Dennis Bevington

[Food and Drugs Act, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-251, a bill that would place labels on bottles for substances containing 1% alcohol. I come from the Northwest Territories where labels have been on bottles for almost 20 years. Therefore, I feel somewhat enlightened on this issue in comparison to many other places in the country.

People in the Northwest Territories have struggled with alcohol issues for a long period of time. There are higher rates of consumption and incarceration. The criminal justice system is taken up with alcohol related issues. We can say what we want about other substance abuse, but the RCMP that polices us and the justice system that enforces penalties speak clearly with one voice. They say that alcohol is the substantive problem within the Northwest Territories.

In the last boom in the Arctic in the seventies, a boom that was artificially enhanced by the super-depletion allowance given to oil and gas companies to explore for oil and gas, we saw an incredible increase in fetal alcohol syndrome disorders in children. In some cases, schools were reporting that over 30% of children could be identified as perhaps having a fetal alcohol effect or fetal alcohol syndrome. This was an enormous problem and a heartbreaking problem in the lives of people. It created cost to society from birth onward. It caused family problems. It had an enormous impact on the population.

Therefore, 20 years ago we put labels on bottles to identify alcohol content for young women who may have drank for the first time or people who did not understand the impact of it. These labels would at least give women some indication that they were putting something very valuable and important at risk if they drank while pregnant. Over the years this action, along with others, has somewhat helped the situation with alcohol abuse in the Northwest Territories. It did not help completely, by no means.

We have also instituted rules that allow individual communities to ban alcohol consumption or to make decisions about alcohol rationing. We have done many things to try to combat the problem because we see the impact on society and in families, and it is still very much the case.

When it comes to supporting labels on bottles for the rest of the country, it is a great idea. The way it is done in the Northwest Territories is pretty simple. The bottles go into liquor stores and the owners and workers have a device similar to a device to put prices on a bottle but with a slightly larger imprint and they put a label on a bottle. It is a simple process, it is not costly and it is effective in providing information to people about the nature of the impact of the content in the bottle.

Six years ago the House voted overwhelmingly for a motion by one of my colleagues from Winnipeg North to put warning labels on bottles of alcohol. However, in the intervening years both the Liberal and Conservative governments have ignored the will of Parliament. I find that strange and unsettling. We have to take account when private members' bill and motions come forward and are supported by Parliament as a whole for the good of the people of Canada. We have to follow up on these things.

One private member's initiative, which I respect, was brought forward by a Conservative member. It took the material out of cigarettes that kept them burning after they were put in an ashtray or when it fell out of somebody's hands onto a bed, which caused so many fires and deaths in the country. We got that law and finally after years and years, we changed the system in our country to protect people. It saves lives.

Here we have another private member's bill that pleads with the House and with the government to follow through with things that are good for Canadians. Why are we not going with it? Why are we not making this effort? Why do we have this inertia in the system? Why can we not be more accommodating to the will of Parliament?

On the other side, we could put warning labels about drinking and driving. We could encourage educate people in this regard. We entirely support Mothers Against Drunk Driving, but let us help people understand that drinking and driving is wrong. They can look at the bottle and see, “When you drink this, do not drive, get a cab”.

What is wrong with those kinds of instructions to society? For those who like their $20 bottles of wine, is it demeaning to see a label on the side of it? Have we wrecked the ambience of the drink by putting a label on the bottle? That is part of what we do.

When we put those rather obscene labels on packages of cigarettes, they were a good indicator. They show people what happens, what the results of the overuse of the tobacco product are. We do not argue about them anymore. They are there. Let us do the same thing with alcohol. Let us recognize that. Let us put the labels on the bottles. Let us do something for Canadians that is useful. Let us not get this caught up in the inertia of Parliament and the special interest groups and all those who stand against the will of the people of our country.

We put warning labels on kites so people do not fly them next to power lines. What a good idea, a little indication to somebody to keep the kite away from the power line. Does that hurt people? No. It is a sensible thing to do.

We put warning labels on coffee cups in case people might burn themselves. My goodness, a burn heals a lot faster than a fetus attacked by alcohol in the womb. A little burn on a leg from a cup of coffee does not match up to a lifetime of misery for a family and for the person who has the particular disease or accident of fetal alcohol syndrome.

I totally support the bill. It works in our territory. I ask the rest of Canada to follow suit.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I really cannot respond to questions unless I understand the direction that is being taken.

I appreciate the member's concern about the forest industry. I think we need a massive strategy in the forest industry to drive new investment.

Last night I met with the manager of Tembec. We had a very good conversation about how we could actually work within the industry.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there was not much of a question there but there was a lot of historical inaccuracies.

We have to look at what happened when the New Democratic Party took over in Saskatchewan from the most corrupt government that Saskatchewan ever had, a Conservative government that ran it into the ground, that is its record.

We can go back in history to look at the kinds of things that have gone on in government. However, what we are saying here is that the government will be taking $12 billion out of the system by 2012. That needs better emphasis. The government is taking that money, throwing it in the air and allowing it to fall anywhere.

We need to have directed incentives in this economy to help the industries that need help and to move the country forward with infrastructure that can build industry and support industry, rather than this laissez-faire market approach that has driven this country for 20 years. It has driven our energy industry to the point where by 2020 we will be importing natural gas to heat our homes. What kind of a strategy was that? What kind of effort was that? I think the shame of that should stand in front of this Parliament.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand today to speak to the amendment that my party has proposed on the economic update statement delivered by the government. Of course, our amendment speaks directly to one aspect of the bill, not all aspects. It speaks to the aspect of the bill that we find most troubling.

We are only being consistent. We were only being consistent in 2005. At that time, we saved the Liberal government from imminent defeat by forcing it to retract a corporate tax cut it was proposing. We had the money reinvested in many programs, some of which are programs that the Conservative Party has taken much credit for over the last while in regard to the few things it has thrown out to people in Canada in terms of housing and post-secondary education.

Our position is very consistent. It has carried forward over the years. It has carried through different governments. Why is it like that? One reason, quite clearly, is that it is different from that of the other two parties that sit here.

The other two parties that sit here represent corporate interests. In their desire to represent those corporate interests, they have been bidding down the tax system in this country over many years. They have been bidding it down in order to hold the respect and the support of the corporate system in their efforts to get re-elected and hold on to power in this country.

Recently, the leader of the Liberal Party said the Liberals would be moving to the left with a platform that would include measures to aid students in paying for post-secondary tuition, to combat poverty and to support seniors. In order to do that, we need revenue. As a person who came up through the municipal side, and having been a mayor for many years, I know that collecting revenue is the only way that we can institute programs to provide services to people.

The cuts proposed by the Conservatives in their last budget and in this budget update are massive. They stand next to the ones that we just heard about from my Liberal colleague from Richmond Hill, who spoke of the $100 billion that the Liberals gave up to tax cuts in the early part of this decade.

These tax cuts are in the order of $190 billion over the next five years. Of that $190 billion, where is it coming from? Our numbers show that with full implementation of the corporate tax cuts proposed by the government, by 2012 this figure would amount to $12 billion a year. Let us compare it to the GST cuts. The GST cuts now cost about $5 billion a year per percentage reduction, so we are going to see a $10 billion reduction through the GST cuts. On personal tax cuts, the estimate is that they will amount to only $8.4 billion over a six year period, so they are really not the issue that is of key importance here in terms of raising revenue for the government to deliver the services that Canadians require.

Therefore, when we stand up and say we do not support corporate tax cuts, we do that for a very good reason. Let us look at the profit in the Canadian corporate system, where one-half of the corporate pre-tax profits come from the financial sector and the booming oil, gas and mining sector. Half of the money that we are giving up here comes from two sectors in our economy that are not likely to leave. They are not likely to relocate to some other jurisdiction. They are essentially part of the Canadian economy. The rest of the corporate interests right across this country, from small businesses to large, make up the other percentage.

What we in the NDP say when it comes to providing incentives in the economy is that we need to send those incentives in the directions that are required. We do not need blanket corporate tax cuts that do nothing to answer the questions that our colleague from the Bloc raised earlier about the forest industry and the manufacturing sector. Corporate tax cuts do not do it. We are saying no to these cuts and we are hoping that others in the House will see the logic of that and join us in this effort.

Over the last six months, I took the time to look at the mining industry in the Northwest Territories because I felt it was very important to understand its impact. I also did it because the federal government has the final say on all mineral development in the north and makes the decisions about royalties and the direction of investments that may occur as a result of that.

Right now the diamond industry does not need tax cuts. It needs directed investment in infrastructure that can deliver more profit and royalties and can make a better deal for Canadians out of the resource being extracted in that region. Tax cuts will not accomplish that. Tax cuts will not build electrical transmission lines to the Slave Geological Province so we can reduce the costs of the fossil fuels burned to provide energy for the mines. Tax cuts will not build the highways required to get supplies to those areas. None of those will be accomplished through tax cuts. Those things will be accomplished through government investment in infrastructure that is required to produce more profit for government through increased royalties and taxation.

There is a role in this country for directed investment and I see it quite clearly in my area. When we looked at the opportunity for profits and to expand the diamond mining industry, we saw that there was a role for the federal government in establishing a national diamond strategy. The diamond industry needs a national diamond strategy. Diamond mines are being opened in Ontario and Nunavut. Opportunities also exist in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Mining diamonds represents about 10% to 15% of the value of this resource. The way things are going in Canada, we are letting the rest of the value in this very large sector escape the country. This is because the Liberals have a laissez-faire or marketplace attitude toward investment and the Conservatives have the same ideology going on. They are not allowing us as a country to maximize the return from our resources and allowing us to say that we have an interest in making that happen.

Corporate tax cuts will not do that for us. That is not directed investment. That is not what we need right now. Let us get serious. Let us forget the ideology that drives those two larger parties, which may not be so large after the next election, to continue the way they are going.

[The Environment, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, a recent report done by the Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan, downstream from the oil sands, found elevated cancer causing chemicals in the water of the Athabasca River. Other reports have shown a clear link between the oil sands development and water pollution.

The federal government is responsible for trans-boundary water pollution. Rather than encouraging even more oil sands development, when will it work to protect the people of northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories?

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to my hon. colleague's statements. I find it somewhat incomprehensible that a member of a party elected by many progressive voters in Quebec would come out with a statement like that on a very serious topic: the complete movement by the government toward reducing corporate taxes, as supported by the Liberals. This is a direction from which we cannot return.

The member has provided many ideas and direction on the need to carefully select areas in the economy for which to provide incentives. We cannot do it if we do not have the revenue base.

By going against the motion, he has set up a future in which the federal government will not have the ability to make the kinds of investments that need to be made to improve industries in his province.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's statement on this amendment. I am curious about what the minister said in regard to what attracts corporations to invest in this country.

I would say that right now corporations are attracted to investing in this country for our great resource base, one that is accelerating in value. Around the world, resources are at a premium. Many corporations are investing in energy in this country, once again because the energy is here.

Let us talk about the manufacturing sector. One of the largest incentives for manufacturing investment in Canada is our public health care system, which gives us a tremendous advantage over the United States and its private insurance system for employees of large companies.

What we see in Canada is that we have incentives for corporations that are built into, first, what we sell, our raw resources, which are in high demand, and, second, the services we provide to corporations. How are these tax cuts going to improve that situation? How are they going to make that any better?

[Energy, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on the eve of Bali there are many other considerations about LNG. The government is not showing leadership on energy issues. If it were, it would heed the call from provincial premiers and its own National Energy Board to create a Canada first energy strategy.

Importing LNG from Russia does nothing to build a future for Canadians. When it comes to energy issues, can the minister explain why the government is more concerned with the interests of big business rather than protecting the people of Quebec and Canada?

[LNG Terminals, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government has come out against liquefied natural gas tankers travelling through our waters off New Brunswick. The Minister of Foreign Affairs said in September, “We want to protect our people and the environment...The prime minister has been very clear on this”.

Before that, when the Prime Minister attended the SPP summit in August, he made the same point that these tankers are too dangerous. He made it to George Bush.

Why is this government not standing up for the people of Quebec who are concerned about these same tankers on the St. Lawrence to the proposed Rabaska terminal?

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 3rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as far as I can see, the Conservatives, like the Liberals before them, are against anything that smacks of an industrial strategy that would actually turn the country around. They just seem to want to hold on to the ideology of a market driven approach, and it ain't working.