Dennis Bevington

[Business of Supply, April 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great degree of interest to the member's speech. He really did speak of a lot of things which I think most members of Parliament could agree are good things that are happening in Afghanistan. However, this motion deals with the counter-insurgency efforts in the south of Afghanistan.

Last year the Dutch as well entered southern Afghanistan in another province. Their approach has been remarkably different. Has the member looked at other approaches to what could have happened in Afghanistan and recognized where the failings of this mission have taken place in south Afghanistan?

[Business of Supply, April 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last year I faced the choice in Parliament to support the mission in Afghanistan or not. I chose not to support it at that time. Since that time, I have read many documents. I have attended forums. I have looked at all the evidence I can and have come to the conclusion that I was right in not supporting the mission, and I will continue, along with my party, not support the mission.

The position the Liberals are adopting with this motion is one that will ask for an end to the mission in 2009 rather than today. This says to the soldiers that whatever happens in Afghanistan they are finished in 2009. How does that make the soldiers feel, who have to continue this mission for another two years—

[Railway Continuation Act, 2007, April 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in today's labour market in western Canada there is a crying need for workers in all sectors of the economy, and in my sector in the Northwest Territories. We have the same need for workers and yet we see a reluctance on the part of companies to accept the stability and long term usefulness of unions and the union movement in the country.

There is still a backlash against unionized workers across the country and that is unfortunate. I think it really degrades the potential productivity increases in our society that come from a stable workforce that is well trained and well taken care of in terms of its ability to interact with the employer.

The move that the government is making today by forcing closure and back to work legislation on the rail workers is just another example of the degradation of the labour sector in our economy.

I would ask my colleague this question. How can we continue to do this in the face of the evidence that comes from a stable workforce as being good for the economy and unions being good for providing a stable workforce? This kind of action that has been taken today will once again cause conflict in the labour movement, will degrade its ability to provide the services to its people, and will reduce its bargaining position. How in the long run is this going to work for Canadians? Certainly, that is the question. How is this going to work in the long term for the productivity of our economy?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague across on his speech and his focus on the north.

In the budget, fairness was addressed in a number of ways, but I do not think fairness was addressed in terms of the northern residents tax deduction. It was mentioned in this budget but for 18 years, under the Liberals, there were no cost of living increases to the northern residents tax deduction and that has left it in a position where the benefit is not worth nearly what it was in the beginning.

The Conservatives recognized that they needed to raise the lifetime capital gains exemption from $500,000 to $750,000 because it had not been done for 20 years. The same thing applies to the tax benefits that should be there for northerners. They did not do anything about it and the Liberals did not do anything about it for 18 years.

I have a question for my hon. colleague. How does he feel about being in a government that ignored this very important part of the northern benefits structure for so many years and how can he ensure that we get this back on the agenda to make sure that northerners are treated fairly in the tax system for a change?

[Questions on the Order Paper, March 30th, 2007]

With regard to the Deh Cho First Nations, how will the government honour its commitments under the Interim Measures Agreement and the Settlement Agreement, particularly Article 13?

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2006, March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed the debate today. I look forward to the bill going to committee so the 500 pages can be reflected on by members in the detail that is required.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a function put on by people from Nunavik. They were talking about tax fairness, but they were talking about the northern residents tax deduction and the unfairness of that deduction.

I noticed in the 2007 budget the government talks about tax fairness regarding the capital gains exemption. It is suggesting that it be raised from $500,000 to $750,000 because it has not been raised for 20 years. The same situation exists with the northern residents tax deduction. It has not been raised for 20 years.

Does the hon. member think that the finance committee in its deliberations on fairness, whether it is foreign taxes or other taxes, could set some standards for the fair development of our tax system so that we can apply these standards in any debate that goes on about taxation and the Canadian public?

[The Budget, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, regardless of what the government said about Kelowna, the situation with aboriginal people remains. Quite clearly we identified with the accord the requirement for aboriginal people to have a modest chance of moving forward in this society and achieving a better future. That is what we were offering. It was not a panacea. We are not going to change the course of the poverty in this country with a $5 billion program.

[The Budget, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, where I come from in the north, we have a different form of government. It is not as partisan as it is here, but I do understand budgets and what I see in this budget is an attempt to establish support from another party in this Parliament and not from us.

I did not see this budget as being addressed to attracting support from us. This is a minority Parliament. The Conservative government had the opportunity. We had given our position about what we would like to see in the budget to garner our support, and if the Conservatives chose to go with another party's direction in terms of regional development or in terms of some of the other things that we see in the budget, that is their business.

We wanted to see the prosperity gap reduced. What I wanted to see for the north was a clear definition of what devolution and resource revenue sharing are going to mean. We have not seen that. The Conservatives have had plenty of time. Plenty of the work had been done by the Liberal Party as well.

I cannot support the budget because it did not address the issues that we saw as important.

[The Budget, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was first put into the post here, people in the north remembered what he had said when he was a critic of the Liberal government. People in the north thought there was going to be some movement, that some things would be happening. What we have seen has been almost diametrically opposed to what the minister talked about when he was a critic of the previous government.

The statements that have been made in this Parliament in the last while about the $10 billion, and the fact that it is going to aboriginal communities, are statements that I cannot agree with and the facts do not agree with them. The way the funds have been distributed, we are not going to see that $10 billion in the hands of aboriginal people and that is just a simple fact.

[The Budget, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a week since the hon. member for Whitby—Oshawa brought forth his second federal budget, a plan to spend $237 billion, most of it out of the pockets of ordinary Canadians.

Members of another party in the House have described this second work as a shotgun budget, one that scatters money with no clear plan. The fact that the Liberals do not know who is being helped by the budget shows how much they do not get it.

I can say who is not being helped by the budget. Average Canadians do not get much help. Aboriginal people do not get much help from the budget. Only the wealthy and corporations get significant help from the budget.

The $9 billion corporate tax cut instituted last year continues to provide fatter profits while not requiring reinvestment in the economy. The belief that making the rich richer helps ordinary people is as accurate as the belief that the earth is flat.

In case the finance minister is not aware of it, making the rich richer only makes the poor poorer. If he wants to give large corporations a tax break, he should make it contingent on their investing a portion of their profits back in the economy.

There is only one corporate tax change in the budget that we support. The Conservatives have agreed with the oft stated demand of the NDP to take away the large tax breaks, the accelerated capital cost allowance for oil and gas corporations for the development of the oil sands. Unfortunately, this billion dollar giveaway will not end until 2015. By that time much of the development will be in place at very high oil prices and a very great return.

By taxing to death average Canadians while allowing their corporate friends to pay less and less taxes, the Conservatives, like the Liberals before them, have ended up taking an extra $14 billion from the pockets of hard-working Canadians. They have dedicated $9 billion of that to debt repayment, even though Canada has the lowest national debt of any of the G-7 countries. Our economy continues to produce good numbers resulting in huge government revenues, largely by increasing the tax burden on ordinary Canadians over the last 20 years.

Working Canadians have paid to put the government fiscal house in order. That job is done and the benefits should flow back to average Canadians.

The hon. member for Whitby—Oshawa I am sure would say that the budget does return benefits. I am sure he would point to the approximately $3.1 billion provided to the provinces this year, the so-called fiscal rebalancing. However, did the minister or any of the government members get commitments that this cash gift will result in better programs and services for average Canadians? No, they did not.

We have already seen a Liberal premier promise to make $700 million in tax cuts to buy votes, a cynical move which makes the rich richer but has others crying foul. Imagine a Conservative government that has used the taxes of average Canadians to help a Liberal get elected.

For aboriginal people the budget is nothing but a disappointment. The new spending for aboriginal people in the budget works out to about $14 a person but in reality, even this small amount is somewhat tenuous. For aboriginal housing, the budget rededicates $300 million to the development of a housing market in first nations communities.

To develop a real estate market, one needs to buy and sell land. However, section 20 of the Indian Act says no first nations person is lawfully in possession of land in a reserve. So a real estate market on reserves is a non-starter, of course, unless the government wants to sell off the reserves just like past Conservative governments sold off Métis land. This is where the free market idea of the hon. member for Whitby—Oshawa runs into the hard cold reality of the discriminatory system Canada has imposed upon aboriginal people.

If the government wants to take action on the acute need for housing on reserves, it should be helping with the construction of band owned housing on reserves rather than this fallacy of creating a real estate market. Because Liberals and Conservatives have long turned their backs on aboriginal people, the cost of really improving reserve housing would be far greater than the $300 million that has been allocated. Unfortunately, even this pittance for housing does not help the vast majority of aboriginal people who live off reserves. Where is the housing support for the people who left their reserves or never had one in the first place?

The real truth about aboriginal poverty is it is government created. The budget trumpets that more than $9 billion, many say more than $10 billion, is spent on aboriginal people. However, almost half of that never reaches the first nations, Métis and Inuit at whom it is targeted. If the huge amounts dedicated to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development actually reached aboriginal people, first nations, Métis and Inuit there would not be such a thing as poverty in their communities. In their poverty, aboriginal people of Canada are a renewable resource for the bureaucrats at DIAND.

The Treasury Board has estimated that $600 million is spent on overhead each year at the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. That is not only on aboriginal people. Of course, there is northern development. There is a skyscraper full of DIAND bureaucrats in Yellowknife and hundreds of other people working in other offices.

Devolution is required because in the north we can do better. We can do better with the resources that are being held by northern development for our purposes. We could put those people to better use. We want to see devolution move forward more rapidly than the Conservatives have been able to accomplish in their year and a half in government, and the Liberals for many years before that.

The leadership of the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut have all said how much this budget helps. To be honest, the new formula funding arrangement is better than the formula imposed by the Liberals. I am glad to see the base amount has been increased and that 1985 numbers are no longer being used as the starting point. Updating this figure is just another thing the Liberals could not find the time to do.

I am glad to see a more fair system is being used for calculation of the formula, unlike the perverse system imposed by past governments, but I am concerned that the new formula still uses population in its calculation. Multiplying the average southern cost of a program or service by a territory's population does not reflect the real cost in the north for that program or service.

The government has also agreed to raise the NWT borrowing limit from $300 million to $500 million, a move that is long overdue and essential in that the existing borrowing limit is strained with utility and mortgage debt, most owed to the Government of Canada. The borrowing limit still does not match up to that of the city of Yellowknife, which can borrow up to 50% of its assessed value.

For northerners there are many things missing in this budget. For starters, there is not one word about Arctic sovereignty being enhanced. Where are all those Conservative promises that were made during the election? Where is all the concern about the sanctity of our Arctic reflected in this budget?

Where is the relief for northerners from the high cost of living? For some time northern politicians have been calling for an increase in the northern residents tax deduction. I and others have said that the deduction needs to be increased by 50%.

In the budget speech the minister stated how the capital gains exemption was in need of an immediate increase because it had not been changed in 20 years. The northern residents tax deduction has not been changed in that long as well, but then only average Canadians wanted this change, not the business elite.

The northern residents tax deduction changed a bit. The change is a cynical, pork-barrelling addition of the southern part of the government whip's riding. It is shameful to say the least. To put that in the budget without doing a whole program is a waste.

The NWT got no action on resource revenue sharing. The resources of the NWT rival those of nations such as South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, but not one cent of the royalties from the resources help the people of the Northwest Territories. For more than a generation Canada has been saying it is willing to hand over control and ownership of these riches. However, the Conservative government, just like those in the past, continues to delay.

The current excuse is that it needs to restart negotiations. Every day Canada delays fulfilment of this promise is another day that millions of dollars, whether from the diamond mines or the oil and gas fields, are lost to the people of the Northwest Territories. The people of the Northwest Territories do not mind hearing mañana when on vacation in Mexico but are tired of hearing it from Ottawa when it comes to the ownership of resources.

What is really worrying about this budget is on page 186 of the budget plan. On that page the Conservative government lays out its plan for negating its commitments under the land claims agreements and to silence the voice of northerners when it comes to environmental assessments and determining how development will occur in the north.

According to the budget a law written to implement the portion of land claims where aboriginal people are granted a say in how their land is used must be changed because the pro-industry Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development feels it is too restrictive to large corporations. It is clear that the minister's purpose is to gut the little protection the aboriginal people and other northerners have under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, making it open season for rampant exploitation.

It is clear from this statement in the budget that the Conservatives will not let anything get in the way of large corporations exploiting the north, even if it means going back on the word of the Crown.

No, this is not a budget for everyone. It is not a budget for hard-working, ordinary Canadians. It is not a budget for aboriginal people, nor is it a budget for the people of the north. It is certainly not a budget I can support.