James Moore

[The Budget, February 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on the issue of the budget. It is always interesting when the debate is more fierce and when the microphones are not on at the designated speaker. However, that is just the way it goes sometimes when we have the cameo appearance by the member for Simcoe—Grey in the House.

There is one thing I did want to comment on and that was the issue of the debt. It was mentioned by my colleague from Red Deer. It is a fact that the net debt has been revised up by $27 billion in this budget to $563 billion from $536 billion.

I would like to point out that I am the youngest member of the House, I was elected at 24, I am 26 years old now, and the Canadian Alliance is the youngest political party in the House of Commons with the youngest members of Parliament in the House. The fact that the debt continues to climb under the Liberal government is a serious problem for young Canadians.

Debt is a serious reality for young Canadians when they graduate from university and they owe $15,000 or $20,000 in student loans and other associated debts from going to university. They owe their family, Visa or MasterCard. On top of that the provincial and federal governments hit them in the face and say here is another debt that they have to swallow and deal with. It is a huge problem.

The member for Simcoe—Grey was saying that the federal Liberal government enjoys some sort of balance. That is true. There is a balanced Liberal approach to fiscal policy. The balance is that since 1993 taxes have gone up, debt has gone up, and the size of government has gone up. That is a balanced record. The government is bigger today, personal freedoms are less today than they were before, taxes are going up and this is not a good way as we go into the future.

Specifically, I want to talk about a few of those spending increases. Overall spending over one fiscal year has increased in this one budget by 11.5%. In fact, program spending has increased 31.5% since the Liberals balanced the books in 1997-98.

The year 1969 was the last time prior to the 1997-98 budget that the federal government of any political party balanced its books. In 1968 there was Trudeaumania and Pierre Trudeau was elected with a mandate to implement his “Just Society”. He had a mandate to do it. The vast majority of Canadians regret the fiscal portion of that reality.

The fiscal reality of the Pierre Trudeau legacy was again massive tax increases, massive inflation of the civil service, huge spending increases and a massive debt. The debt in the 1980s came up against a wall of increases in interest rates. The cost of interest rates on the accumulated debt and deficits caused the debt to go through the roof. That caused the federal Progressive Conservative Party to implement the goods and services tax in order to replace the manufacturers tax.

The Liberal government said that it would control spending and get rid of the GST. The fact is the Liberal government has done neither. We still have the GST on the books. It is still ripping off Canadians, hurting middle class and low income Canadians, and spending has not gone down. In fact, it has gone up. Spending has gone up in this particular budget, the one we are debating today, the budget of the member for Ottawa South, the finance minister.

This budget goes up more than any budget since the days of Pierre Trudeau. This is the largest budget in a generation. This is not good for young Canadians nor is it good for the future of the country.

Some of the spending is totally going in the wrong direction. Let us look at some of the spending that the Liberals are putting into corporate welfare and channeling to projects that do not make any sense at all. Here are some specific numbers. Transfers to businesses, read corporate welfare, are totalling $6.3 billion in the budget. That is up 12.5% since the Liberals first came to power in 1993.

New funding for the Business Development Bank of Canada has gone up. Transfers and subsidies of over $2.6 billion to various crown corporations and a host of other regional development sustainability programs has gone up. Spending is going up in areas that do not make sense. However, spending in areas where it is needed is not happening.

I will give an example of where spending is needed and it is not going up. I raised this in the House today when I delivered my Standing Order 31. The city of Coquitlam, the largest city of the five in my riding, spends $17 million per year on policing. This is because of the tragedies that have happened in my riding. The Robert Pickton case and the massive investigation that is happening there is in my constituency.

We have had the murder of a 17 year old girl who had a physical disability. Some guy preyed on her, stripped her down, beat her, killed her and threw her into a river. We have had the case of a 17 year old high school student who was beaten, shot and killed in an Internet cafe in Coquitlam.

My riding has been hit hard by the realities of crime. The City of Coquitlam has $17 million for policing. It cannot police some of the small and petty crimes. Just in the past six days, two masked men with bear spray and a gun held up a McDonald's in my riding. A student who was on her way to school in Port Moody was grabbed by an attacker. Fortunately she got away, but unfortunately the attacker got away. An 18 year old woman might be losing her eyesight because she was assaulted by some teenaged guy. Thieves broke into four homes in Port Moody on Jane Street, just behind my constituency office. This was in just the last six days.

The City of Port Moody, the City of Coquitlam and the RCMP do not have the resources they need in order to enforce the laws against crime, in order to punish people, catch people and run proper investigations to convict people after they have been caught.

We can think about it in this context. The City of Coquitlam is one of the larger cities in the Province of British Columbia, which is the third largest province in Canada. The City of Coquitlam spends $17 million a year on policing. In the budget, the federal Liberals found $114 million for a new official languages initiative, like we needed other ones.

I am bilingual, I speak both official languages, but not because the federal government gave me or my school money. I speak French because, when I was young, my parents told me that it was important to learn both languages. It was my parents, not the federal government, who forced me to speak French and learn another language.

Yet the federal government says to throw $114 million into official languages. Again, we can contrast that with the $17 million for policing and the problems we are having in some of these suburban ridings that are sprawling out.

The federal Liberals spend $172 million on an aboriginal cultures centre and $150 million more on top of what they are already spending for television production in Canada, but not a single dime went to new policing initiatives to help small and medium sized communities or even larger communities like mine. My constituency is actually the third largest in Canada in terms of population. But to help us with policing realities?

There is a lot of corporate welfare. Taxes have, net, gone up. The debt has, net, gone up. Spending has gone up. That means the debts that are going to be paid by my generation are larger than they have ever been before in Canadian history. I appreciate that the Liberals are proud of their record, but the blunt reality is that long after most members in the House are gone, young Canadians like me and like the pages in the House will long be paying the debts that the Liberal government is foisting on young Canadians. The Liberals are doing it with good intentions. They are doing it because they want to help people. They are doing it because they are compassionate. I respect that and I respect that the Liberals believe they are doing what is in the best interests of the country.

However, they are not, and young Canadians are going to be paying through the nose. And we will be paying for a very long time. It is a destructive legacy of high taxes, high spending and the biggest spending budget since the mistakes of Pierre Trudeau.

[The Budget, February 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member for Toronto--Danforth, a passionate speaker.

I agree completely with him that it is difficult for members of Parliament. We often get skewed into thinking that we represent just our localities and shovelling pork back to our localities or just representing our provinces. We are members, each of us, of a national legislative body. Whatever we decide here does impact every region of the country on a level playing field. That is true.

As the transport critic for the official opposition, I want to ask him a specific question. The transport minister is from Toronto and he seems to me, and the member can correct me if I am wrong, to be completely focused on the interests of Toronto vis-à-vis transportation. We see this with regard to constantly favouring Air Canada over WestJet and other companies. We see this with the proposed rail link between Windsor and downtown Toronto and then on to Quebec City. We see it with the proposed rail link from downtown Toronto to Pearson airport.

There does not seem to be anywhere near the same level of care with regard to transportation focused in the rest of the country that is focused with regard to Toronto. I wonder if the member could comment on that.

I wonder if he could comment also on the inverse relationship that seems to be represented, that he and I share as members of a national legislature, that is being put forward by Jack Layton.

[Justice, February 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, a student on her way to middle school in Port Moody was grabbed by an attacker. Two masked men with bear spray and a gun held up a McDonald's in Coquitlam. An 18 year old Port Moody woman may have lost the vision in one eye after an assault. All these incidents happened in the past six days.

The menace of street racing, the horror of the Pickton pig farm, the terrible murder of Breann Voth, and the beating and shooting death of a 17 year old student have all taken their toll on the Tri-Cities.

Coquitlam RCMP and Port Moody Police resources are being stretched and exhausted. Many minor offences cannot be properly addressed because major crime investigations are swallowing their budgets. The Tri-Cities have one of the lowest officer to citizen ratios in all of Canada and this reality is not good enough. The City of Coquitlam is spending $17 million for police protection and is not getting the support it needs from the government.

The Liberals found $114 million for a new official languages program and $172 million for an aboriginal cultures centre, but not a single new dime to help fight crime in the Tri-Cities. The Liberals should be ashamed of their warped priorities and for jeopardizing the safety of my constituents.

[Infrastructure, February 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we are still waiting for that GST tax cut though.

On average, Canada's provinces invest 91% of their gas tax revenue in roads. The federal Liberal government invests 4% in roads. Let me say that again. The average of Canadian provinces is 91% of gas tax revenue invested in roads. The federal government invests only 4% in roads.

Given this track record of provinces building roads while Ottawa pads its general revenue slush fund, why will the government not cut gas taxes and leave the financing of roads to the level of government that actually builds them and does it in a fiscally responsible way?

[Infrastructure, February 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians paid $7 billion in federal gas taxes last year: $4.8 billion in excise taxes and $2.2 billion in GST on the fuel and its excise taxes. That is $7 billion in gas taxes, $222 per Canadian. The Liberals will spend $9 per Canadian on infrastructure this year.

Canadians pay $222 each in gas taxes annually. Do they not deserve more than $9 each in infrastructure payments?

[The Budget, February 19th, 2003]

So, Mr. Speaker, no study was done.

Increased rail security: no rail tax. Increased port security: no port tax. Increased border security: no border tax. Increased marine security: no marine tax. For some reason, the Liberal government sees fit to tax the air industry for air security but not any other industry at all.

My question is for the transport minister. Why does the government insist on taxing, unfairly, the air industry for a security regime that it does not impose on any other industry? Why does the government insist on hammering the air industry?

[The Budget, February 19th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, last year the Liberals imposed the $24 air tax and admitted to doing so without doing any impact study whatsoever on the air industry. The $24 amount was picked right out of the sky without any economic background done on it. As a result, fewer Canadians are flying, communities are losing service and people have lost their jobs.

My question: Why was the new tax rate amount chosen without any new background studies done on its impact on the air industry?

[The Budget, February 19th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the air tax is down but it still--

[Canada Elections Act, February 18th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill. Unfortunately the bill is not much of a pleasure to read or actually consider. There are five points I would like to make in my ten minutes about Bill C-24, the political financing bill of the Liberals.

First, replacing an addiction to corporate and union financing for campaigns with an addiction to taxpayer financing is not an answer.

Second, the Canadian Alliance is opposed to direct subsidization of political parties. Any public funding to political parties must be tied to voluntary donations coming from individuals.

Third, it is fundamentally wrong to force Canadians to give tax dollars to political parties they do not support or with which they have a profound intellectual disagreement.

Fourth, the bill provides for no limits on donations to politicians' personal trusts. This is a big loophole which would allow individuals, corporations and unions to circumvent the new donation limits in the bill.

Fifth, it is worrying that while the whole world is focusing on concerns beyond this place, particularly the situation in Iraq and the situation with regard to the financing of health care, the Liberals are focusing on what will get them re-elected and what will get their party the greatest financial gain in the coming months as we head into the next federal election campaign.

I will talk about some specific components of the bill and the problems that I have with them.

First, in the bill corporations, unions or incorporated associations can contribute a maximum of $1,000 per year to a combination of the riding associations, nomination candidates or general election candidates of each political party. Therefore, they can contribute a maximum per year of $1,000 times the number of registered political parties. I do not have a big problem with that part of the bill, although I have a problem with the idea of limiting how much an individual or a corporation should be allowed to give to a political party.

With regard to the campaigning of elections, to me the question is not how much should one be allowed to give or how much should a group of people who are organized collectively be allowed to give, but how much should campaigners be allowed to spend and how is the money that is given disclosed?

A Canadian citizen or landed immigrant can contribute a maximum of $1,000 per year to a combination of the riding associations, nomination candidates, general election candidates and the registered party itself for each political party and an additional sum of $10,000 for the leadership candidates of any one political party plus a further sum of $10,000 for one general election candidate who is not a nominee of any political party. Therefore, they can contribute a maximum per year of $10,000 times the number of registered political parties plus the additional sum in any year when a political party has a leadership contest or there is a general election. All these contribution limits will be automatically indexed for inflation.

In the bill there is to be a prohibition on indirect contributions in an attempt to prevent funding by way of trust; that is the legislation as drafted does not in fact effectively do that if we were to really look at it. The political contribution tax credit will be increased to 75% on the first $400 from $200 and a maximum tax credit increased from $500 to $650.

A lot of people who have not donated to political parties do not realize that if they currently give $200 to a political party, they will receive a tax credit the following year of $150. This is a way of channelling mandated tax liability to its particular political party, up to 75% of the first $200 donation. Since the actual cost to the taxpayer is $50, $150 is taken off the tax bill's tax credit. It is not a tax receipt.

In other words, if people have no tax liability whatsoever and if they earn $8,000 as a student or as something else and decide to give $200 to a political party, they receive a cheque for $150. It is a credit, not a deduction. Now the Liberals want to raise this up from $200 to $400 with the idea of incorporating more money into political parties and encouraging more people to give money to political parties.

On this point I would like to digress a little from the specifics of financing political campaigns. After a decade in power, it is absurd that the Liberals, if they want to encourage citizens to get more involved in politics, would not want to get citizens more involved in dialogue, debating, activism and volunteer activities. Instead they want more of their money. If we give $200 today, we get to write off $150 of it as a credit that comes back to us. The Liberals want to raise that $200 to $400, so if someone gives $400 to a political campaign, that person will get $300 of it back.

The Liberals are not going to let their members of Parliament vote freely in the House. They are not going to give Canadians the capacity to initiate citizens' initiated recall. They are not going to give them the power to initiate a citizen initiated referendum about an issue that is complicated and difficult that the politicians do not have the guts to talk about. The Liberals are not going to give Canadians those tools, but if they want more money, well hell, they will loosen up the laws and make it easier for them to line their pockets. That is something they will do.

That is the kind of Liberal mindset that does not actually feed a system. All it does is feed more cash going into the pockets of politicians.

The most absurd and offensive part of the bill states that there will be an annual allowance paid directly by the taxpayers to each political party that qualified for the reimbursement in the 2000 election. The allowances will total an amount equal to the sum of $1.50 times the number of valid votes cast in the last general election. Each eligible party's share will be based on a percentage of the valid votes cast.

What this means in actuality is permanent subsidization, a permanent distortion of the political financing of our country.

In the last federal election campaign the federal Liberal Party received just over 40% of the vote, the Canadian Alliance received 25.5%, the Bloc Québécois received 10%, the NDP received 8%, and the Tories received just over 12%. Under the Liberal plan, the Liberal Party of Canada would receive the number of votes cast, which would be 5.2 million times $1.50. They would permanently, every single year, from the year 2000 of the election campaign until 2004 or 2005 when we have the next federal campaign, have a cheque cut from the taxpayers for $1.50 times the number of votes they received in the last campaign. The Canadian Alliance, which received 3.2 million votes in the last campaign, would receive $1.50 for every vote cast.

The absurdity of this is twofold. First is the idea that taxpayers would be forced to finance political parties. Second is the permanent entrenchment of Liberal hegemonic power would now be financed by taxpayers against their will. Taxpayers would be forced to give the Liberals a financial advantage over other political parties. This would be entrenched in law. This is how the Liberals say they want to encourage political participation.

The best way to encourage political participation is to reform this institution so we can have debates in the House where there is more than one out of 180 Liberals actually sitting in the House participating in the debate. That is how we encourage more people to get involved in democracy. There is one Liberal in the House out of 180 Liberals. It is pathetic. If we want more people involved in political debates, in our political process and in political dialogue we need to reform the institution of Parliament and reform the mechanism by which we elect people.

We should inspire people by politics. We do not inspire people by entrenching a permanent financial skewing of the system whereby the Liberal Party of Canada will be sustained by taxpayer dollars in an unbalanced and unfair way that will permanently prop it up in this perpetual one party rule that we have in our country. It is completely destructive to our system of government.

Another part of the bill states that allowable expenses for nomination contestants will be capped at 50% of the writ period expenses allowed for candidates in a general election in that riding. I think the maximum a person can spend in a campaign in most ridings is around $68,000 to $72,000. Half of that, about $35,000, would be the cap for spending in terms of running a political campaign.

I, in principle, have a problem with limiting how much people can donate to a campaign. Capping on the spending side is not necessarily a bad idea but even capping on the spending side generally is unnecessary.

If we had mandatory reporting inside of 48 hours, if it were done electronically on the Internet, open for everyone to see the amount of money and who gave to whom and how much, I do not think we would need limits of the degree that are talked about in the bill because there is an assumed liability.

If a political party or an individual accepts a contribution, of whatever size from whatever organization or individual, there is an assumed liability associated with accepting that donation that they may be skewed with the perspective of that person, group or union. I think open disclosure about who gave how much to whom and why is perfectly okay.

I think it is fundamentally immoral and undemocratic to force citizens to pay politicians' election campaigns. It is against the very nature of democracy to reach into people's pockets and force them to finance political views with which they disagree. We have seen this with union contributions to political parties without asking the union's consent. Now we are talking about financing political parties, such as the Bloc Québécois which wants to separate from and destroy Canada. Asking people from my riding or any other riding to finance the destruction of Canada is wrong.

[Canada Elections Act, February 18th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is always important when we are debating important legislation, especially that which is put forward by the government, that there be more than one Liberal out of 180 in the House. Could we have a quorum call, please?