Guy Caron

[Income Tax Act, May 19th, 2016]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-274, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (transfer of small business or family farm or fishing corporation).

Mr. Speaker, my bill would end a blatantly unfair situation that puts business people, farmers, and fishing vessel operators at a disadvantage when they want to pass their business on to a child rather than a stranger. The difference is a big one. For a million-dollar business, the difference can be around $200,000 from a taxation perspective. For a $10-million farm, we are talking $2.2 million less if the owner sells it to a stranger rather than a family member. We have to do something about this. This bill is well thought out to avert any possibility of tax avoidance arising from these amendments. I hope that the members of the House will support my bill at second reading. I am pleased to introduce this bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Outremont, the NDP leader, for an impassioned speech that gets right to the point.

We have before us a bill that would retroactively change Air Canada's obligations to Mississauga, Montreal, and Winnipeg. Morally and ethically, this kind of thing has no place in a state governed by the rule of law. I am glad our leader singled out, as he could have done for every sitting Liberal MP, how unfair this measure is and how unethical it is to make this change retroactive, thereby releasing Air Canada from its obligations.

By virtue of a single clause, the law is deemed never to have come into force and is now repealed. When that kind of thing happens once, it can be considered an isolated incident. Now, however, it is becoming a trend. The Liberals are doing the same thing with their bill on balancing the books. With the one, they are letting Air Canada off the hook, and with the other, they are letting themselves off the hook.

I would like the NDP leader to comment on that.

[Business of Supply, May 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises an excellent point, and that is one of our focuses when we are assessing the impact of the trade agreements we sign with other countries.

We were the only party in the House on the Standing Committee on International Trade that opposed the trade agreements with Colombia and Honduras. Respect for human rights was behind our opposition to these agreements.

Successive Liberal and Conservative governments that have negotiated these types of agreements have missed a perfect opportunity to use the agreements to improve the standard of living and enforce human rights in the countries with which we are negotiating. They refuse to do so.

Unionists are being murdered in Colombia and Honduras. The situations in Brunei and Vietnam have come up, and these are other situations in which we refuse to use these trade agreements as leverage to enforce and increase the protection of human rights and improve the standard of living and labour standards in these countries. These things are simply not part of any trade agreement.

[Business of Supply, May 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, Canadian data are at greater risk than American data in the cross-border flow of data.

Americans have the USA PATRIOT Act, but we do not have such a law. Therefore, I believe that there are two problems. First, the data that are currently protected will no longer be protected under the provisions of the trans-Pacific partnership. Second, Canadians for the most part are not aware of this.

I think that they would have quite a different opinion of a treaty such as this one if they were aware of this. If the government is concerned about transparency, is willing, and truly wants to have meaningful consultations, I urge the government to put this issue at the forefront in consultations so that Canadians are aware of it.

[Business of Supply, May 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. The answer is no. What I would like to see is real consultations where the government would respond to concerns about the agreement.

In my speech, I talked about the impact that this agreement could have on privacy. I have not heard the government say anything about the impact that the agreement will have on Canadians' privacy. Members need to know about that before they can vote in an informed manner, unless of course their minds are already made up and they think that all trade agreements and contracts are good regardless of what measures they contain.

Without that information, we cannot make a decision in good conscience and in keeping with the principles of good governance. Independent studies have been conducted. I am asking the government to table the studies that it likely has done on the economic impact such an agreement would have on Canada and all of our industries. Members will all agree that there are winners and losers in any trade agreement. We want to know what the government's analysis of this agreement says. We would like the government to make it public.

[Business of Supply, May 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the excellent and highly respected member for Windsor West.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in the House to speak to this opposition motion concerning the trans-Pacific partnership. I have to admit that I find the debate very amusing. In fact, both the government and the official opposition are arguing and quibbling about which one of them is the staunchest supporter of free trade. I believe this is going to make for an interesting day, but we are losing sight of the crux of the matter. What we are presently debating is a trade agreement, which is simply a contract between various nations that establishes terms and conditions, in this case, for trade. We can support trade agreements and recognize that Canada is a nation whose economy depends on trade and, at the same time, disagree with the terms of the contract.

When Conservatives and Liberals negotiate trade agreements, it seems that the details are not very important. This debate is about whether we should or should not sign the contract without even looking at the details.

I find this particularly interesting because the current government and the previous government made accusations implying that we approve or reject agreements without even having read them, which is completely untrue. We learned about the details of the trans-Pacific partnership during the election campaign, since the agreement was announced during the campaign. I remind members that this agreement was negotiated behind closed doors and that we knew nothing about it before the campaign. We therefore had enough problems with the agreement that we were able to take a stance on it.

I find it quite interesting to hear the Minister of International Trade accuse us of having made up our minds without even having read the agreement. I remember very well that during the previous Parliament, in which I served, the Conservative prime minister showed up with a signed agreement with the European Union and announced it to the House. In his first question in the House, the member for Papineau, who was the Liberal leader at the time, congratulated the prime minister on signing the agreement, saying that the Liberal Party would support it and asking when the Liberals would have access to the agreement.

We will therefore take no lessons from either side about the NDP's positions on extremely important contracts. I believe that such agreements should be assessed on the basis of their content and their consequences.

There are problems with this agreement. I listened carefully to the speech given by my colleague, the parliamentary secretary. I thank him for mentioning the supposed strengths and weaknesses of this bill. However, there are other factors that he did not mention. One of them is of particular concern to me.

People generally expect a trade agreement, or a contract between nations to eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers, to have to do with trade. However, the agreement in question contains clauses that will affect specific aspects of people's daily lives, and so far, those clauses have not been talked about here in the House as part of the debate on the trans-Pacific partnership.

Privacy is one such issue. Right now, Canadian data, such as banking information and confidential information, are stored on Canadian servers, which are obviously not accessible to the United States at the moment and do not fall within the scope of the USA PATRIOT Act. However, the provision that requires these types of data to be stored on Canadian servers may be removed. It is therefore quite likely that these data could be stored on servers on American soil, where they would be accessible to American security intelligence agencies. That means that the CIA and other agencies would have access to these data under the USA PATRIOT Act. Are Canadians aware of that? I do not think so because Canadians assume that trade agreements have to do with tariff and non-tariff barriers.

My colleague from Windsor West asked an excellent question. We have a non-reciprocal agreement with regard to the auto industry.

Tariffs will be phased out over a period of 20 years for the U.S. auto sector and 12 years for Malaysia, but that phase will be just five years long for Canada. Not only does this agreement lack reciprocity, but the Canadian and U.S. sectors are closely integrated. Having two different tariff elimination timelines, one over a 20-year period and the other over a five-year period, will cause huge problems for the industry and jeopardize its integrated nature. This will cause problems that do not get a lot of air time in the House.

Moreover, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Conservatives and the Liberals have an agreement about takeovers, which are subject to a strategic review if they hit a certain threshold. The agreement will raise that threshold to allow more foreign takeovers without prior review by the government and what used to be called the Department of Industry. That is a problem because some takeovers affect strategic sectors here. More and more of these kinds of acquisitions will not have to undergo a review to assess their impact on Canada.

I have my eye on both parties, but I will be paying particular attention to the current government. Federal assistance to Bombardier comes with strings attached by this government. I do not take issue with the need for such conditions to ensure that Canada's investment includes oversight of Bombardier's operations. We agree on that. This is similar to the model that was proposed and applied by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. However, it bothers me when the government tries to use this assistance to change the share ownership structure at Bombardier in order to get rid of multiple voting shares.

We could argue about the effectiveness of this system, which has served Quebec well so far. This system is used mainly in Quebec. However, getting rid of multiple voting shares paves the way for foreign takeovers. I cannot figure out why the government would want to impose a condition to make foreign takeovers easier when we see what is happening right now with Rona and Couche-Tard. Multiple voting shares in those companies may be eliminated if nothing changes, making it easier for a takeover to occur.

As I was saying, we need to know the ins and outs of this agreement. An impact study is needed in order to analyze the details. Independent studies have estimated that Canada will lose about 60,000 jobs if the agreement is ratified, and 20,000 of those jobs will be in the auto sector. This is an important issue that needs to be raised. If the government has already done a study regarding the impact of such an agreement on the Canadian economy, it should be made public so that Canadians can see it. So far, they have been left in the dark.

In light of the many debates that have taken place in recent years on the trans-Pacific partnership and the treaty with the European Union, I have to admit that it seems as though the dice are loaded. The government can talk all it wants about consultation, but that means nothing if it is done only for appearances' sake and if the decision has already been made. This is also known as paying lip service.

We have consulted, but we have decided.

It is all smoke and mirrors when it comes to the much-touted consultation. In fact, much of the consultation mentioned by the government took place as part of the proceedings of the Standing Committee on International Trade. The government is taking credit for it, but it would have happened anyway.

What is more, I seriously doubt that all 20,000 emails and letters people sent will be translated into the other official language, for one thing, or seriously considered by the government, for another thing. To hear the Minister of International Trade and the Conservatives talk about the agreement, it is clear that a decision has already been made and that this exercise is basically a charade so that the government looks good and appears more open for having done this consultation.

The bottom line is that the decision has been made. That is extremely unfortunate because it means that we will not get to hold a very important debate about the provisions and the consequences of the agreement. If a study has been conducted on the economic impact that this agreement will have on Canada and our economy, I appeal to the government to immediately make it public.

[Canada Revenue Agency, May 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have good reason to be frustrated with the KPMG and Canada Revenue Agency affair. Canadians have just finished paying their fair share of taxes, and they expect everyone to do so.

First KPMG helps millionaires hide their money in the Isle of Man. Then the agency offers them amnesty after they are caught. Enough is enough. We need a thorough review to get to the bottom of things.

Will the Liberals stop their cover-up and stop protecting KPMG?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for asking that very important question. It touches on a belief that our two parties have in common.

Campaign promises were clear about investments and provincial transfers amounting to $3 billion for home care and palliative care, but there is no mention of it in the budget.

I think that is not all we should invest in immediately. For example, we can talk about restoring the tax credit for labour-sponsored funds, which help raise capital for venture capital firms. The Liberals promised to restore it to 15% right away. This year, when people filed their tax returns, it was 5%. The Liberals made a lot of promises and then shelved them. I suspect they made those promises just to get elected.

The palliative care and home care measure is extremely important because it would have helped so much with the debate we just had and will continue to have on medical assistance in dying. We missed a golden opportunity to connect a conversation about palliative care with the subject before us. The Supreme Court is expecting an answer from Parliament on that subject.

If we had debated home care and palliative care at the same time as medical assistance in dying, that would have been a very helpful perspective. It would have been very useful not only for parliamentarians in the House but also for all Canadians.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Regina—Lewvan.

This question is extremely important, and it goes to the very heart of Canadians' expectations following the last election.

On the NDP side, we clearly committed to restoring the 6% increase in health transfers to the provinces. What the Conservatives put forward limited the increase to the cost of living, with a certain minimum that was established at that time.

Clearly, this measure is completely inadequate for the provinces, which need those transfers to deal with the increased pressure being put on their health care budgets, largely due to our aging population.

It strikes me as problematic that the Liberal government is claiming that it is going to negotiate a new health accord. It is talking about negotiating one, not imposing one. However, the budget makes no mention of any increases in health transfers.

These negotiations will not be easy, because we are talking about not only the current situation facing the provinces, but also the situation they will face over the next 5, 10, or 15 years, since the demographic pressures are only going to increase.

What are the government's plans? We have no idea. Tabling the budget and introducing the budget implementation bill would have been a perfect opportunity for us to learn more about the government's intentions, but that remains very mysterious and nebulous at the moment.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is also the member for Spadina—Fort York.

We could debate this issue at length. According to our bible, this bill is an omnibus bill that includes different measures that can be found in the budget. However, just about everything the government does can be found in the budget. One could then make the argument that the budgets introduced by the Conservatives were not omnibus budgets.

We are debating the letter of the bill, but we must also debate the spirit in which the current government and the party made promises to voters during the election campaign.

The Liberals claimed that they would change things and that they would increase transparency and enhance the mechanisms intended to facilitate the work of committees and Parliament. However, that is not what this bill does, because it contains some extremely complex measures that will not be subject to a careful, comprehensive study, even though they will have serious consequences and should be carefully studied.

The committee will not be able to do so. The bill will then come back to the House and we will vote. The Liberals are doing the exact same thing as the Conservatives did before them. They are preventing even independent members from presenting their amendments in the House.

The Liberals' actions may be more subtle than the Conservatives' actions in the past, but we are still talking about introducing omnibus bills and about preventing the committees from working effectively.

In that sense, the process is unfortunately problematic. However, a number of the elements I mentioned in my speech, such as the Liberals' broken promises, will not go unnoticed. These elements could have been included, such as expanding all of the employment insurance measures and extending benefits across the country, not just in 12 regions. Some important elements in my speech should also not be overlooked.

At the end of the day, the point I want to make is that this government is no different from the previous government, despite the promises it made during the election campaign.