Daniel Paillé

[Tax Harmonization, March 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, on page 68 of his 2006 budget, the minister mentioned that five provinces had not harmonized their sales tax, and Quebec was not among them. This means that our tax has been harmonized since 1992. Now, the Minister of Finance is contradicting himself.

Is this just an excuse not to give the Quebec nation its due, while the Quebec Conservatives look on approvingly? Billions of dollars for Ontario, zilch for Quebec.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Of course, we cannot give the whole picture in ten minutes. I focused on investments, but if we take agriculture, for example, the situation is clear and there is no need to travel to Colombia to see it. We can see it in Quebec right now. Some entrepreneurs and investors come from China, for example, and buy our farmland. We see it in Quebec. We are fighting against that. We think it does not make sense. The food that feeds people comes from the land. Therefore, it is very important to own our land. So, if this is happening here, one can well imagine that it can easily happen in Colombia.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be compared to my predecessor, Réal Ménard, who, I am told, was a great orator here. To have succeeded him, both in Hochelaga and in this House, is an honour that I share with the constituents of Hochelaga.

I did have the opportunity to travel to Colombia to assess investments that were not made at the time. We tried to look at the issue of risk management. Indeed, investing implies the management of risks. We put money down and we may end up getting more or less than our investment. In particular, when we invest abroad, there may be various ways to get compensated when events that are out of our control occur such as, for example, the full nationalization of a specific mineral. The decision is made by the country. I have nothing against compensation, but not huge compensation on an investment and on the expected return.

So, what is going to happen? Mining companies, but also other types of businesses are going to invest in Colombia. A former NDP leader used to talk about corporate bums. These people will invest there, and if things do not work out, they are going to get a refund that will even include a return. This does not make sense. It does not make any sense.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would have liked my learned colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue to ask a question, but that will come, I am sure.

This morning the member for Outremont also talked about his knowledge of environmental matters, because he was an environment minister. My colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie came next and talked about his ideas on that. They have experience in this area.

I had the great honour of being minister of industry, trade and commerce in Quebec for a time. And so I am going to try to talk a little more about the commercial, industrial and investment variables that an agreement of this nature should include.

To begin, I think that, as a matter of principle, what we must not flout are the principles themselves. A principle cannot be negotiated. A principle is not something we adopt if it suits us and change later when the wind changes. That is not how it works. People on the government side, in the Conservative Party, have somewhat hard heads, as we know, and they are digging their heels in. They say they want to sell this bill as a matter of principle. That is fine, they are entitled to do that. And we are entitled to oppose it. Our principles are not the same.

From time to time, the official opposition is, on principle, with us and with the NDP, which stands by its principles. But I am wondering how it is that the official opposition has decided, for somewhat nebulous reasons and on principle, to change sides.

The purpose of a government is to propose things. The purpose of opposition members and the House is to improve them, or to oppose them if the necessary improvements cannot be made.

The government has introduced a bill that, in our opinion, must be widely denounced. Even Human Rights Watch, in February 2010, said that the social situation in Colombia was out of the ordinary and was not improving. If it is not improving, can we, as a government and as parliamentarians, bring pressure to bear to improve it, at the same time as this government wants Canada to sign an agreement with which we are in complete disagreement?

We know very well that the agreement in front of us is not a trade agreement because there is very little trade between Canada and Colombia. It is not the same volume of trade that there is between Canada and the United States, for example. It is an agreement for investments. When we look at it more closely, we see that these investments will be made by corporations from here in mines down there. The investments are not in the urban core and not part of the urban fabric. They will be made in remote areas, where the people live off the land and where the natural resources are, ready to be exploited. So there will be investments.

In a former life, people often hired me to make investments for them. There are some standard provisions. For example, it is normal to have provisions so that if something happens, the business plan cannot be followed as originally laid out. In business speak, those provisions are called covenants, or obligations to do or not do something. I sign a contract and say that if A happens, A being something that will decrease the value or profitability of my investment, I have various avenues of recourse. The final recourse is a refund because of a given situation. Unfortunately, it has happened that an investment was made and it was not profitable. The investor is then reimbursed.

There is still one thing in this agreement that I do not understand. If events were to diminish the profitability of their projects, the companies—and not the state—could basically take justice into their own hands. They could sue the government because their expected production was not met. They could ask for a full reimbursement of their investments and the profits that were not made. That is rather odd. That clause makes no sense in terms of trade.

What types of events could decrease the expected profitability laid out in an investor's business plan? Almost anything, really. If, in order to protect the environment, equipment needed to be added to purify the air, treat waste and improve extraction methods, the expected profitability would obviously decrease.

All environmental aspects would be excluded because, in the short term, they are costly. They might be lucrative in the long term—we see this more and more—but in the short term, for a private investor, they involve costs. The same is true concerning how the labour force is treated. Countries like this use child labour. People there are forced to work, and the working conditions are not like ours. If we want to improve working conditions and reduce the number of children working in mines, what will happen? Salaries will increase, profitability will decrease and businesses would then be able to sue the government. This kind of argument makes no sense.

It goes too far. The concept of expropriation is too broad. Legal proceedings can be far too onerous. We are told that if we invest in a country and expropriation takes place, there will be compensation.

I do not understand why this government is about to give compensation to Canadian businesses and investors in Colombia, yet it refuses to give Quebec any compensation for harmonizing its sales tax. Zero. Nada. Niet. Nothing. What a double standard.

As a final point, I would like to talk about the impact of this agreement, which goes only one way, since it will be Canadian investors who will invest in Colombia. How will this affect Colombia? It will perpetuate the current system. In Canada, it will mean unfair competition for Canadian companies that do not invest in that country, but must compete with other companies that invest there. Workers will no longer be allowed to organize themselves or execute business plans. The only executions will be of those who organize workers and a number of union leaders, as some members have already mentioned.

For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, out of respect for our principles, will vote against this bill.

[Taxation, March 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is the fourth answer to the same question.

The Quebec government is going to table its budget this week, but the federal government refuses to pay it its due. There are $8 billion that are dormant here in Ottawa, including $800 million for post-secondary education, $2.2 billion for harmonizing the sales tax, and $1 billion for capping equalization payments.

What is the Government of Canada waiting for to pay its debt to the Quebec government?

[Taxation, March 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when it is time to grab money from the working class, the government does not waste any time. However, when it is time to make the rich pay, it drags its feet.

The Bloc Québécois has proposed and is still asking that the government put an end to tax evasion and tax havens, that it take away the gifts made to oil companies, and that it impose a surtax on those whose annual taxable income exceeds $150,000.

Just why does the government not ask these privileged people to do their share in the fight against the deficit?

[Securities, March 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the minister better show up in the Pierre-Basile Mignault Room of the Quebec Court of Appeal at 9:30 tomorrow morning.

There are three clear issues. They deal with the Government of Canada's alleged jurisdiction over the regulation and voluntary registration of issuers. In the real world, that is nothing short of an attempt by the federal government to hijack Quebec's financial industry for the benefit of Toronto.

Should the Minister of Finance not focus on the real problems and refrain from breaking something that is working well?

[Securities, March 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the chief justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal will hear the arguments of the Government of Canada in connection with its intrusion in the securities field. Quebec stands united against such an attack by the federal government in this field of jurisdiction.

Could the Minister of Finance tell this House why he instructed his solicitors to divest Quebec of a financial lever that is vital to the Quebec nation?

[Financial Markets, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, to counter speculation and to get the banks to do their part, a number of world leaders such as Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel support the idea of a tax on foreign exchange markets.

In the meantime, the Minister of Finance is dragging his heels. He opposes a Tobin tax and any other tax of the kind. He persisted last week during his recent European tour. He thinks everyone is out of step except him.

When will the government stop aiding and abetting the speculators who treat the financial markets like the wild west?

[Securities, March 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to undermining Quebec's autonomy, it seems already that the creation of a single securities commission will be a very expensive bureaucratic monster. You have to be totally out of touch with reality to want to waste $161 million in these times of record deficits.

Is the government's real objective to force all AMF stakeholders and users to do business with English voice mail in Toronto, to trump unanimous resolutions by the Quebec's National Assembly, in short, to dismantle Montreal's financial hub?