Guy Caron

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2017]

Madam Speaker, we have said it before and we will say it again. The government boasts about its tax cut for the middle class and keeps bringing it up. The Conservative member who just spoke said that the measure applies to those with an annual income of $45,000 or more. He is right, except that the majority of the tax cut does not affect those who earn $45,000, $50,000, or $55,000 a year. It is those earning $89,000 or $90,000 a year who are benefiting from this cut. That does not sound like the middle class to me.

I would like to give my colleague the opportunity to go over this broken Liberal promise, where they promised a tax cut for the middle class, but in the end gave a tax cut to people like us, people who earn more than $90,000 a year. That leaves out those who earn less than $45,000 a year and, really, those who earn less than $60,000 a year.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, who always gives speeches that are entertaining, but also informative, even though we may not always agree.

The member is from Quebec. We have often talked about the fact that Quebec is a province where benefits like private health or dental insurance are taxed as taxable benefits. However, when the tax was introduced in 1993, there was a 20% drop in the number of businesses providing coverage, 50% in the case of SMEs.

Has my colleague assessed the impact this measure would have on the Canadian economy and especially on Canadian SMEs? In my opinion, this move was something of a trial balloon for the government.

[Request for Emergency Debate, February 2nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I asked two questions here this week about the government's actions in response to the ongoing crisis in New Brunswick and on the Acadian peninsula in particular and what it is doing for the victims of last week's ice storm crisis.

Unfortunately, I have to say that the answers I got from both the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness were not satisfactory with respect to the federal government's action, or rather the lack of inaction I was hoping for, in response to a situation that affected more than 130,000 households and left more than 10,000 of them without heat or electricity in February.

This situation really hits home for me because I was in Montreal in 1998 during the ice storm. It was not as bad for me personally because we were lucky to have been heating with gas, not electricity, but we took in many stricken Montrealers and gave them shelter for 10 days.

We see everything that the Province of New Brunswick is trying to do at this time, as well as what the victims are going through, but unfortunately, we have no idea what exactly the federal government has done, apart from responding to a request made last Friday to deploy some troops to the Acadian peninsula, specifically to Shippagan, Miscou and Lamèque.

In that sense, I believe we need to have an emergency debate on this matter, so that we, as parliamentarians, can learn more about what action this government has taken, what it has committed to doing, and the work it has already done, in partnership with New Brunswick, for the victims in that province. Those people need to know what the federal government has done for them, especially if you consider the federal government's rapid response to the Fort McMurray fires and the floods in Calgary and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, three disasters that have happened in the past five years.

In that sense, Mr. Speaker, I respectfully ask that you grant my request for an emergency debate, so that the House can debate this extremely important and urgent matter.

[Public Safety, February 1st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, a week ago today, New Brunswick was hammered by an ice storm.

Nearly 13,000 homes remain without electricity or heat in the month of February. Warming centres and shelters in Miscou, Shippagan, and Lamèque are still overflowing.

On Monday, I asked the Minister of National Defence why it took three days after the request from the Province before the troops arrived. No response.

My question is for the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. The federal government responded swiftly to the fires in Fort McMurray and the floods in Calgary and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. Why the radio silence for New Brunswick?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, January 30th, 2017]

With regard to the Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program, between the program’s launch and November 18, 2016, what projects have been submitted from the constituency of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques?

[Public Safety, January 30th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, our thoughts are also with New Brunswickers who are still dealing with the fallout of the ice storm that left 133,000 New Brunswick homes in the dark. Many are still without electricity, heat, and other necessities. Two people died from carbon monoxide poisoning, and seven others are seriously injured.

On Friday, the Premier of New Brunswick requested the assistance of the Canadian Armed Forces, who just arrived in Miscou and Lamèque today.

Can the Minister of National Defence explain why it took three days before the troops were sent after the formal request was made by the province?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, December 14th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank all members who try to pronounce the name of my riding. The people of Les Basques might feel slighted. I will take this opportunity to say hello to the people of Trois-Pistoles and the surrounding area who are often neglected in these answers.

Indeed, no members from Quebec stood up to speak. What is more, no Quebec members who sit on the finance committee asked any questions on the matter, even when we raised this issue with consumer advocacy organizations. That is a problem, because the government is trying to say that it is doing this for the good of consumers and that it came around after such a strong reaction from its members, because it listens to them. Liberal members from Quebec are not the ones who changed this decision; it was the hard work done by the opposition parties in the House, the work of the Senate, the work of the parties of the National Assembly, and the various organizations that look after these matters.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, December 14th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to wish my colleague, for whom I also have a lot of respect, a joyful holiday season and a very happy 2017. I look forward to seeing him again.

We are here to work for Quebeckers and Canadians. There is a problem with his reasoning. Yes, I believe politicians should work to improve consumer protection, but if we follow that logic to its conclusion, we would want the federal government to be responsible for making sure that the whole country benefits from the best possible education. That is not its job, nor is it the federal government's job to do that for health or hospital administration. We have provincial jurisdiction, and we have federal jurisdiction. Consumer protection falls under provincial jurisdiction. That is what I want the government to understand, and that is what I want the Minister of Finance and the Department of Finance to understand before they come back with another consumer protection proposal, even one concerning the Bank Act. The Supreme Court was clear. The Consumer Protection Act does not conflict with the Bank Act.

Why would the government want to create conflict by superimposing a federal framework on a provincial law that is perfectly suited to our needs? We would like to see all of the provinces adopt as strict a regime as Quebec's.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, December 14th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I rise in the House for the last time in 2016, and I wish every member of the House, especially my colleagues who sit on the finance committee, happy holidays, merry Christmas and all the best for 2017. I hope everyone will use the next few weeks to get some rest.

My final thoughts will not be in praise of the government. Today the government indulged in some interesting revisionism regarding what happened over the last weeks. Clearly, the parliamentary secretary should go back to Hansard so see what answers he gave in the House and what was discussed in the finance committee. He would realize that no one on the government side, no one among the 40 Liberal MPs from Quebec, not a single Liberal member of the House uttered a single word on consumer protection jurisdiction. Until very recently, before the minister did an about-face, the answers we got—the last one just two days ago—were still about defending the government's decision to go ahead with division 5, the amendments to the Bank Act.

The government decided to delete the provisions, thanks to the efforts of all opposition parties. Like my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, I, too, would commend the members of the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party and the NDP on all their work. I also commend the Senate, particularly independent senator André Pratte, who kept pressing the issue. Consumer associations that were invited to appear before the committee to share their concerns about consumer protection and federal interference also helped to make sure that the government backed down on this issue.

Why is it so important? If I am concerned, it is because the government does not seem to understand that the main issue is not the level of protection enjoyed by Canadian bank customers. The main issue is that consumer protection is a provincial jurisdiction. Given what we have just heard, the minister is clearly trying to find another way of imposing a consumer protection framework even if that is outside federal jurisdiction.

I am worried by the government’s interpretation of the famous Marcotte ruling. This was a class action against the Bank of Montreal. Mr. Marcotte went to court to challenge certain fees which he felt were far too high, in addition to being hidden. He went to court to complain about these fees. In the end, the Bank of Montreal and all the banks were saying that they did not need to comply with the Consumer Protection Act, because they operate under federal jurisdiction. The case went to the Supreme Court.

Contrary to what the government has persisted in saying, the Supreme Court did not ask the government for jurisdictional clarification. The Supreme Court established that the Bank Act was applicable, the Consumer Protection Act was applicable, and the two could coexist very well, since they were complementary. The Bank Act covers the operation of the various banking programs, and the Consumer Protection Act, self-evidently, covers consumer protection.

What the Marcotte ruling said was that the Consumer Protection Act was applicable. The Supreme Court never asked the government to look into the issue and assume control of the consumer protection issue, for Quebec or for the provinces generally.

Why is this a problem? Why was it a problem with regard to the jurisdiction from which we will shortly be withdrawing? The legislation created a conflict between the federal statute and the provincial statute. There is a principle called the principle of federal paramountcy, which holds that if two laws, one federal and one provincial, touch upon the same issue, the federal law will have primacy.

With regard to the Marcotte ruling, the Supreme Court said that there was no conflict, in spite of what the banks tried to make it say.

In trying to recover these powers, in trying to impose this, they created a conflict between the federal side and the Consumer Protection Act. Having created that conflict, they found themselves invoking federal paramountcy.

I would argue this is where the government’s argument failed. It is the same kind of argument the consumer protection agencies, in particular, were making, saying that the government was trying to interfere and create a problem where there was none. Obviously, the Chambre des notaires and the Barreau du Québec were saying the same thing.

That is why we are happy to see these clauses being withdrawn, indeed, to see the entire opposition in this House working in the same direction to encourage the Senate to take a look at this. Quebec, starting with the opposition in Quebec City and then the government, saw that there was a major problem, and asked the federal government to make some changes and remove these clauses. The various civil society groups did the same thing. Finally the government has listened to reason. We hope that it will learn a valuable lesson from what has happened when the time comes to make decisions which could effectively encroach upon provincial jurisdictions.

In that sense, I invite the Liberals to do some soul-searching over the holidays. We will have a few weeks to replenish ourselves. This is the perfect time to do it. I am truly very happy to have been able to play a small part in this decision. Once again, all of the opposition parties have been involved in this.

I will close by adding a few more words on Bill C-29, and perhaps replying to what has been said on the government side. They talk often of the 9 million Canadians who are going to benefit from the tax cuts. But they are always silent about the fact that 23 million Canadians, most of them earning less than $45,000, will benefit in no way from these cuts. I would prefer that they show a little more honesty. Certainly, there will be a tax reduction. They will increase taxes on the 1% richest people, but that money will not be given to the middle class as a whole. It will be given in large part to the 9% of people who are the richest. My colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent mentioned this: the people earning under $45,000 will receive nothing from the tax cut. Those earning between $45,000 and $90,000 will benefit a little from the tax reduction, but mostly it will be those earning over $90,000 and up to close to $200,000 who will benefit from it. Even those earning $210,000 per year will still enjoy a tax cut. But the people earning $45,000 will get nothing at all. That is one of the problems with the Liberal program. We tried to correct the situation by making it possible for people to get a tax reduction starting at $11,000, but the government would have nothing of it.

The second thing, also mentioned by my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, is the fact that when the Canada child benefit program was set up, they forgot to index it. That is a major problem because the lack of indexing would have meant that the program would have been less advantageous for most families starting in 2022-2023. For this we can thank the parliamentary budget officer, who conducted a rigorous study on the subject. As if by chance, the afternoon after the report was published, the government finally said that it wanted to index the program and would do so starting in 2020-2021, that is, after the next federal election.

Can we really believe that this was part of the government’s plans? It never mentioned indexing when the program was announced, when it was set up. In the end, it took the publication of a report for them to realize that not indexing would mean that the government’s initiative was going to be less beneficial within six years. Even taking into account the amendments to Bill C-29, we are going to find ourselves in a situation where loss of purchasing power is going to come dangerously close to the level that families would have had with the old program.

So instead of congratulating ourselves on different initiatives—initiatives whose value or lack thereof we can debate, initiatives that are going to affect different groups of Canadians to different degrees—for 2017 I would like to wish the House debates that are more rigorous in terms of economic analysis. I am an economist by training, and I like rigour. There is always room for partisan viewpoints. That is normal: we function on the adversarial principle. It’s normal that we should have differing positions, but all the same, we ought to be more rigorous and disciplined in the exercise of our duties.

That is what I wish us all for 2017.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, December 14th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, who is always so entertaining. His parents are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary tomorrow, and mine are celebrating their 50th in six months. A most pleasant coincidence!

I would like to ask him a question which, once again, concerns areas of jurisdiction. He has made a good statement, and I am going to make mine in the ensuing speech. I am truly concerned at the fact that the government seems not to understand the message that it has been sent.

The consumer protection that the Liberals want to strengthen at the federal level lies within provincial jurisdiction. So I have a great deal of difficulty reconciling the federal government’s willingness to continue proposing such legislation even though it deals with a matter of provincial jurisdiction.

Would my colleague care to add something to this exchange, one which will hopefully significantly influence the direction that the government wishes to take on this issue?