Irene Mathyssen

[Veterans Affairs, February 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, after promising Colonel Neil Russell, a 33-year veteran with the air force, a long-term care bed in Parkwood Hospital, Veterans Affairs is now backtracking. Colonel Russell will have to pay the province for the bed.

This is a betrayal of the men and the women who have served our country. Veterans are not a provincial responsibility. When will Veterans Affairs Canada stop this demeaning and adversarial process and take care of all of our veterans?

[Veterans Affairs, February 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, after a long-fought battle with Veterans Affairs, Colonel Neil Russell, a post-Korean War vet, was granted a bed in the veterans' wing of Parkwood Hospital in London, Ontario. Granting that long-term care bed in a veterans' wing sets an important precedent.

The fact is that the government keeps modern-day vets out of long-term care, even when beds are available. That is a disgrace.

Will the Conservatives guarantee beds to all veterans, without forcing them to do battle with their own government?

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, rail freight customers, from farmers to mining companies, are suffering because railway companies have a virtual monopoly when it comes to the vital rail lines that Canadians need to get goods to market.

In most parts of the country shippers cannot choose between rail services because they only have access to either CN or CP. Even in the few places where both rail companies provide access, one is usually priced out of the market, leaving the shipper with no real choice.

Shippers routinely suffer from service disruptions, delays and experience all kinds of examples of non-reliable performance by CN and CP. Deliveries and pickups are not done on time or are skipped completely. Frequently the number of ordered railcars is not matched by the delivered number of railcars and sometimes cars are badly damaged.

When a shipper contracts a specific number of railcars, that shipper needs to know those cars will be available. Anything other than this kind of reliability is bad business and bad management. Unfortunately, we know that 80% of the service commitments for agricultural rail customers are not met by rail companies.

After years of talking, the Conservatives have finally tabled legislation to address a number of key rail freight customer grievances after years of inferior service by the big rail companies. Bill C-52 is a step forward, but is far from a perfect solution.

Key demands from the shipping community have, quite simply, not been addressed. Bill C-52 would also create loopholes because of its ambiguous language. The Conservative language is weak. Its protective measures do not cover existing contracts between shippers and rail companies and offers only a narrow, costly arbitration process for failed negotiations for new contracts. Key demands like the shippers' call to include penalties for rail companies in service agreements, performance standards and an easily accessible conflict resolution process were ignored.

While NDP members will support this legislation, we will also push for amendments at the committee stage to protect shippers from the abuse of market power through the right to comprehensive service agreements and conflict resolution processes.

Rail transport is the backbone of Canada's economy, with 70% of all surface goods shipped by rail. It is crucial to make rail freight services work for both rail companies and shippers. We cannot take the importance of the railroad for granted.

It is also critical to note that current pricing for rail freight services is also damaging Canada's shippers. Bill C-52 explicitly excludes pricing, despite the calls from all parts of the shipping community to address the pricing regime. This has a significant impact on Canada's trade deficit, which is, by the way, ballooning. It reached almost $2 billion in November alone. We cannot afford to lose even more ground when it comes to global competitiveness for Canada's products.

A broad range of industries are affected by the situation created by the virtual monopoly of current rail service providers. I have already mentioned agriculture, but we must not forget other key industries like forestry and mining as well as chemical and automotive businesses. Many of the goods produced by these industries are destined for export.

Lacklustre rail services are hurting Canada's exporters' ability to compete in global markets. For example, soybeans from Argentina enjoy a competitive advantage in markets like Japan and China because they are delivered faster and more punctually than soybeans from Canada, despite the fact that the total distance that needs to be covered is significantly shorter for products from Canada.

Rail freight is not only central to Canada's economy; we also need strong rail freight services to take trucks off the road and tackle greenhouse gas emissions. While the overall share of surface transport for goods remains high for rail, frustrated companies switch to trucking where possible and the environment loses.

Rail freight is only one aspect where the Conservatives are slow to act. From new rail safety measures to cuts at VIA Rail and blocking the introduction of high-speed rail in Canada, Conservatives do not give Canada's rail network the attention it deserves.

The bill has taken a long time to come to the House. For years, shippers have been unhappy but no concrete action was taken by the Conservatives. Since 2007 they employed a talk it out and wait tactic, starting with the promise of an expert panel review.

The rail freight service review started in 2008. The independent panel tabled its final report in early 2011. Half a year later in the fall of 2011, the Conservatives initiated a mediation process that did not yield any results. Presumably with the tacit backing from the Conservative government, CN and CP were unwilling to make any meaningful concessions. The mediation process, led by retired Conservative politician and University of Calgary chancellor Jim Dinning, failed. Dinning released his report in June 2012 and the Minister of Transport promised government legislation on the topic to be tabled in the fall.

Parallel to the end of the mediation process, fortunately, the member for Trinity—Spadina tabled private member's Bill C-441, the rail customer protection act, in June 2012. The private member's bill by the member for Trinity—Spadina, coupled with advocacy work from the shipping community, put pressure on the minister to follow up on his promise to actually table legislation. However, CN undertook a massive lobbying effort last year, first to prevent any effective bill, then to have it watered down. Dozens of documented visits to government offices and a media campaign show the determination of CN to keep the status quo.

Rail customers have banded together now and are organized in the Coalition of Rail Shippers. The coalition is a loose and informal entity, but it wants something positive for its industry. It wants something positive for the people who produce the goods, who create the wealth in this country, the men and women who do the work to make this country tick and be productive.

Shippers are having a hard time getting fair and reliable freight service, and that is simply unacceptable. We can and should do better for those that rely on our rail system. Our manufacturers, farmers and resource industries depend on our rail system. If rail were made more fair and affordable, consumers would also see an advantage.

This is a country that emerged as a strong, independent nation because of the accessibility of our railways. Let us not abandon those who would continue to build our Canada.

[Petitions, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from constituents adding their names to those of thousands of Canadians who have petitioned the House to change the proposed changes to old age security eligibility.

The government has increased eligibility from age 65 to 67, and that puts a great deal of pressure on the poorest seniors. It means that those very poor seniors will lose as much $12,000 in benefits. It will also impact younger Canadians. Therefore, the petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to maintain eligibility for retirement age at 65 and to increase the guaranteed income supplement so that we can lift every senior in the country out of poverty.

[Veterans, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there is a troubling pattern of the Conservatives ignoring due process when it comes to the care of our veterans. Today the ombudsman's report provides the latest example of unfair treatment of veterans seeking disability benefits.

Could the minister explain why veterans, and serving members of the Canadian Forces and the RCMP are kept in the dark about what information is used when deciding a claim? These men and women are the heroes of our country. When will the Conservatives start treating veterans fairly?

[Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, January 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is really quite clear to us on this side of the House that smaller, more manageable bills would be the way to go. The promise to have an annual legislative process in place, I think, is the intelligent way to go. In that way, people could digest the small chunks at a time instead of this 10-year process where a thousand pages come at us and we try to sift and sort and understand them.

This is not exactly in regard to taxation, but very recently I received a number of complaints from concerned seniors who are being told that their income tax returns will now have to be done over the Internet. They are absolutely apoplectic. This is just another example of a government that is not looking at the needs of Canadians and is steamrolling over those Canadians.

[Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, January 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right about the difficulties facing people not only in all of Canada but particularly in ridings where multinational corporations have taken and taken and taken, whether tax benefits, resources, consuming infrastructure, or utilizing the expertise of the workers who made them wealthy and competitive industries and simply walked away, leaving the country high and dry, as we saw with the community of London—Fanshawe when the offshoot of Caterpillar left.

The future of this country is very clearly with small- and medium-size businesses. They are part of the community. In fact, last week I had the profound pleasure of speaking to members of the Rotary Club, made up of members of the small- and medium-size businesses that employ people, that are contributors to the community. They are not just there to take, take, take; they are there to give back and make for strong neighbourhoods. Therefore, we need a tax system that suits their needs. We need to stop these huge and ridiculous tax breaks for multinational corporations, the polluters, the banks, which are giving back very little, if anything at all, and we need to look very closely at small- and medium-size business and in that process make it as easy and expedient as possible for them to do their jobs as we would like.

[Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, January 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time this afternoon.

I am most pleased to join the debate on Bill C-48, a bill to amend the Income Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, the First Nations Goods and Services Act and related legislation.

The bill makes important and long-overdue changes to the tax laws, and this is the issue. While New Democrats support the bill, we do take issue with the omnibus nature of it. At close to 1,000 pages, it leaves little opportunity for study and debate.

The very point of Parliament and our democratic system is not only to introduce laws but to scrutinize those laws and ensure they are accurate and they work in the best interests of the country. That is the very reason we are all here, to work toward the betterment of this great country.

We put at risk our very democracy and we shun the very core of Parliament by introducing huge pieces of legislation that leave little time for such scrutiny.

I notice the members across have chosen to put up only one speaker on the bill, leaving the official opposition with the task of carrying out that important scrutiny of Bill C-48. That should be the role of all parliamentarians, but it seems that upholding the functions, checks and balances that Parliament is supposed to provide is not a priority with the government.

Conservatives take partisan rhetoric to the extreme and continue to introduce mammoth bills with as little debate as possible, and in fact with closure motions, so that there is as little debate as possible.

I want to add that it is not the changes that Bill C-48 undertakes that New Democrats are concerned about; it is the fact that the bill is so very large that the ability to scrutinize it is almost impossible. The changes outlined in Bill C-48 should have been introduced over the years, not grouped into one unwieldy bill.

There is no need for this massive piece of legislation. It should have been introduced in smaller pieces as routine housekeeping bills over the years. In fact, Bill C-48 includes outstanding legislative proposals dating back as far as 1998. Many of us in this chamber were children then. Good heavens, what a long time to postpone and procrastinate.

Even if the Prime Minister was not aware of these much needed updates to taxes, in 2009, the Auditor General raised concerns about the fact that there were at least 400 outstanding technical amendments that had not yet been put into legislation. There is no excuse. There were several years and plenty of time after this report was released to introduce the smaller bills that would have addressed the backlog of tax changes that needed to be addressed.

Of the outstanding changes outlined by the Auditor General, more than 200 are now in Bill C-48. Most tax practitioners have been relatively happy with the practice of the comfort letter process. However, as I have indicated already, the Auditor General's 2009 report noted “an expressed need for the legislative changes that the comfort letters identified and should be enacted”.

I want to quote a little further from the Auditor General's fall report of 2009:

No income tax technical bill has been passed since 2001. Although the government has said that an annual technical bill of routine housekeeping amendments to the Act is desirable, this has not happened. As a result, the Department of Finance Canada has a backlog of at least 400 technical amendments that have not been enacted, including 250 “comfort letters” dating back to 1998.

The Auditor General is very clear. The need for updates to the legislation is important, perhaps even critical, and we had plenty of opportunities to pass bills related to tax legislation long before now.

Sadly, this is not the first time the Auditor General has complained about this issue. She expressed concerns over and over again, and in response the Department of Finance Canada stated:

—the government intends to release a package of income tax technical amendments on an annual basis, so that taxpayers will not be subject to more lengthy waiting periods as in the past before amendments are released to the public.

While comfort letters have since been regularly released to the public, very few technical bills have been introduced or passed in recent years. In the last 18 years, only four such income tax bills have been enacted. Annual income tax technical amendments were promised, but neither Liberals nor Conservatives bothered to do this basic annual housekeeping. How on earth can they continue to misrepresent themselves as good managers when their ability to manage is so obviously bad?

I would like to reiterate that there is absolutely no need to create massive bills such as this. At close to 1,000 pages, this is most definitely an omnibus bill. However, in contrast to the government's Trojan Horse budget bills, Bill C-48 does make some technical changes and does have a purpose as opposed to the callous lumping together of Conservative legislation into two omnibus bills in the spring and fall sessions. In those bills we saw the dismantling of environmental reviews, the rewriting of the Fisheries Act, the elimination of wildlife habitat protection, the repeal of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, the reduction of the powers of the Auditor General and the dissolving of the Public Appointments Commission meant to fight patronage.

We also saw the gutting of food safety inspection. It was a one-stop shop of Conservative slicing and dicing through services Canadians rely on, while making changes to a slew of laws that they never once mentioned in their budget. By forcing omnibus bills such as the Trojan Horse bills through, the Conservatives demonstrated a mastery of the art of circumventing the democratic process and ignoring the concerns of Canadians and the concerns of first nations.

We now see another massive bill in Bill C-48 and that tells me that there is still work to be done among Conservatives if we are to see important changes legislated in a timely fashion. Failing to do so would hurt the business community and make it difficult for proper evaluation by Parliament.

It is not just difficult for parliamentarians. The government claims that its goal is to boost the economy, but by introducing overly complex bills, it does not allow small business people to invest the time and resources they need in order to understand them. They are in the business of business. They are not in the business of circumventing all of this red tape.

The Auditor General was clear about this and said, “If proposed technical changes are not tabled regularly, the volume of amendments becomes difficult for taxpayers [and] tax practitioners...”.

It is not just the Auditor General who has noted this issue. We heard from the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada. In its pre-budget submission, it said that, “CGA-Canada strongly believes that the key to sustained economic recovery and enhanced economic growth lies in the government’s commitment to tax reform and red tape reduction”.

There is a need to modernize the system and smaller bills would do that.

Finally, I would like to address the very important issue of tax avoidance, parts of which have been addressed in Bill C-48. It is very important for the government. New Democrats absolutely believe in cracking down on both tax avoidance and tax evasion while ensuring the integrity of the tax system.

As members know, there are many honest and hard-working Canadians out there who believe in the systems that our taxes support such as health care, social assistance and various environmental policies, even though they have been dismantled and disrupted. Those Canadians need to know that everyone is paying his or her fair share and that every business and every person is making the contribution to this country that we need. Therefore, it is important to focus on compliance in order to ensure the integrity of our tax system. It is important to get rid of the loopholes in a timely manner. In an ever-growing complexity of tax codes, we now need simplification, clarity and changes that will make it progressive and effective.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, December 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, as we know, Bill C-15 was preceded by Bill C-41, in which numerous amendments were made and passed by the then parliamentary committee. However, these amendments are not seen in the current Bill C-15.

Why on earth would we, in a previous Parliament, make good changes to a bill and then overlook them in the current session?

[Petitions, December 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition has to do with the change to the age of eligibility for old age security. Canadians want the age of eligibility returned to age 65.