Dick Harris

[Wal-Mart, February 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is time to set the record straight on Wal-Mart stores. They employ over 70,000 Canadians and do business with over 6,000 Canadian suppliers. They employ thousands of seniors and students in part time work in addition to their full time staff.

Wal-Mart contributes over $135,000 every week to Canadian charities and last year raised and donated over $7 million to Canadian charities.

Wal-Mart is continually ranked as the best retailer in Canada to work for and last year ranked eighth as the best overall company in Canada to work for.

Wal-Mart stores are favourites with Canadians because they benefit communities with economic development, charitable giving, good jobs in a great workplace, opportunities for the disabled and, let us not forget, great products at low prices.

I say well done, Wal-Mart. As a corporate citizen, Wal-Mart sets a fine example. I say way to go, Wal-Mart.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member from the NDP. I have to ask this. Where was she between 1991 and 2000, when the NDP was in power in British Columbia? It was doing to health care exactly what that member is saying this government is doing. We saw the health care in British Columbia sink to its lowest point of delivering service and its highest point of waiting lists that that province or any province has ever seen.

How on earth does she expect Canada to operate on what she is saying when there are examples like British Columbia, an NDP government in those years, that totally were a dismal failure in the business of health care?

[Income Tax Act, February 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for Windsor West just said in his presentation, we are going to continue the fight for the passage of Bill C-265. We are going to continue to press the Liberals to live up to their thus far broken promises of two elections ago.

We are going to continue that fight led by my colleague from Essex, a brand new MP who has a fire burning in his belly for the seniors who are a particular part of this bill. We are going to be joined by the NDP and the hon. member for Windsor West, who is leading the charge on behalf of that party, and by the Bloc Québécois. We are going to continue this fight because what we are dealing with is an attempt to rectify one of the cruelest tax grabs in the history of this country, a tax grab put onto over 80,000 seniors in this country by the Liberal government when the current Prime Minister was the minister of finance.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to tell you a little Christmas story if I may. I know you like Christmas. I just want to explain how the Liberal government, when the current Prime Minister was the minister of finance, spoiled Christmas and devastated Christmas dreams in 1995 for over 80,000 Canadians. I will be quoting as I tell this story.

During the Christmas season of 1995, most Canadians were enjoying Christmas, preparing for that special day when the family would get together and they would talk about how blessed they were to be living in such a great country, although yes, it is difficult to get by for some Canadians, including our seniors who are existing on pensions.

In this case they were seniors who had spent some time living in America, had qualified for social security benefits, and had moved back to Canada for whatever reason, but they were getting pension benefits. And particularly for those seniors, over 80,000 of them, here is what happened to them. They received a Christmas letter that shattered their lives.

It is important to point out that these were Canadian seniors who had already retired. They had already spent many years looking down the road to see how their retirements from their working days were going to be. They had made plans. They had set aside funding to supplement whatever pensions they were going to get, and for all intents and purposes, they had their plans all set.

They were on fixed incomes and they were going to receive pensions: first, a social security pension from the U.S., and second, a pension from the Canadian pension plan. They were quite satisfied to live with the fact that 50% of what they were receiving from the United States was going to be taxed in Canada. They were quite satisfied with that. They were getting by because they had made plans.

Suddenly they got a letter in December 1995 from the U.S. social security administration stating that beginning on January 1, 1996--and we must remember that this was December 1995--there would be a 25.5% non-refundable withholding tax applied to their benefits. This came out of the blue. Why? Because the Canada-U.S. tax treaty had been amended to allow the country that issues the benefits to collect the tax. We are talking about maybe three weeks' notice about this after they had spent years planning how their retirement incomes were going to go. We are talking about three weeks' notice that a tax increase was coming to these seniors who were living on their pensions and whatever other personal savings they had been able to put away. This was a life-changing thing.

The current Prime Minister, who was the finance minister back in those days, is the same minister who promised tax fairness to every Canadian in the 1993 red book. However, as the current Prime Minister says, he used some expletives in describing the red book, which I will not do in the chamber because it is not allowed, but he admitted that he wrote the red book and that fair taxation was in the red book. This is another example of a broken promise. He wanted to beat the crap out of seniors with punishing taxation measures and have them only three weeks' notice.

It was in December 1995 when they would have received it and it was to go into force on January 1, 1996. It did go into force and it caused severe hardship to this particular group of 80,000 and some seniors.

In 1997 or thereabouts the protocol changed again. Most seniors listening to the election promises of the Liberals prior to the 1997 election believed that they would revert back to the original 50% inclusion.

What happened was that the new protocol now said that Canada would collect all the taxes but that instead of the 50% threshold, it would be increased to 70%, up to 85% of what they were getting in social security payments. This represented a huge tax grab and would further destroy the financial plans of these 85,000 or so seniors.

I think it is important to point out that all the time that this was going on, the current Prime Minister, who was the minister of finance at that time, was also talking about closing some offshore tax havens, which he did. However, while he was beating up on this group of seniors with this punishing amendment to how the taxes between the two countries would be collected, he was closing some of the offshore tax havens for shipping but managed to leave open the Barbados connection to which most of his ships were registered. This multi-millionaire created a tax haven to unfairly collect tax refunds and tax exemptions that most Canadians could never in their wildest dreams imagine would happen to them, unless of course they were the finance minister making the rules.

I am very proud of the member for Essex who has made a commitment to the seniors in his riding. There was so much pressure on these seniors that they had to band together and form an organization in order to add a little more clout to what they were saying. The group is called seniors asking for social security fairness. I guess fairness is the word.

The member for Essex has spent a lot of time discussing this discriminatory tax protocol with them. He understands their plight and he understands how the sudden imposition of a new tax level has caused them a lot of distress, which is something they do not need in their golden years.

I congratulate the member for Essex who, given the demonstration since he came to this Parliament, will be around for many years and for many Parliaments to come. He is a dedicated young man and one who has just added a new member to his family but here he is today fighting on behalf of about 85,000 seniors who have been victims of this very discriminatory, unfair and cruel tax grab perpetrated by the Prime Minister of Canada, who was the finance minister back when this all took place.

I thank the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and all our caucus members. I hope all those over there who know this is right will have the courage to support the bill brought forward by the member for Essex.

[Supply, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, whoever wrote the speech for the hon. member clearly did not understand the intent of the motion today. It appears that the member who just spoke does not really understand what we are asking. He does not appear to understand the crisis that our agriculture producers are in today because the CAIS program simply does not work for them.

Government assistance programs should be available to agriculture producers during a crisis such as the BSE crisis. The cattle producers do not have the money for the deposit. That is the bottom line. So they cannot take advantage of the assistance available to them under the CAIS program. That is what we are trying to get across to the government.

We are asking it to view this as a disaster assistance program and not require producers to come up with 25% of the total amount because they simply do not have it. The CAIS deposit program has been universally rejected by agriculture producers all across this country because it unfairly hurts the producers and it strikes them at a time when they do not have 25% of the money. That is what the intent of this whole motion is today.

While the hon. member who just spoke talked about marketing boards and all the other stuff, it had nothing to do with the motion. The nub of the motion is requesting that the government understand the plight of the farmers. They do not have the money to pay the 25% deposit required and we are asking the government to view this crisis as a disaster, and view it as an urgent crisis that has to be dealt with in an urgent manner. The farmers do not have the money. The cattle people do not have the money so they cannot access the program. What good is a program that they cannot access? That is what we are trying to get across.

I would like the hon. member to talk specifically about that point.

[Supply, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. According to the rules of the House, members who are speaking are required to spend at least a little time focusing on the subject of the debate and the hon. member certainly has disregarded that rule.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2, February 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright delivered a pretty good presentation of the mismanagement by the Liberal government.

The Liberal member opposite does not understand when my colleague is talking about tax relief that there is a direct relationship between a low level tax regime and a buoyant economy. The member asked what it would cost the government. This money will not be put away under the bed. It will be spent. It will spur the economy and bring in additional tax revenue to the government. The member has to get that point clearly in focus in order to understand what the Conservative Party and my colleague were talking about.

I want to ask my colleague about a couple of things that were not mentioned in the budget. The fact is that for about 15 years the disposable income of the average Canadian family has remained stagnant despite raises in pay. While the Liberals crow about tax relief for Canadians, that just is not so. It is false crowing.

Would the member comment on that?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2, February 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright.

[Forestry, February 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the government is fully aware that the forests of British Columbia are being ravaged by a devastating pine beetle epidemic, but the government has made it very clear that it simply does not care.

At this time over 300 million cubic metres of mature pine trees have been attacked. That number will grow to over one billion by 2013. Again the Liberal government has made it very clear that it simply does not care.

In the fall of 2004 the minister of forests from B.C. asked the federal government to come to the aid of B.C. in a new 10 year plan to mitigate the pine beetle disaster. The government has not responded. Again the government has made it very clear that it simply does not care.

The federal Minister of Industry from B.C. has done nothing to urge his government to help B.C. in its pine beetle crisis. He has made it very clear that he simply does not care.

All the false promises made to B.C. before the last election have made it very clear that the Liberals simply do not care.

[Forestry, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, tonight has been a very good exercise. The mountain pine beetle infestations began in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George and that is where the major concentration is found. I was pleased when I learned that my request for a take note debate on the mountain pine beetle issue, and the devastation that has resulted, was going to be held in the Parliament of Canada on Monday, December 13.

My colleagues from Prince George—Peace River, Yellowhead, Kootenay—Columbia and Kamloops, like myself, have a problem with the mountain pine beetle infestation. They represent the people who live in our ridings and indeed the people of both provinces, Alberta and B.C., where the problem exists. Together, we have been able to raise the issue to a level that I do not think it has been since the beetle infestation began. We hope that the Liberals will no longer say that they do not know about it and will act on it, and come to the aid of the province of B.C. in its request for help.

I want to thank my colleague from Yellowhead who just spoke and pointed out the danger that exists on the western side of both Jasper and Banff National Park. He mentioned the inactivity of the federal government in addressing national park land. If something is not done, the beetles will simply eat and infest every single pine tree in both parks, and there will be no stopping them.

I also want to thank all my colleagues for their contribution and the member for Yukon. Although we do not agree on whether his government thinks there is a plan or not, we know there is a plan and his government knows about it. The area of the country that he is from is similar to ours and I know that he sympathizes with the problem although he is maybe not allowed to say anything except current Liberal policy. Fortunately, we were able to speak about what the real issue is all about.

[Forestry, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is time that we got the federal Liberals on record. I am going to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources to speak for himself as well as his minister.

Very recently provincial government representatives were in Ottawa. They brought with them a major 10 year plan to mitigate the damage caused by the mountain pine beetle infestation, as well as to mitigate the economic impact of that throughout the province in communities that depend on our forest industry.

Will the parliamentary secretary stand in his place now and speak for himself and his minister and tell us, on the record, that he and his minister know absolutely nothing about this 10 year major plan that was just presented within the last couple of months by the provincial government representatives here in Ottawa? Will he stand up and say that he and his minister know absolutely nothing about this mitigation plan?