Dennis Bevington

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand again in Parliament and speak about the types of issues that the Conservative Party brings forth within a budget.

We have an amendment now in front of us dealing with Bill C-50 to separate some of the immigration issues that are extremely important to Canadians right across the country and in my riding as well.

We think it is absolutely imperative that the heavy-handed legislation that has been introduced through the budget process be taken out.

For myself and the constituents I represent, the situation with immigration is horrendous. The backlog means loss of productivity and loss of sense of identity for many people across the country. We need to change that, yes, but to change it as it is proposed, where we could arbitrarily choose those we wish to reward with the benefits of a properly working immigration system is really wrong.

We need to keep it democratic and we need to keep it fair across this country. That is why we have put this amendment forward and that is why we will continue to not support this bill as long it contains this type of effort.

Having said that, I would like as well to talk about the budget and the budget implementation bill. In reality, I have actually been harangued by many in the Conservative Party about my position to not support the budget. So, I would like to explain that to people and get it on the record.

The other day the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, the member for Macleod, claimed that my constituents were extremely disappointed with me for not supporting the budget. I do not understand why he would say that, but he continued by saying that a member from the Northwest Territories who did not support a northern residents tax reduction was really failing his constituents.

When we look at the record, we will see that for the past eight years I have been fighting, in three elections, to put forward the concept that fairness within the northern residents tax deduction needs to be addressed.

In this Parliament, I have been consistently bringing this issue up and putting it on the order paper. I have worked with my constituents across the Northwest Territories and in the other northern territories to raise petitions and to bring attention to this issue.

It is nice to see that the Conservative Party has picked up on the issue, but it did not get the job done. A 10% increase to the northern residents tax deduction is simply a convenience to the Conservative Party so that it can say to the electorate “We did this”, when in fact what was required and was asked by all my constituents, whether they be labour, whether they be the chambers of commerce, or whether they be the legislative assemblies, was a 50% increase just to keep up with inflation for the past 20 years.

The Conservative Party did not get the job done in this budget with the northern residents tax deduction and it should be ashamed to try to fool Canadians into thinking that it did.

The Prime Minister was in my riding, in Yellowknife, a number of weeks ago. What did he do? He stood and harangued me for not supporting the budget. The Prime Minister took the time to tear into the member for Western Arctic because I did not support the budget. The Prime Minister used the northern residents tax deduction as a convenient tool to try to increase the electoral chances of his party in my riding. What a shame-faced effort that was by the Prime Minister.

That is the kind of common approach that I see this Conservative Party taking on so many issues for the north. It talks big about what it is doing for the north and yet everything it does has a hidden touch to it; it turns out to be less than what is expected.

The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development came up north the other day and talked about what he had done for crime prevention, with the new fund he set up for police procurement in the north. He is offering up $800,000 over five years to the Northwest Territories, an amount which the minister of justice in my territory admitted was only 70% of one police officer position.

In a territory that has extreme problems of distance, the cost to move police services across a vast area the size of one-sixth of the whole country of Canada, the government has offered up 70% of a police officer over the next five years to answer our needs. After the kinds of incidents in the north of over the last year with police, the troubles policemen have had, having to act on by themselves because they simply do not have the resources to implement the proper procedures used in normal situations and we this is what we get. Once again, the Conservative Party brags about a program that really amounts to nothing.

Then we go back to previous budgets wherein the Conservative government brought forward a new formula funding agreement, which at the time it touted as being very progressive. Once again, it was established that the funds would go to the three northern territories, not on what it would cost to provide services in the north, but on a per capita basis. Costs in the north are rising daily. The expanding economy in western Canada is driving up the costs to everyone to a great degree.

After the wonderful work the Conservative Party did with the new formula financing agreement, the territorial government now says it is $135 million short. It will have to cut positions and very particular things that it needs to do to provide decent services within the Northwest Territories. Therefore, we have a problem right now.

When we talk about the Northwest Territories, it is an area where money is being made. We in the Northwest Territories want to see devolution. We want to see revenue sharing from resources, which is an important thing for us, but we do not want to be shorted on that as well.

When the Conservative government announced that it would continue the $500 million socio-economic fund to be set up for the pipeline, what did it say about it? It said that the fund would not be available until the pipeline was guaranteed and that the fund was okay because it would come out of the royalties that would be accrued to the Mackenzie gas project. That is not a subsidy. That is simply giving us the money that should be ours.

If the Conservative Party is providing this fund to the north to mitigate socio-economic activities will come as a result of industrial expansion that will favour southern Canada, it should take that money out of the revenues that accrue to southern Canada, not the ones that come to the Northwest Territories. That is unfair. Once again it shows the nature of the Conservative Party when it comes to funding the north and giving it a fair share.

What about the Norman Wells project? Oil has been pumped through that pipeline from Norman Wells for some 20 years. Right now, the federal government will not put it on the table in devolution. It will not put the revenue from that project on the table. The Conservatives say that it is their money, that they traded royalties for ownership of the pipeline, that they own 33% of the pipeline and they will not share it with us in the Northwest Territories. They say that they will not give us our fair share. What kind of deal is that? What kind of respect for the Northwest Territories is that from the Conservative Party?

Would the Alberta MPs who sit in the House be satisfied with this kind of arrangement for their provinces? I do not think so. I think they would be up yelling like I am right now.

When it comes to the diamond mines, when the original environmental assessment was set up, the benefits the Northwest Territories were to receive were employment and business opportunities based on a certain rate of production. Some of the mines are exceeding their production by 50%. Do we see the government standing up for our interests in this? No. It continues to let it go, with bigger profits and bigger taxes that will accrue to the federal government. Where does that leave the people of the Northwest Territories?

[Petitions, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of Canadians from Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

This petition is a call to suspend the security and prosperity partnership of North American on continental integration.

The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to stop further implementation of the security and prosperity partnership of North America with the United States and Mexico until there is a democratic mandate from the people of Canada, until there is parliamentary oversight and consideration of the profound consequences on Canada's existence as a sovereign nation within this House of Commons.

I am very proud to present this petition.

[Public Safety, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, last night the RCMP in Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories, peacefully ended an armed standoff.

If this had happened in the community of Gameti, Northwest Territories, there would have been no police to respond.

The reason there are no police in Gameti, Colville Lake, Wrigley or Sachs Harbour is that Ottawa does not provide fair funding based on the real cost of government programs and services in the north.

The Conservatives are continuing this tradition. In the NWT, the so-called police officers recruitment fund covers about 75% of the cost of one constable, three-quarters of a crime fighter.

The NWT's solicitor general says, “We're actually kind of disappointed at the allocation because it's based on a per capita, with just a small top-up to the territories”.

It should have been clear that more funding is needed after two officers were killed in the north. Just like the Liberals, the Conservatives talk a great line on the north but they will not walk the walk.

[Business of Supply, April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to some of the things the hon. member brought up in his speech.

He referred to a competitive advantage that we would have with tax cuts in our country. In reality, one of the biggest competitive advantages we have in the country, vis-a-vis our major trading partner, is our public medicare system. To corporations in the country, that represents a significant advantage over American companies, and it is something we have to maintain. To maintain it, we need revenue and we need to have the balance of corporations supporting the revenue flow to these types of activities.

What we see now is a huge corporate tax cut. Does this help my riding? We have a diamond mining industry. Last summer I spent an extensive period of time interviewing the chief executive officers of different mines. Was their concern corporate tax cuts? No. Their concern was public investment in infrastructure that would allow those mines to stay open longer, that would allow those mines to exploit the resources.

Where will we find the dollars to invest in my territory to pull off the kind of continued resource development that can lead to profits in our country and a fair share for Canadians?

[Business of Supply, April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my hon. colleague's speech. He talked about the 2005 arrangement that was struck between the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in order to access some $5 billion of extra spending for well needed programs, including housing programs that the Conservatives claimed as their own in the last two year period.

Interestingly enough, over that time when we did not cut corporate taxes, when we did not reduce that percentage, we actually had a very robust economy. It has not impacted on businesses. That is the clear example. We did not see a downturn in the economy. We did not see businesses like banks or major oil companies leaving Canada because they did not get their corporate tax cut in 2005.

Why does the member think that his government's reckless action on reducing corporate taxes by almost 35% will give that added incentive to this economy when history has not shown that to be the case?

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the previous question from the member from the Liberal party took me aback, because of course the Liberals did support the budget, but when I look at the evidence I see that in October the Liberal leader actually was pushing for a very low corporate tax rate. I think the Conservatives responded in kind. The two parties can coexist on that basis quite well.

However, the hon. member brought up one point in his speech, which is that I think it might be more germane for the federal government to look at energy costs. Those are really important right now in Ontario and have a significant impact on the future of investment in Ontario.

When the government will not examine the nature of our natural gas supply in this country and when it will not examine the nature of the oil supply not only in this country but worldwide, how can we offer assurances to Canadian businesses and to investors that could be investing in Ontario that there will be a reasonable supply of energy for the future, that the energy will be available, and that we have a national energy strategy for Canadians first that will deliver this over the next decade?

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his elucidation of the issues of regulatory process in this country. It was something that I had heard before but it was well done.

I would like to get back to the finance minister's comments in the last while about corporate taxation. In my territory, we went through a process once of cutting corporate taxes or raising corporate taxes but we found that this would attract corporations to file in the particular province or territory with the lowest tax rate. We saw that a competition developed among the provinces, a spiraling downward of the corporate tax rate, as they each bid to keep their corporations filing in their own region.

Does my colleague think it is appropriate for Ontario to continue this practice? If we see Ontario cutting the corporate taxes, what will that do to all the other provinces and territories that will need to follow suit?

[Arctic Winter Games, March 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this week more than 2,200 athletes, coaches and officials from the northern regions of Canada, Russia, Greenland, Norway, Finland and the United States have gathered in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, for the 20th Arctic Winter Games.

This is a very special event for the people of my riding. Yellowknife hosted the very first Arctic Winter Games back in 1970.

The games focus on traditional sports such as soccer, hockey, skiing and gymnastics, along with unique Arctic sports, but also place emphasis on the diversity of northern cultures. The general theme of the games is a celebration of sport and culture.

Tomorrow I will be presenting bronze, silver and gold Ulu medals to athletes, and celebrating another successful games with thousands of participants at the official closing ceremonies.

I would like to extend my congratulations and sincere thanks to all who have helped make the 20th Arctic Winter Games the best ever, especially the dedicated volunteers who have worked so hard to make it all happen. I extend my thanks to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

[Judges Act, March 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, judges are important to us in the Northwest Territories because we have a high rate of criminal charges. We appreciate the work they do.

However, the government is engaged in a cost reduction program. The plan of the Conservative government would salary judges, but how would it ensure that we have the kind of resources required to take on extra judges, given that we have to sometimes fly them and their court staff to locations thousands of miles away from their courthouse?

[March 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, those certainly are not reassuring words to me. The first words of the hon. member's presentation were the tremendous benefit that this was to the economy. That is not the issue here.

The issue here is safety. The issue is the fact that we are putting a terminal in a very difficult location on a well-travelled and used seaway that will most likely expand its use in the future. We are adding to the use. We are adding to the danger that is inherent in any busy traffic area.

This terminal could have been put in other locations. This terminal did not have to go where it is.

I do not want to talk about the benefits of LNG. I do not think there are any. I think it is a negative loss to Canada's economy.

If the Conservative government would have taken heed of the Canada first energy policy, we would not be in this fix.