Dick Harris

[Taxation, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister is so far removed from the tax burden he has caused Canadians that he just cannot relate to the financial harm he is causing them.

Brian from Winnipeg has barely $2,000 left from a $4,100 paycheque when the finance minister takes his 50% tax share of Brian's work.

Why does the finance minister not just come home to Canada, where there are hard working, taxpaying Canadians, recognize the harm he is causing with his tax policies and give Canadians like Brian a tax break? Why does he not just do that?

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues. I know they were enjoying my presentation so much they shuddered to think that I was going to finish up quickly.

Since coming to Ottawa a little more than six years ago, the experiences we have had in dealing with crown corporations have not been exactly fruitful or satisfying. Whenever we try to get information about how taxpayers' money is being spent, we get a pretty big run around.

I learned very quickly after coming to Ottawa that crown corporations simply do not have to tell us anything about how they operate if they do not want to. We made a number of requests through access to information to get some information about certain crown corporations and we hit a brick wall, to put it fairly specifically.

The minister will say that this new entity is at arm's length and he is not responsible. The minister should be responsible to the House for how taxpayers' money is spent. He should not be permitted to duck this responsibility by turning the CTC into a crown corporation.

I am sure you will understand this, Mr. Speaker, because you have been a member of the House for some time.

The minute the crown corporation is formed it will immediately begin to plead that the confidentiality of its private or commercial stakeholders will be compromised if it starts talking about how it spends its money or how it operates its little business.

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am under the impression that we are still discussing my options. I have my options figured out now and I would like to make a decision to continue my speech, if I may.

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

Just a point of clarification, Mr. Speaker. When will my colleague from the Okanagan be permitted to speak?

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I could just wrap up my 10 minutes and then my colleague would speak.

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Our party has 40 minutes at this time. I will speak for 20 minutes and my colleague will speak for 20 minutes.

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

The member from Surrey just reminded me that it is taxpayer money once again. I shudder to think that I have been here six years and I forget that important little point, and I do not.

The industry department issued a paper which supports the rapid divestiture of crown assets. This makes me wonder why the department is sponsoring the bill in the first place.

I refer to a paper in the House entitled “Canada in the 21st Century—Institutions in Growth—Framework Policy as a Tool of Competitive Advantage for Canada”. This sounds like it is going to cost Canadians a lot of money. If we start getting academics trying to figure out how to spend taxpayers' money, it could be a pretty sad situation.

The point is that in comparison to other OECD countries, Canada has had historically high levels of state ownership. In a country that is considered primarily a free enterprise country, a country where the people of Canada should take a role in private enterprise, the private sector and industry, Canada has a very unusually high level of state ownership. That is a little scary.

In 1986 the Economic Council of Canada reported that government owned and controlled companies accounted for 26% of the net fixed assets of all Canadian corporations in 1983. That is pretty astounding and pretty shocking. Yet these firms accounted for less than 5% of the total employment in the country. They accounted for 26% of the net fixed assets of all the Canadian corporations, yet less than 5% of the total employment. This adds even more credibility to the fact that the private sector is the best place to create jobs. The government should recognize that instead of trying to usurp the efforts of private sector industry in helping our economy.

These numbers do not say very much about the employment creation capacities of government owned crown corporations and companies. I would like to share my time with my colleague from the Okanagan.

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am reminded by my colleague that there is one area in which the government can certainly move quickly and that is when it brings closure to debate in the House. It is moving quickly to surpass the previous Tory government's record. It is going to blow by the Mulroney government in grand style within a matter of weeks on bringing closure to the House and stopping democratic debate. I thank my colleague for bringing that to my attention.

The Reform Party has a philosophical problem with crown corporations. We believe that ownership and control of corporations should be placed in the sector that can perform the task the most cost effectively with the greatest accountability to owners and the least likelihood of incurring more public debt or any public debt for that matter. There is overwhelming evidence this would be the private sector in the vast majority of cases. History has told us that a private sector organization or institution can perform far more effectively than any government arm or crown corporation could ever hope to do.

We believe that many crown corporations, as we have stated publicly a number of times, should either be privatized or go back to the departments that spawned them in the first place. Then the ministers who have them in their departments could be accountable to the people of Canada through the opposition, certainly through the official opposition, the Reform Party of Canada.

I think everyone knows that no party in the House has ever questioned the operation of crown corporations and demanded accountability more than the Reform Party of Canada has since we came here as an official party in 1993. We are proud of that record because we have the interests of Canadian taxpayers at heart. That is why we ask questions that no other party has ever bothered to ask. Those who have been members of the cozy country club that has existed for so many decades in Ottawa do not want to do anything to upset the people in that club. We are not in that club and we are proud of it. That is why we ask the tough questions.

The Reform Party will be opposing the bill. We feel that there is no good reason to give the Canadian Tourism Commission crown corporation status.

We do not know how much more money it will cost. We know that the chairman of the existing CTC which operates under the Department of Transport is paid $1 a year. Judd Buchanan, a long time Liberal, is working for $1 a year. We do not know what other compensation or perks he is getting but $1 a year sounds pretty good to us. Does anyone think for a minute that the new chairman of the crown corporation style CTC will want to work for $1 a year?

One has to wonder if there is not a friend of the Liberals out there that they have forgotten to reward since 1993. One has to imagine that the appointment of the head of that crown corporation is already picked. By golly, I think we would find that he is someone who is well known to the Prime Minister, to the Liberal government and to any of those members. It is a guarantee and I would be willing to put a few dollars on that appointment. It may even be a friend of the deputy government whip. She seems to be enjoying this part of the speech. Perhaps it is a friend of hers who helped with her campaign.

If a crown corporation is formed and the CTC is taken out of the responsibility of the Minister of Industry, we lose almost 100% of the accountability. This crown corporation will operate with an autonomy that will basically guarantee that it is going to be free from any inquiry through access to information as to how its operation goes and how it is spending its money. We do not want that to happen.

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we have today before us a bill that was first introduced in the last session. It is entitled an act to establish the Canadian tourism commission, which is part of Industry Canada. The government wants to give it crown corporation status.

I suppose the first question to be asked is exactly what does the Canadian tourism commission do and why does it need to be a crown corporation.

The CTC, or the Canadian tourism commission, was created in 1995 to promote Canadian tourism and establish partnerships with the private sector, the provinces and federal tourism partners. It uses the money it receives from various sources to do research and to market Canada as a travel destination.

The CTC receives an appropriation of about $65 million every year. Of that amount $12 million goes to salaries and overhead and approximately $52 million goes to promotion and product development. The tourism industry in Canada matches that amount, so that a total of about $130 million is spent annually. The CTC, by the way, has 62 employees in Ottawa.

To go a little further in the explanation of what the CTC is, it has a 26 member decision making board of directors which functions as a special operating agency in delivering the tourism mandate of the federal government. The board of directors is comprised mainly of private sector companies with direct interest in establishing Canada as a preferred tourist destination.

When I received a briefing on this bill from the CTC I was told that the commission wants to become a crown corporation because it feels constrained and cannot operate effectively within the government. It said that it cannot move quickly enough.

I guess I can be a bit sympathetic with that request. What part of government ever moved quickly enough?

I think there is ample evidence that crown corporations do not exactly have a sterling record of moving quickly either. It has been my experience that crown corporations can get away with a lot but I and many Canadians have never realized that they could actually move more quickly than government.

[Canadian Tourism Commission Act, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to explain very specifically why we in the Reform do not think this is a good bill.

The reason that individuals are supporting the crown corporation concept is simple. It is likely that a lot more money will be spent on the institution but there will be less accountability. When members of parliament try to get information from the access to information department on crown corporations, we run into a virtual roadblock because crown corporations do not have to be accountable for the way they run their business.

I do not think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that private business can do a job better than government can. Under the current set up we have a program that is directly responsible to parliament through the Department of Industry. We do not want to see that taken away from us. We do not want to see the accountability taken out of this place and given to an untouchable board.