James Moore

[Sponsorship Program, March 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, here is what the transport minister said: “If somebody had to pay a certain amount to the Liberal Party to get contracts, I think that money should be reimbursed”.

Lafleur Communications and PR firms Splash and Commando have admitted to making contributions to the Liberal Party to get contracts. Guilt has been admitted. Cash changed hands. Why will the Liberal Party not give back this dirty money and apologize to taxpayers?

[Sponsorship Program, March 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Gomery commission has revealed that the real purpose of the sponsorship program was to line the pockets of the Liberal Party and its friends with our tax money.

If the testimony at the Gomery commission is enough to proceed against the advertising agencies, why then is the Liberal government not also proceeding against the Liberal Party in order to get our money back?

[Airline Industry, March 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we know what the Liberals are for, which is taxing the air industry into the ground.

One of the business leaders in the poll was quoted as saying, “Our government's dithering on this and other matters makes me feel that we are just plain leaderless”. Another quote to note is, “Federal government taxation is what is hurting the airline industry”.

The business community gets it. The air and travel industry gets it. The transport committee gets it. The Conservative Party gets it.

Why is this Liberal government so absolutely clueless when it comes to the high taxes that are driving Canada's air industry into the ground?

[Airline Industry, March 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, a poll of business leaders, which was released today by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, shows that 55% of respondents think the federal government is responsible for Jetsgo's collapse. Excessive taxes, fees and charges are largely to blame, they say.

Jetsgo certainly had its own problems, but when nine air carriers go broke in eight years of Liberal government, it is clear that the number one problem our air industry faces is this Liberal government.

Will a tenth airline really have to go broke before the government finally does something and stops taxing our air industry into the ground?

[Sponsorship Program, March 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the evidence is not contradictory. The evidence is mounting that the Liberal government is involved and has been involved in some pretty sketchy activities.

Last week during an advocacy day in Washington, D.C., 1,700 tee-shirts were distributed promoting Canada on Capitol Hill. The shirts were supplied by a company with a sketchy record of unfair labour practices in the third world, and these 1,700 tee-shirts were made in Mexico, not Canada.

Why would the Canadian government not distribute Canadian products on a Canadian trade mission?

[Sponsorship Program, March 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, when we think of it, the sponsorship scandal is based on a very simple premise: The Liberal government awarded generous contracts to advertising agencies that are friends with the Liberal Party and, conversely, these agencies gave money to the Liberal Party. We learned that Pierre Michaud and Pierre Davidson both gave $1,000 to the Liberal Party in 1997, after receiving money from the sponsorship program.

The Minister of Transport promised to give back the dirty money related to sponsorships. Is this also a broken promise by the Liberal government?

[Government Contracts, March 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in 2003, when the finance minister was the minister of public works, he was aware of an internal audit showing that taxpayers were being ripped off by $146 million. The four year $146 million rip-off was due to a poorly managed contract between Compaq and the Department of National Defence managed by the Department of Public Works. Government auditors had repeatedly raised red flags on this file as far back as 1999 but the Liberals, no surprise, did nothing.

Could the Minister of Finance tell us why the government was so irresponsible with this contract and why for four years the government failed to protect the interests of taxpayers?

[The Budget, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is the small and medium size airports in this country that are hit the hardest by the government's airport rents policy.

What is stunning though is that the CEO of the Regina airport authority is getting into the face of the Minister of Finance, who is from Regina, saying, “Are you mad? Your policies are damaging the ability of our airport to increase our services”.

It was in fact just a week and a half ago that Air Canada said that it is going to eliminate jet service into the entire province of Saskatchewan. It is replacing them with Dash 8s. That is Air Canada going on a good business model, but it has smaller planes because there are fewer passengers. There are fewer passengers because the government looks at the air industry as a source of revenue through taxes galore.

The Conservative Party would reform the management of airport authorities to ensure that all voices are heard in the airport authorities. I would prefer a Nav Canada type model imposed on the airport authorities so that all voices are heard, so airport improvement fees are not going through the roof, so there is accountability for the rents that are being paid to Ottawa. Over time, a Conservative government would phase out airport rents, get rid of the $24 air tax, have competition in our skies and put passengers rather than bureaucrats first.

[The Budget, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague from Windsor West. I know that he has put a great deal of time, effort and energy into the concerns with the corridor between Windsor and Detroit.

In the Conservative Party we have allocated responsibility for this issue to one member of Parliament to singularly examine and focus on this issue, the member for Essex. I know the member for Windsor West has worked very hard on this issue with the member for Essex.

I think the dollar question that the member raises is apt. Half of the cost of a litre of gasoline is taxation. Half of those taxes go to the provinces; half of those taxes come to Ottawa. What is interesting is that the federal government does not engineer, build or maintain a single kilometre of highway in this country. Municipalities engineer and build roads. Provinces deal with our highways in cooperation with the municipalities. It is not the federal government. The money that comes to Ottawa goes into a general revenue fund and it goes to financing all kinds of other programs.

If we told the average citizens when they were filling up their tanks with gasoline that one out of every second full tank of gasoline is 100% taxes and half of that money is going to Ottawa and absolutely zero of it is going into the roads that they are driving on, they would get angry. They should get angry. When we look at the corridor, when we look at the concerns we have with our infrastructure, that needs to change.

The Conservative Party from day one has been talking about recalibrating that excess taxation that has been coming to Ottawa and putting more money back into the hands of the people in Windsor and that county. The federal government needs to get going with fixing our infrastructure and putting money back into the hands of the level of government that actually makes the decisions when it comes to our transportation.

[The Budget, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on the final note of the minister's speech. He did say that the personal deductions on income tax were going to be raised to $10,000, but that would be phased in over a number of years and would barely keep up with inflation. That is hardly the substantive tax relief that this minister demanded from the government when he was in the opposition, but I guess intensity and passions change when one goes to the other side of the House.

I also want to comment as a comeback to his comment that the questions I asked him, when I had the opportunity to ask questions, did not pertain to his portfolio in public works. That is in part because if he was doing more in public works, frankly there would be more to ask questions about. I am going to instead curtail my speech here to my additional responsibilities as the transport critic for the official opposition. I am speaking of another portfolio that was left out in the cold in this budget.

Before I do that, Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Calgary--Nose Hill.

As transport critic for the official opposition, I must say that the budget, unless it is amended, has been an unmitigated disaster for Canada's transportation industry and in particular our aviation sector. In fact, one member of the House was so incensed by the finance minister's failure to freeze or reduce the rents at our airports that the Liberals charge, he wanted to put the Minister of Finance and his officials on a no-fly list, “so they could reflect upon what was happening in the air sector”.

That speaker was the hon. member for Outremont and he is gravely concerned. After all, Aéroports de Montréal, the operator of the airport closest to his riding, lost $10.3 million in 2004 after Transport Canada increased the rent by 306% to $19.5 million from $4.8 million the year before. If we do the math quickly, we will see that the amount of the increase, $14.7 million, is even bigger than the amount of the loss, so it shows that even by working harder, Montreal's airports cannot easily escape the financial jeopardy of Liberal greed.

It is easy for all of us to understand the concerns of an MP who lashed out at the finance minister for irresponsible Liberal policies that negatively affect major institutions in his or her own riding. However, the hon. member for Outremont is also the federal transport minister. As we all know, it is virtually unheard of for a sitting cabinet minister to attack a cabinet colleague. It is even more taboo for a cabinet minister to attack the finance minister's budget the day after the budget was tabled in the House.

However, I can understand and even agree with the transport minister's outrage. Imagine being a cabinet minister and hearing in a budget speech that the department for which he is responsible is going to threaten the financial viability of a large institution in his own backyard, and that he is powerless or incapable of defending it. I cannot imagine a greater public humiliation or a more profound sense of impotence.

In his latest speech, his latest budget, the Minister of Finance has effectively publicly confirmed the irrelevance of the Minister of Transport. In his 7,000 word one hour and 15 minute speech, the word transport is not mentioned once, and the only mention of the transportation sector is in the context of increased regulation to meet our Kyoto commitments.

In his speech the Minister of Finance praised the “able direction” of his colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, applauded the people in the Department of Public Works and Government Services, and commended the hon. members for Whitby--Oshawa, Huron--Bruce, St. Catharines, Etobicoke Centre and Gatineau for various initiatives.

Furthermore, the night before the budget was tabled, the finance minister reportedly had briefings for the Ministers of the Environment, Industry, International Cooperation, National Defence and Social Development, as well as the Minister of State for Families and Caregivers. Conspicuous by his absence from both the budget speech and the previous night's briefings was the Minister of Transport, a man who doubles as the Prime Minister's Quebec lieutenant. In effect, in this budget the Minister of Finance has effectively sidelined the Minister of Transport.

Airport rent is perhaps the most important issue with regard to the aviation sector, perhaps more important an issue than anything else dealt by the transport minister. In fact, in his very first appearance before the Standing Committee on Transport, the transport minister promised to find a solution to this issue, and then tellingly he said, “I have to go to my colleague, the Minister of Finance, because I'm not for auto-flagellation”.

Less than two weeks later he was back at the transport committee telling us:

Everybody recognizes that we have to correct some inequities in the system...I recognize that I have to move on that. I have to go to cabinet, show them the charts, and show them the reality...I want to move on that. I hope to be able to go to cabinet before Christmas, because we know the new year is a deadline for them, and then be able to move on to a fair and more equitable system.

On December 10 he was quoted in the Globe and Mail saying that he was about to seek cabinet committee support for his plan to freeze airport rents for 2005 as an interim step and then have them permanently lowered. When he was quoted again by the press on February 16, 2005, in the Montreal Gazette , saying that the federal government would likely unveil long awaited changes to airport rents in the upcoming budget, there was reason for optimism.

Presumably, the transport minister's February 16 statement was his way of confirming that the cabinet committee had agreed to his plan to temporarily freeze airport rents for 2005 and permanently lower them thereafter.

So when the budget failed to mention the word transport or any relief or freezing of airport rents, it is easy to see how it demolishes the transport minister's credibility both on a national level and in his own backyard where the local airport is threatened by the increases being imposed by the transport minister's own department, albeit as a result of the finance minister's budget.

It is difficult to imagine how the finance minister could more artfully have destroyed the transport minister's credibility. We are now left in the bewildering position of wondering what, if any, purpose the transport minister now serves the air industry. In this light, it is perhaps easier to understand why the transport minister would want to put the finance minister on the no-fly list that he joked about.

However, this petty political one-upmanship is damaging to the country. Airports like Vancouver and Toronto cannot play meaningful roles as transit stops on Asia-South America or Europe-U.S. trips if the Liberal's airport rent policies tax them out of existence.

As an MP from the lower mainland of British Columbia, I am very mindful of the importance of transportation and the crucial role that it can play in making British Columbia an essential part of growing China-U.S. trade.

On February 1, just a few short weeks ago, I called the finance minister's attention to the most recent report of the B.C. Progress Board. That blue ribbon panel sees transportation as an economic growth engine for British Columbia and proposes using B.C.'s improved transportation infrastructure to strengthen Canada's global competitive advantage. I am sorry to say that the budget has not significantly embraced any of the B.C. Progress Board's findings.

Moreover, even where the budget supposedly delivers, it comes up short. I was at the Liberal Party convention over the weekend as an observer for the official opposition, and the motto repeated mindlessly and endlessly by the Prime Minister in his speech was “Promises made. Promises kept”. As we all know, during the last election the Liberals made hundreds of promises. I want to look at just one.

In the last election the Liberals promised to:

Decide by this year-end on a plan to provide, for the benefit of municipalities, a share of the federal gas tax (or its financial equivalent).

The Liberals stated that “the amount will be ramped up within the next five years to 5¢ per litre, or at least $2 billion”. In his budget speech the finance minister promised to start at $600 million annually, “then rising as promised to 5¢ per litre, or $2 billion, in 2009-10, and continuing thereafter indefinitely”.

On the face of it, we might be fooled into thinking that this constitutes a promise kept. However, the budget actually proposed to transfer $5 billion in gas tax revenue over five years. During the same time period, gas tax revenue is expected to exceed $26 billion to Ottawa. So the return to municipalities will not be 50% of the 10¢ per litre that Ottawa will collect, but rather 19%. Rather than sharing 5¢ per litre, the Liberals are really only sharing 1.9¢ per litre. It is only a promise kept if we use the Liberal Party's definitions. By any other standard of honesty, accountability, fairness, and what the Liberal's themselves promised in their election campaign, this is a promise made and a promise broken.

From a transport perspective, this budget is an abject failure. There has been no movement to put gas tax dollars into the hands of municipalities right now in a meaningful way as promised in the campaign. There has been no promise to have a freeze on airport rents as the Liberals and transport minister himself promised. There has been no commitment to get rid of the $24 air tax.

There has only been a commitment by the transport minister to look at opening skies with a seven page discussion paper, half of which constitutes rhetorical questions with no real blueprint to get us there. Nothing whatsoever was mentioned with regard to VIA Rail. Nothing was mentioned with regard to increased port security. Nothing was mentioned with regard to increasing competition on our rail lines. Nothing at all was mentioned with regard to transport.

From a transport perspective for the official opposition, we can only give this budget an F and condemn the transport minister for his failure to stand up for the department for which he was assigned, for an industry for which he is responsible, and hope that within the time that we have to debate this budget going forward, the Liberals will come to their senses and recognize that transportation is part of Canada's national infrastructure. It should not be seen as a source of revenue. That is something that needs to be understood by the Liberal government before any progress can be made.