Gary Lunn

[Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, March 25th, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-27, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing line 13 on page 6 with the following:

“may, with the consent of the Minister, take any”

[Committees Of The House, March 25th, 1999]

Shame. They deleted the whole bill.

[Division No. 359, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of questions. The hon. government House leader told me earlier that he did not believe that there was any provisions for the corrections services people, but the minister just informed the House that group four, the corrections people, were included.

Are the corrections people included in this tentative agreement? If there is an initialled tentative agreement I can take it that all the issues are resolved. If that is the case, would it not be in our interest to give the workers an opportunity to ratify it before we proceed?

The minister is not willing to table the document in the House for members, but the union will be taking it to its membership and it will therefore be in the public domain. Obviously they have to know what they are voting on.

Why will the minister not give members of the House an opportunity to see the agreement when in essence it will be in the public domain as the union membership must see what is in it if it is to vote and ratify the agreement?

[Division No. 358, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I also ask the consent of the House to reverse my vote on Motion No. 21.

I feel very strongly that the information was—

[Division No. 358, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, to offer support to the House leader of the official opposition, I want to make a couple of points.

We were told by the minister after we voted that there was a tentative agreement. I would suggest that what that means is that the union executive is going to recommend this to its membership. That is crucial information that we must have before taking the vote. The vote was not on closure and we are not in routine proceedings.

We are planning to sit in this House all night, for 24 hours, and that is information that should have been provided to us.

Out of the courtesy to the union, we should be giving it an opportunity to accept that tentative agreement as opposed to turning this into a national crisis. That is very germane to the issue at hand. It is unbelievable that the minister would not come in and say, before the vote, that he had some information for the House.

I agree that it was deliberately withheld. We are aware of members of the backbenches who were talking about this before they came into the House. That has just been brought to my attention.

[Division No. 358, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask for unanimous consent of the House to extend the questions and comments for another 10 minutes. I have not had an opportunity to ask a very short question of the minister, as I am sure is the case for many members present. We could resolve this a lot quicker by extending it. I ask for unanimous consent to extend the questions and comments of the minister for another 10 minutes.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1999, March 17th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, that is a pretty tough act to follow, but I will see what I can do. I have a lot of admiration for my colleague and friend from Medicine Hat.

We are talking about budget implementation and I will focus on different aspects of the budget.

The day of reckoning is coming. Within a few years this Liberal government is going to see that Canadians cannot be given a snow job. This is really about brainwashing, not about budgeting. Government spin doctors are famous for their tinkering. All they know how to do is tinker.

Let us just look at the record of this Liberal government. I want to stick to the facts. In 1999 the average Canadian will pay $2,000 more in taxes than they paid in 1993. At the very same time, health cuts will amount to $1,500 per person. Over the last three years there have been $1,500 in health care cuts per person.

What is the government's record? Let us look at the facts. What has it done? I can give hon. members examples.

Instead of looking at funding hip replacements or surgery, taxpayers are providing funding of $100,000 for a government grant on a book of dumb blonde jokes. The list goes on and on forever.

The government has slashed university funding while protecting $4 billion in pork barrel regional development grants over the last four years.

This is an interesting one. RCMP services have been cut. We have seen that it is devastating. The RCMP in British Columbia has been cut down to the bare bones. Vacancies are not being filled. As the government continues to cut money that is available to the RCMP, it gets millions and millions of dollars from the illegal trade subsidies it gives to profitable corporations.

That was no more apparent than when we were speaking during question period today. I see that members opposite are wondering about this. The government continues with these illegal trade subsidies, and that is exactly what they are. The WTO ruled on it. It is part of the government's taxation policy to give Canadian taxpayers' dollars away to profitable corporations.

Of course government members stand to make a lot of noise about how patriotic they are. They accuse the official opposition of siding with Brazil, which is absolute and utter nonsense. The WTO ruling is the result of the government's taxation policies. It wants to give tax dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, to profitable corporations. It is absolute and utter nonsense.

If government members are really so patriotic and committed to Canadians, why do they continue to gouge the pockets of every single Canadian in this country? Why do they continue with sneaky, hidden tax increases, one after the other? They are endless, and they are all sneaky, hidden tax increases.

Then government members claim these victories after they have raised taxes and raked the wallets and pocketbooks of Canadians, who are struggling from payday to payday.

Government members claim they had to make tough decisions so they could balance the budget. They have no right to claim for one second that they did one thing to balance this budget. The credit goes entirely to every single Canadian taxpayer who has been paying $2,000 more in taxes each year since 1993. The credit goes to those families who have suffered irreversible, incomprehensible harm as their loved ones have died waiting on hospital lists. That is who the credit really goes to for balancing this budget.

It was not the Liberal government that made tough decisions for Canadian families; it was the Canadian families themselves who had to balance their paycheques every month to scrape by, dip into their RRSPs, cash in their savings and struggle to make ends meet. It was not the government.

We have heard the Minister of Finance stand in this House to claim how proud he is that he has cut taxes. Sure, there might have been some minor tinkering to provide slight tax cuts, but what he is not telling us is that the increases have been greater. In fact if we take into account payroll taxes, Canada pension plan premiums and bracket creep, taxes this year alone have increased by $2.2 billion.

I will focus the rest of my talk on a couple of issues. I will deal with brain drain and how we have shattered the hopes and aspirations of young Canadians. The other area that I feel very passionate about is tax discrimination, tax unfairness, what we are doing to the Canadian family and how the government attempts to justify it.

We have all heard that a family of four with an income of $50,000, with one parent who chooses to stay at home, will pay $4,000 more in taxes than that of a family with the same income with two parents working. Let us look at the net effect. How does that affect these families?

The tax policies are discriminatory. I will use my sister for an example. My sister is a schoolteacher in Invermere. She has three small girls who are just starting elementary school. Her husband James decided to put his career on hold. He stayed at home with the three girls while my sister went off to teach. They felt it was very important that one parent be at home until the girls started school, so James put his career on hold and my sister went to work. He made personal sacrifices that we should be commending him for and not penalizing him under our current tax act. That is exactly what we are doing. There is no question about it.

I would like to quote some statements made by members opposite. The member for Vancouver Kingsway said in a finance committee hearing on October 8, 1998, when she was talking to parents who had chosen to put their careers on hold, chosen to stay at home and who place some value in parenting, “Perhaps individually you have low self-esteem for many reasons. Most women can combine career and family life. We know it is very difficult. A lot of times people just take the easy way out”. Those have to be the most insulting comments to make to someone who chooses to stay at home to look after their family. It is an absolute disgrace coming from the government, with all its fanfare and hoopla and all of its wining and dining of the financial institutions in trying to spin this budget. All the spin doctors out there have failed to recognize some very basic flaws in our tax act.

I am pleased to see that the province of Alberta has taken a leadership role in the country with respect to this issue. It is rectifying the issue as far as it can within its provincial jurisdiction to bring back fairness. It is breaking new ground and it is high time.

The issue was brought to the attention of the Minister of Finance over and over again. The Reform Party of Canada has been fighting the issue since it first became an official party of the House in 1993. It has had supply day motions and this debate has been going on and on. The government has again buried its head in the sand and has refused to recognize it. It is one of the most offensive areas I have found in tax policy.

What does the government do? It only tinkers. Its day of reckoning is coming. These are the hard core facts. I know the government does not like them. It is not very proud of them but they are the facts and it cannot get away from them.

Although I do not have the form in front of me I can recite form T778, the child care deduction form, because I know it so well. It gets even worse. If only one parent of a two parent family is working there are three ways according to the tax form, which is available on the Internet at website www.rc.gc.ca, to claim the child deduction.

First, they have to be mentally or physically incapable of looking after children. The second one is absolutely amazing. They have to be convicted criminals who have spent at least two weeks in jail in 1998. Can we imagine a convicted criminal who has spent two weeks in jail being given priority to claim the child care deduction? That is a fact. It is right on the tax form. It is absolutely outrageous.

The third way is if the parents are separated or divorced for at least 90 days. It is no good if they want to stay together. It is no good if they are happily married. However, if they want to separate, they can follow the Liberal government tax form. I encourage everyone to look it up on the Internet. They can go to any post office in Canada and ask for a T778 form, the child care deduction form. It is absolutely incomprehensible.

What do the Liberals really think of their budget? What do they really think about the Canadian economy? How proud are they? I will refer to some quotes of the Minister of Industry on February 18, 1999. We have already heard from him in the House today. This is what he thinks the Canadian economy is doing, one of the Prime Minister's henchmen, the frontline people who go out and do the messaging:

How can we maintain or, better still, increase our standard of living? Since 1987 we have done okay.

That is debatable. He continued:

Our standard of living has grown by 7%, but when we look our American friends we see that at the same time they have increased their standard of living by 17%.

In other words it is 30% higher in the U.S. than in Canada or $37,239 compared to $28,234. I repeat that this was the Minister of Industry speaking, the government's henchman, the spokesperson who goes out and brags about the record of government.

Then he went on to say:

So what does all this mean? Moving back to our standard of living, which is the whole point of this address, the productivity in Canada has grown 1.2% per year faster, which is a gap between U.S. and Canadian growth. According to the OECD per capita income would have been $7,000 a year higher. For a family of four this is a $28,000 shortfall.

The Prime Minister's henchmen are going out and doing their messaging to promote the budget, yet they are admitting that their economic policies have been an absolute, utter and complete failure.

There are some lessons to be learned from the American system. Obviously in 100 square miles in the U.S. and 100 square miles in Canada we will not be able to deliver the same services for the same price, but the difference does not have to be 10 times.

Our government's policies are driving us to bankruptcy. Our government's taxation policies are driving Canadian businesses out of Canada every minute of every day. Our government's policies on taxation are shattering the hopes and aspirations of all young Canadians. They are going across the border by the thousands. Where are they going? It is to our neighbours to the south. They are not going down there for the sunshine. They are not going down there to live in their cities for their clean air. They are going down there because they do not see any future way of fulfilling their aspirations and dreams in this country.

That is why I am standing in the House today. I ask any member of the House to challenge that I am not a patriotic Canadian and that I am not here to fight for Canada, to make this country a better place in which to live. That is why I am here and I made sacrifices to be here. We have to offer a vision so that young Canadians will be able to fulfil their dreams in this country and not have them shattered by our taxation policies.

Let us go back 25 years to when I left high school. People today do not have the same opportunities I had. When I finished high school I could easily get work. It was no problem. I was never out of work a day. I had good paying jobs and was able to fund myself all the way through university without assistance. I could do it because there were opportunities. There was excitement. We were ready to get an education and get into the working field. We could hardly wait to start going after our dreams.

Young Canadians from coast to coast to coast in the country do not see the same opportunities. They are trying to find minimum wage jobs. They are graduating from university with students loans in excess of $50,000. They are calling my office and asking what they can do and how to get out of that mess. They have degrees. They cannot get jobs. They owe $50,000. They ask if they can declare bankruptcy. They ask for guidance. They do not see any opportunities to fulfil their dreams.

Why? It is because of the government's tax, tax, tax and spend, spend, spend policies. We have known about this for a long time, as has the government. It likes to tinker a bit, fudge a few numbers, shuffle the books and then say it has brought in a great budget. It is all brainwashing. It is all nonsense.

I will leave government members with a few thoughts of which I want them to take note. I am standing here along with my colleagues to fight for Canada, to make the country a better place so that young Canadians can fulfil their aspirations, hopes and dreams; so that families can make the right decisions and can choose to stay at home to raise their families without being discriminated against by absolutely insane government taxation policy.

Every Canadian family would be better off if Reformers could just change a few of these things, if they could convince the government to get its head out of the sand and look into the future as opposed to tinkering.

We are speaking on deaf ears across the way but the day of reckoning will come. Canadians will see the so-called wonderful tax decreases the government keeps talking about. I will leave them with this thought: please phone me, please give me a call. I ask them to take their paycheque stubs to their members of parliament next month or in three or six months from now and show them the hundreds of dollars of tax relief. At the end of the day Canadians will not get one thin dime more. That is a disgrace.

[Silken Laumann, March 17th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of all Canadians to honour one of my constituents and one of our country's greatest and most courageous athletes. Silken Laumann, Olympic medalist and world champion rower, announced her retirement yesterday.

While her accomplishments include three Olympic medals and the 1991 single sculls World Championship, it was her determination to triumph over adversity that won the hearts of a nation.

Just months before the 1992 Barcelona games her leg was seriously injured in a collision at a German regatta. Doctors said she would never race again. But she refused to give up. She endured eight operations and battled back to win the bronze medal.

If they awarded an Olympic medal for courage and determination, I can think of no other recipient more worthy of a gold than Silken Laumann. She is a shining example of what it means and what it takes to be a true Olympian in every sense of the word.

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we have to prioritize. We have had to bring motions forward to try to provide some relief for hepatitis C victims. We have had to bring motions forward for debate in this House on offering protection to children in this country against pedophiles and pornographic materials. Those are the priorities on which we had to make choices to bring to this House.

Let us stick to the facts. The facts are on the government's own tax forms. It is discriminating. We are not recognizing the importance of parents who choose to stay home to raise their children. Let us give them the fairness.

We are not asking for anything that is not fair. We are only asking that they be treated the same as everyone else, that they be treated equally. We are not asking for special privileges for them, but just to be treated as equal, not to be talked down to as so many government members have done. That is all we are asking.

We are asking them to put their political labels aside and do what in their hearts they know is right. This is an issue for which we have fought for a long time and we will continue to do so.

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in those comments the hon. member has acknowledged there is discrimination. We are talking about discrimination against parents who choose to stay at home and raise their children. My family is one of those. I have siblings who have made those choices, along with hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

Let us recognize the value that they contribute to this society, the very fabric and what will be the future of our society. They have such a fundamental important role. Let us fix that discrimination the member talks about. It is right here in the tax forms. Why would we give a deduction to a criminal who goes to jail for two weeks? Why do I have to separate from my wife for 90 days to be eligible for a deduction?

Can we not recognize the value that they give to society, that it is the most important occupation we have in this land? It is not about some of the comments that have been made that other people have to work hard.