François Choquette

[Andréane Benoit, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in the House today to congratulate Andréane Benoit, a farmer back home who recently won the 2016 Prix de la relève agricole, or the young farmers' award, presented by the National Assembly of Quebec.

For 12 years now, this young farmer has been operating Ferme avicole A. Benoit, in Sainte-Brigitte-des-Saults. She has also been operating a dairy farm for the past year. During my summer tour of the municipalities in Drummond, I had the opportunity to meet Andréane and her family. I could see that for the Benoit family, farming is in their blood.

Andréane is the fifth generation of Benoits in farming. As a woman in a male-dominated field, Andréane Benoit has worked hard and is an example among so many of our successful entrepreneurs who make a region like Greater Drummondville shine.

Again, congratulations Andréane Benoit, winner of the 2016 Prix de la relève agricole.

[Canada Business Corporations Act, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hochelaga for her question. The work that she is doing on gender equality is very important, just as the work she is doing on social housing is essential to ensuring that everyone has fair access to housing.

Getting back to pay equity, sometimes I tell my constituents that the federal government still does not have any pay equity legislation. People are surprised. They do not think that makes any sense. The people of my riding have signed a number of petitions for me to present in the House of Commons. They believe that we need a law now, not 10 years from now. We are supposed to be more proactive than that. We were elected to take action.

I would like to again mention my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith. She introduced Bill C-220, which seeks to amend the Financial Administration Act. The purpose of the bill is to achieve balanced representation in the number of women and men serving as directors on boards of crown corporations. The goal is to proceed gradually but quickly. It is not right that the number of women on these boards is still so low in a society where the percentage of women is higher than that of men.

I would like to again thank the member for Hochelaga for her question. We have to do more to achieve gender equality. We cannot wait until 2018. That is unacceptable.

[Canada Business Corporations Act, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Trois-Rivières for his question and his valuable comments.

This bill is a first attempt and a good start. It has some good stuff in it. We need to talk about gender equality. As I said earlier, feminism is not just for women. It is for everyone. There is no point calling oneself a feminist if one does not act accordingly.

I often joke with my wife about how I am a feminist. When she replies that I have a lot of room for improvement, I tell her, “My darling, you are right. I do need to become a better person”. The point is that there must be action, not just talk. As my colleague from Trois-Rivières said, pay equity is a good example of that. Why wait until 2018? There is no excuse, just a reason: lack of will.

This bill has room for improvement, and the NDP will be first in line to propose the amendments it needs.

[Canada Business Corporations Act, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague. I know he works very hard on the issue of the injustice that results from tax havens.

Legislation to put an end to tax havens has been introduced in the House in the past. My constituents have signed hundreds of petitions calling on the government to do whatever it takes to limit the use of tax havens as much as possible, rather than facilitate it.

We saw who voted in the House in favour of a bill to reduce the number of tax havens. Unfortunately, the Liberals are the ones who want this to continue. It is really disappointing. We need to close the stock option loophole. I hope we can amend this bill to do just that.

[Canada Business Corporations Act, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her comment. Indeed, it is very important to work in a collegial fashion, and sometimes to put partisanship aside.

To that end, first of all, our Prime Minister, self-proclaimed feminist, needs to face up to his responsibilities. It is good that he should call himself a feminist, as should all men. They all have a responsibility to help bring about gender equality. However, when the time comes to enforce pay equity legislation, the Prime Minister shirks his responsibilities. That is why I say he should start by facing up to his responsibilities.

There is probably a way to make very reasonable amendments to this pay equity legislation, and I hope that we find a way to work together to that end in committee.

[Canada Business Corporations Act, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to take part in the debate on Bill C-25, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, the Canada Cooperatives Act, the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, and the Competition Act.

It is always very important to review our laws in order to improve them, and to ensure that we make them even more fair and that they will foster gender parity. This bill is a first step in the right direction.

The NDP will support enhancing the diversity of boards of directors and democracy for shareholders.

However, once again the Liberals are not walking the talk. Bill C-25 is an attempt to solve the problems of gender parity. That will not happen if we only do what is being proposed. We are going to have to do more, and I know that the NDP member who sits on this committee will make the amendments needed to improve gender-parity in this area. That is what we are proposing.

This is only the second time in 40 years that the Canadian government has looked at corporate governance issues. As I said, this is no small matter, and it is good to review these things once in a while, so this is a step in the right direction.

The government's stated objective in introducing this legislation was this: the bill proposes changes meant to increase shareholder democracy and participation, support efforts to increase women's participation on corporate boards and senior management, and improve corporate transparency and business certainty while reducing the regulatory burden.

As I was saying, generally speaking, in its current form, the bill will increase shareholders' democratic participation in order to ensure greater understanding and, for instance, require annual elections for corporate directors, ensure that shareholders can vote for individual candidates, and require a majority voting standard, which are all interesting reforms. This is all through the lens of increasing representation of women on corporate boards and in senior management.

This might improve because businesses will have to explain why they do not have any female representation on their boards. That is a step in the right direction. However, everyone will agree that it is just a small step in improving gender equality.

Hundreds of people from Drummond have come to see me to request federal pay equity legislation. Unfortunately, as we know, the Liberal government said that it might wait until 2018 before implementing such a law, when pay equity should already be a fait accompli in Canada.

However, that is not yet the case, and unfortunately, the Liberals have put off their commitment to gender equality. That is coming from a government whose Prime Minister claims to be a feminist. It is not enough for the Prime Minister to claim to be a feminist. He and his government also need to take action to show that they are actually committed to gender equality. People have been disappointed in that regard.

This issue is so important that the NPD introduced Bill C-220, an act to amend the Financial Administration Act (balanced representation). The bill's sponsor is the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, who is doing an excellent job of promoting gender equality.

Feminism does not only involve women. All men and women must work together to achieve parity.

As I mentioned earlier, hundreds of citizens in my riding have come to see me to talk about this. They have come to demand more action from the government. I have tabled petitions on their behalf. We are looking for more concrete measures from the government on this issue.

I have spoken about Bill C-220 from my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith. This was tabled in various forms by the NDP in the past, notably by former MP Anne-Marie Day. It is clearly a long-standing commitment on our part. Everyone voted in favour of the bill except the Conservatives. I don’t know why, but they were not in agreement.

That bill was aiming for balanced gender representation on the boards of directors of crown corporations. This is an area where the government can take direct action. Unfortunately this has yet to be done. However we continue to move ahead and we will not give up. We hope that this time, in this Parliament, members from all parties in the House will be able to put partisanship aside so that progress can be made on the issue of gender parity.

The member who spoke before me mentioned another very important issue, that of executive compensation. This bill calls for the introduction of a consultative vote on executive compensation, something the investor and shareholder community has been calling for.

Bill C-25 improves the election process for board of director positions by eliminating the list system and requiring that directors be elected on a majority. Indeed, many stakeholders have asked for more of a say on the compensation for executives. The NDP was very active on CEO compensation. Unfortunately, the government did not consider any of that when drafting this bill, which is very disappointing.

Given the situation of Canada’s citizens, the deduction for stock options is a horrible fiscal loophole which must absolutely be eliminated. It serves to give an unfairly high salary to the biggest CEOs, the richest people in our society. These people are taxed on only 50% of these earnings, which is totally unfair, since Canadian citizens doing normal work are taxed on 100% of their wages. This tax loophole exists only for the benefit of CEOs, the richest people in our society. We have to tackle this injustice.

That is why the NDP called for the elimination of the deduction for stock options in its electoral platform. This loophole allows the senior officers of corporations to pay only half the income tax on their compensation paid as stock options, or 50% of the prescribed rate. If a citizen from Drummond were to do that, the Canada Revenue Agency would call him right away and order him to pay his full income tax. Yet for executives this is a legal loophole that exists.

There are certain loopholes that are legal, but are totally unacceptable in our modern society. They are totally unfair, bordering on unethical. Unfortunately, they exist, and they are legal. The government is doing very little, if anything at all, about these tax loopholes. Since it was elected, we have not really seen any strong commitment from this government on closing these unfair loopholes. This is one of the worst examples of what is lacking in this bill.

This is a truly regressive loophole. Over 90% of the benefit goes to 1% of taxpayers, those who earn over $250,000 a year. Truly, it is a minority of the Canadian population that benefits from this. This deduction is bad for the economy, since it encourages CEOs to inflate stock prices in the short term through buybacks instead of investing in the economy. The government is losing close to $750 million a year as a result. Stock option deductions are totally unfair and unacceptable.

I have spoken of my fellow citizens who continue to be very active in Drummond. Hundreds have signed a petition to put an end to tax havens. Somewhat like tax loopholes, there are also tax havens the government needs to address. As the House knows, there are many ways to either facilitate the use of tax havens or curb it. Unfortunately, the steps recently taken only serve to facilitate it.

This situation is depriving the state of the funds it needs to carry out its social mission. According to Statistics Canada, tax avoidance is costing the government from $5 billion to $8 billion every year.

Fortunately, this phenomenon is now leading to some collective soul-searching. As I was saying, hundreds of my fellow citizens have signed a petition demanding that we take more action in this area. I have joined in by tabling that petition here in the House of Commons to signal the importance of combatting tax havens and tax loopholes.

It is extremely important to do this, because the public purse is being denied hundreds of millions of dollars by tax loopholes and billions of dollars by tax havens. Public services suffer as a result.

One need only consider health. In the next 10 years, there will be $36 billion in cuts. The cuts were started by the Conservatives; the Liberals had promised to abolish these unfair cuts affecting the most vulnerable in our society, those who have health problems. Unfortunately, the Liberals want to continue on this unfair path. It is totally unacceptable to continue these sorts of cuts.

It is a way of not investing in health, for the funds diverted from the public purse cannot be used for the well-being of the Canadian population.

In the end, the NDP wants the government to take concrete steps to bring about gender parity on Canadian boards of directors. Many researchers interested in gender equality in companies and in politics feel that the “comply or explain” model of disclosure that is found in Bill C-25 in its current form does not appropriately address the issue of gender parity. Therefore, as I was saying earlier, we are going to do everything we can to ensure that amendments are made to improve this situation.

Furthermore, New Democrats want the government to take advantage of the opportunity presented by Bill C-25 to resolve the issue of executive salaries by assigning shareholders a bigger role in the establishment of compensation. That would be a start.

I will conclude by saying that the bill is a step in the right direction. We are going to make amendments to it in committee. I hope that the Liberal and Conservative members of that committee will work in a collegial fashion to improve this bill for the well-being of our citizens. That is very important, and that is why we were elected.

[Canada Pension Plan, November 29th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, as I have already said, every year we meet seniors who tell us that the pension plan is not very generous and that it must be enhanced. Therefore, the government's desire to enhance the CPP is good news.

However, the Liberal government has made some mistakes with its approach. One of them is not stressing the importance of keeping the dropout provisions. We currently have dropout provisions that ensure that years spent outside the labour market raising children do not count in the calculations. There are also dropout provisions for people with disabilities, who can no longer earn income when they are unable to work.

Why did my hon. colleague not support these requests? Why did he not work with his team so that we could keep these two dropout provisions, which are extremely important when trying to keep women, seniors and people with disabilities out of poverty?

[Canada Pension Plan, November 29th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it is clear that the situation of our seniors living in poverty has to be improved. Such poverty is absolutely unacceptable. People talk to me about this often in my constituency. It is totally revolting to see how seniors manage to survive on the little they have.

One of the important things that the NDP has proposed is the importance of retaining the child-rearing dropout provision and the dropout provision for persons with disabilities.

Why did the Liberal government not agree to keep these two dropout provisions, which allow seniors to have a better pension and help lift women from poverty, among other things? Unfortunately, it is often female seniors who find themselves living in poverty.

[Canada Pension Plan, November 29th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's speech was excellent. She pointed out that too many seniors are still living in poverty, unfortunately.

Only 4.5% of the women who collect Canada pension plan benefits receive the maximum benefit, whereas 18% of the men do. That is why measures like those we have today to improve women's quality of life are essential.

Why are the Liberals rejecting our amendments?

[Canada Pension Plan, November 29th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, indeed, what we are talking about today is extremely important. We meet with seniors in our riding offices all the time. They tell us how hard it is to make ends meet on CPP alone. Sadly, those who get CPP only are living in poverty.

The most recent figures show that 30% of single senior women live in poverty. That is totally unacceptable. Unfortunately, it is often women who end up in this situation.

I want to ask my hon. colleague whether she thinks we should be doing something to improve the situation for our seniors who are living in poverty. We cannot stand idly by. We must do something. What does my colleague propose? The Liberal government proposed measures that are weak and flawed, but does my hon. colleague propose that we do nothing at all?