worries me as well is that we have seen in the past certain appointed positions becoming very politicized. The previous government was notorious for this. The current government has also shown the same behaviour.

In our area of Windsor, for example, the government actually sacked a judge who was very competent, who went through the Liberal patronage process. He did a good job and we wanted to keep him. However, the government sacked him anyway because of a political ideology that drives the beast.

Therefore, what we would call for is a review of this. If there is going to be the potential of a clearing out, so to speak, of all these boards of directors across the country, I would be very worried given the fact that we have not seen the ethical breakthrough so necessary by the government when it comes to patronage appointments.

No one has to look any further than the fact that the Conservatives appointed an unelected member to the Senate to be the public works minister to know that there is no measure they will not undertake, especially since it was a big break from their actual election platform. Subsequently, when we look at some of these other appointments, that is what we see.

The directors are very important. They reflect the decisions of the board and they have influence in the community.

With that, I want to move into one of the elements that is going to be loosened up in this bill. It is the availability of used port land for alternative uses. That could actually be other business plans. It could be very good for the port in many respects and also for the community. What I have asked the department, though, and it has not responded yet, is what the procedure would be to deal with the municipality affected by this.

Coming from a land planning background, I can tell members that everything is very much tied to the planning basis for sustainability, for the environment and for fairness when it comes to commercial, retail and also residential usage and so forth.

I noticed when reviewing the parliamentary secretary's speech on this matter that he took a particular interest in making sure that with these third-party agreements they did not allow condos to go on this land. However, that does not take away the fact that there could be other types of uses that could be in conflict or competition with adjacent property, for which private sector or public sector holders, whether the municipalities or the provinces, actually already have land agreements and uses on the sites.

If there is no process put in place that actually allows the municipality to look at its official plan to vet that accordingly, then we would see a circumvention of that. That is bad for the environment and bad for planning. It certainly has already been a situation that I have seen a couple of times. City land or government land has actually skirted the actual municipal processes in Ontario because the municipalities do not have to go through that same process. So what we literally have is almost an agreement by the principals involved to not have to go through the planning advisory steps. They thus avoid the Ontario Municipal Board and so forth.

One of the things we want is to see that element really defined in a crystal clear way so that the local people and the regional people who are sitting on this board have a clear understanding of the vetting process in terms of third party agreements for the use of their land.

The encouragement for this from the government is so that the ports can actually move to another level of development and also at the same time retain, if they have surplus land, some economic activity on it to actually help the port. Also, it is so they have control of those lands, so that should there in the future be the necessary requirement to use those lands, the control would be there.

Coming from Windsor West, I think that is a wise principle. We have the busiest land border crossing in North America and, in fact, for truck traffic it is the busiest in the world. We have 10,000 trucks per day that traverse this crossing.

What we have witnessed is the lack of planning because this was a private bridge. It still is a private bridge that the government of the day did not take advantage of in terms of appropriately planning out the area around it. It is now boxed in, so to speak, and even if significant land is acquired, there is no opportunity to meet the modern challenges for security and trade that are necessary and are being mandated by the United States.

Despite the platitudes of the Prime Minister, and no matter how many times he meets with the Americans and works with them, what is actually happening on the ground is that the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies are imposing new procedures, new services and new barriers for our trade through there.

Therefore, I think this principle of actually having the ports retain this land for future usage is wise, but the terms, conditions and rules are very important.

I have touched upon just a few elements tonight and only have a minute to conclude, but I do want to say the New Democrats are looking for a modern port that is also going to be very efficient in its security. Right now, less than 3% of cargo coming into this country is checked. This is a huge security risk that the government has completely ignored. That has to end.

On that note, we will be looking at this bill at committee to make improvements so it can go forward, but it has to be done with a national concept as well as a local one, because that is how things operate with the best efficiency.

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007 November 29th, 2007

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about our manufacturing sector and to get his party's input on it.

The auto parts association has made a desperate call for assistance and funding on account of the high Canadian dollar. The dollar's rapid rise has affected the manufacturing base, not only in terms of autos but also the lumber industry and other types of manufacturing in Quebec and Ontario.

There used to be a technology partnership program to assist the auto industry and the aerospace industry. The aerospace program has been reinstated, but to date the auto industry program has not been reinstated. Our party is calling for that program to be brought back again, especially as a result of the appeal from the auto parts sector. There are thousands of jobs that are on the line today. We want to see this happen. I hope my colleague's party will support our call.

My colleague and his party have been strong advocates on the industry committee with myself and others for an industrial strategy supporting the manufacturing base in general. Would the member tell us more about his party's plans? The NDP has been calling for the five year capital cost reduction allowance that was proposed with the possible five year extension.

Will his party support the call of the auto parts manufacturers because of their current problem with the rising dollar? What other measures does he suggest to protect manufacturing jobs in Quebec, Ontario and the rest of Canada?