House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 56% of the vote.
National Defence May 14th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, the Americans have long been interested in our position.
Our deputy commander of NORAD and other senior officials warn us that the future of NORAD itself is at stake, if we do not support this defence system.
Why does this government want to play political games with Canada's national interests?
National Defence May 14th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, time is running out for a decision on a national missile defence system that will protect Canada's interests.
A few weeks ago the director general of policy and planning in the Department of National Defence was quoted as saying:
The value of our political support will...depreciate as we approach decision time. Once the U.S. has made its decision, that value could be reduced to nothing.
When will the government get off the fence, act in Canada's national interest and publicly endorse a national missile defence system?
Housing May 9th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate my colleagues' comments, particularly the member for Vancouver East and the member for St. John's West who just spoke on the issue.
I came to the House with a big heart, hoping that I could raise issues that were important to my constituents, and we have spent 40 or 45 minutes of discussing the issue.
When I went into the general election campaign in my constituency, I went in with big ideals that I and my party would move mountains, that we would cut taxes and that we would have new Canada, and that these were the things would talk about.
However when I got into an election campaign I discovered what most members discover. The issues that people are most concerned about in their constituencies are the issues that affect them most at home, the bread and butter issues such as are they safe walking down the street, or is the government going to take more from their pockets than it should. Those are core issues.
During the campaign I knocked on doors in Port Moody, Anmore, Westwood Plateau and in Port Coquitlam of my constituency. When I met the people of my riding, I discovered very quickly that the most important issue in my constituency was the issue of leaky condos. It affected almost 10% of the people in my riding. It was by far the biggest issue.
Lou Sekora, the former member of parliament for my constituency, was elected in the byelection in March, 1998, largely on the hope of people from my constituency because this is a non-partisan issue. We have the members for Vancouver East and St. John's West supporting the motion. It is not an issue of conservatism versus liberalism versus socialism. This is a non-partisan issue, and we all supported it.
The people of my constituency, because this is a bread and butter issue, probably the most important in my riding, got together and said they were going to elect Lou Sekora in the byelection. They thought if they had the mayor of Coquitlam at the table of power in a Liberal government, he would bring attention to this most important issue. He could not do it, and I think for reasons that we see here today.
Those who are watching the debate should note that the government side had 10 minutes to discuss the issue. Since 1998, frankly I believe this is the first time that this issue has ever been raised in the House in a full debate. The government took four and a half minutes of that ten minutes to address it. It affects 10% of my riding, up to 250,000 people in British Columbia, and the government took four and a half minutes, wrapped it up and said “so long”. That is not good enough.
The member for Elk Island, one of my most esteemed colleagues in this entire House, has been here since 1993. He has been re-elected three times with massive majorities in his constituency because of the great work he does in his riding. He has been here for that long and has had zero private members' bills drawn out of a pool to be debated and brought to the floor of the House, like as this one. I have been elected once.
I do not know if I will run a second time, or a third time or if I will have the fortune of having the endorsement of my constituents. However this is the manner in which the most important issue in my riding is being dealt with by the House? The government spent four and a half minutes on it, denied it and blocked in committee the right for the bill to come forward for a vote. It treats my riding and my constituents like that?
How does the government expect me, my constituents and the people I represent to have any respect for the government in the House, when it treats the issues that are of most importance to them with that little respect?
I came here to talk, as I said, about the big issues of conservatism versus liberalism. However on the bread and butter issues, like the issue of people having a home that does not melt around them and that the government does not profit off the people who are losing their homes, the government gave it four and a half minutes of debate and brushed it aside.
These are the kind of things that make people like me and people who want to run for office say “To hell with it. I'm not going to run for office”. For the government to give my riding four and a half minutes of disrespect, slap it aside, deny it the right to come to the House of Commons for a vote and deny that members of the House be held accountable for this issue, is disgusting. It is absolute disrespect for people whose homes are melting around them.
The Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Finance stood up and said it was okay if the government profited from people losing their homes. He said that it was not a big deal and that it was an inconvenience. As the hon. member for Vancouver East said, that is not good enough.
The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is travelling to British Columbia on a fact finding mission to find out why British Columbians are not voting for the federal Liberal Party and why there is this thing called western alienation. This is why. Read Hansard . Look at the number of people in the House who are paying attention to the debate. Look at the four and a half minutes that the government spent on this issue. That is why the government is going nowhere in the province of British Columbia, and why people are totally alienated from this institution and from this government.
This is my final plea. This is the last legislative tool I have. The government has blocked it at committee. It has blocked it from taking it seriously. It gave it four and a half minutes of debate. The government has slapped my constituents in the face.
There are only three members of the government who can block this from happening: the hon. members for Mississauga South, Etobicoke North and Markham. I would ask those members: Will I have unanimous consent from the House to make this motion votable, and show respect to the people of my constituency?
Housing May 9th, 2001
moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should introduce legislation that offers GST relief to the victims of premature building envelope failure who are eligible for compensation through British Columbia's PST Relief Grant Program and to make any and all consequential amendments required.
Mr. Speaker, the building envelope failure, or a leaky condo crisis, has been devastating to British Columbia's real estate market. It has devastated families, evaporated peoples' savings, thrown families into financial crisis and drowned the dreams of thousands of homeowners.
The leaky condo crisis involves over 50,000 damaged and destroyed homes. Those affected face an average repair bill of $21,043 per owner. The average owner faces a total loss of $58,543 on their investment, 12,879 consumer bankruptcies have been the direct result of the leaky condo crisis and at least 7,500 condo owners have or will claim bankruptcy due to this disaster.
This issue is not just about statistics. I want to tell the House about a couple of constituents of mine who are being crushed by this issue.
Carma Albert lives in the Glenborough in Coquitlam Town Centre. Carma is a member of her strata council and she is helping to co-ordinate its $1.7 million reconstruction project. Carma and her husband had hoped that their suite would be a stepping stone to buying their future house.
It now seems that with an assessment of nearly $19,000 their plan will have to be put on hold for quite some time. By the way, Carma is the mother of a tiny baby only a couple of months old.
Claudette Friesen is another constituent of mine. She lives with her husband and daughter in the Madison in Coquitlam Town Centre in my constituency. They also have a newlywed daughter. Claudette is very involved in my community as president of the Coquitlam Town Centre Community Association, president of the Madison Strata Council which is managing roughly $1 million in repairs. She is the founding member of the tri-cities condo group and she sits on several city committees, including the mayor's task force on building envelope failure.
She also has multiple sclerosis. Her family has been assessed $15,000 with an additional assessment of approximately $3,000.
These sorts of tragedies are seen all across British Columbia. If we count the owners of leaky condos and their extended families, this crisis has directly affected 250,000 people, one in 10 British Columbia voters. Twenty-four of 34 constituencies in British Columbia are affected by this issue directly. The impact of this issue is enormous.
The collateral economic impact of this issue is devastating. When local governments are taken to court as defendants in leaky condo court cases, all taxpayers are on the hook.
Taxpayers are soaked again when Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a federal crown corporation and the largest mortgage insurer in the country, bears the brunt of the cost of foreclosures. Also, when homeowners declare bankruptcy, their creditors pass on the debt expense as a business expense, which is then borne by all consumers.
With all this in mind, it has been three years since former British Columbia premier David Barrett was appointed to chair a commission to look into this disaster. His report was tabled in June 1998 and it made 82 recommendations to, as the title of his report suggests, create a “Renewal of Trust in Residential Construction”.
Among the recommendations, the federal government was asked to pay $300 million into a compensation plan that would help homeowners repair their leaky condos. On July 17, 1998, the minister responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation announced that the federal government would lend $75 million to the reconstruction fund. In truth, the federal government will not give a dime to affected homeowners.
Quite to the contrary. At the same time that the federal government is giving a no-interest loan to the province of British Columbia for $75 million, money that has yet to be spent or seen, by the way, it is raking in a tidy profit from the application of GST to the cost of repairs. The three year carrying cost, that is the lost interest on the $75 million federal loan to British Columbia, is roughly $13 million.
However, before members of the Liberal government pat themselves on the back for this contribution, they should know that they are profiting mightily from this crisis.
To date, the federal government has received $40.7 million in GST revenue on the $581 million that leaky condo owners have spent on their repairs. If we deduct the $13 million carrying cost of the $75 million loan, we arrive at roughly $30 million, which is the net GST profit that the federal government has pocketed on this disaster from its victims. That is the government's profit.
While low and middle income families in my riding and across British Columbia struggle to keep up with the bills that are rolling in because of this disaster, the government is helping no one, but laughing all the way to the bank.
My motion reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should introduce legislation that offers GST relief to the victims of premature building envelope failure who are eligible for compensation through British Columbia's PST Relief Grant Program and to make any and all consequential amendments required.
The motion is nothing more than the implementation at the federal level of Barrett commission recommendations 79 and 80, found on page 52 of the “Renewal of Trust in Residential Construction”, part 2, volume 1.
Those recommendations read:
For purposes of reconstruction, all GST and PST, payable on qualified repairs and renovations, should be repealed. In this way, the owner/occupier is treated by taxation the same way as the owner/landlord.
All GST and PST that has been paid on renovations should be refunded to the homeowners.
I would like to point out three things with reference to these recommendations. First, that the Barrett commission believes that all taxpayers should be treated equally. If a landlord can deduct the cost of leaky condo repairs from his taxes, then GST relief should also be offered to an individual owner of another similarly affected leaky condo in the same complex.
The government, while pretending to be a friend of the poor, the downtrodden and the little guy, taxes the working class owners of the leaking and rotting condo on the cost of repairs to their homes but it does not tax the same repair costs in the same manner when those repairs are paid for by the building's owner.
The second point I would like to note is that the government of British Columbia has wholeheartedly embraced recommendation 79 and 80 and created the PST relief grant program that is administered through British Columbia's homeowner protection office.
The provincial government ensures that the PST relief is only given to the intended class of victims, those who own or live in leaky condos and those who can prove that they have paid to have their homes repaired.
Among the documents those who qualify must submit are: First, a certificate to verify that the repair was necessary due to a premature building envelope failure and is not simply related to maintenance; second, a statutory declaration by the contractor confirming repairs have been completed; and three, copies of contracts with change orders, invoices or certificates of payment that support the cost of repairs being submitted on the application.
The federal government could easily piggyback on this system and give GST relief only to those who qualify for the PST relief grant program. Unlike the home heating fuel rebate that this government botched earlier this year, this approach is foolproof from waste and error and, more important, it is compassionate and the appropriate thing to do.
The third point I would like to make is the very nature of embarking on commissions like the Barrett commission in the future if its findings are simply to be ignored by the federal government.
The federal government is currently looking at the issue of reforming our health care system. Mr. Romanow, a respected former premier of the province of Saskatchewan is leading the effort and he will report to Canadians and the House in up to 18 months with recommendations.
I ask the government to think about the precedent it is setting by ignoring the Barrett commission and the cynicism such a move will engender. If the government ignores the Barrett commission, how can Canadians have any confidence that the government will respect any future reports from similar commissions? If the government turns a deaf ear to its obligations, as stated by the Barrett commission, it sends a signal that the reports of future commissions, including the Romanow commission, will also do nothing more than gather dust on Liberal shelves.
What hope, or better yet, what point is there in even asking taxpayers to ante up a dime for this type of bogus political posturing if commission recommendations are simply ignored?
We know that the cost of repairs on the average leaky condo is $21,043 per owner. GST on the repairs works out to $1,473 per condo. If we assume that the estimate of 50,000 leaky condos from the Barrett commission is correct, that would mean that the federal government would forgo $73.6 million in GST on leaky condo repairs.
That is what my motion calls for, granting GST relief only to those who qualify for the PST relief from the government of British Columbia. That, by the way, is a paltry 20% of the announcement last week by the Minister of Canadian Heritage of $560 million for Internet art and assorted cultural posturings.
It has not escaped my attention, or that of those watching and who own leaky condos, that while this motion is not being voted on and is not being taken seriously by the government, we will soon be voting on the weighty matter of creating the position of a parliamentary poet laureate. I can only hope that the poet laureate will be able to adequately capture in iambic pentameter the depth of frustration and distress felt by those who live in leaky condos who will not be applying for Internet funding and whose needs are being ignored by the government's harsh decisions.
My motion is in the spirit of strengthening federal-provincial relations and in encouraging the federal government to partner with the government of British Columbia to implement the Barrett commission recommendations 79 and 80. By respecting these recommendations the federal government would send a clear message to the people of British Columbia that it is willing to work with their government to solve major problems that affect them the most.
My motion is probably good also for the federal purse as contractors cannot avoid paying income tax on the repairs they perform if clients need a receipt to claim their GST relief. Presumably this is part of the justification for the government's partial GST relief on new homes and renovations to homes.
The government has repeatedly resisted calls for GST relief on the repairs to leaky condos. In a July 17, 1998 press release entitled, “Gagliano Announces Federal Aid for Leaky Condo Owners in Lower Coastal B.C.” we find the following paragraph:
Tax relief or a tax subsidy, as suggested by the Barrett Commission report, would not be an equitable option for all Canadians. The Government of Canada's position is that the federal tax system is nationally based and it would be difficult to provide tax assistance to owners of water-damaged dwellings in B.C., while excluding others. It would also be difficult to provide a tax subsidy for unexpected repair costs arising from one particular cause but not others.
It is my understanding that this accurately articulated the government's position at the time, and that position has not evolved. The fact that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance is here with five books on his desk to respond to my speech says that the government will respond to my motion on an economic basis, and the minister himself will not be responding.
I want to draw the House's attention to the final sentence from the minister's release that I just read. He said:
It would also be difficult to provide a tax subsidy for unexpected repair costs arising from one particular cause but not others.
Let me quote from page 5 of Revenue Canada Bulletin 4028 entitled, “GST/HST New Housing Rebate” as updated online on April 26 of this year. It reads:
You may be eligible to claim a rebate for a part of the GST/HST you pay on the purchase price or cost of building your home, if you are an individual, and: You buy a new or substantially renovated home, and you lease the land from the builder; you construct or substantially renovate your own home, or carry out a major addition (or hire another person to do so); or your home is destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt.
Note how this final point, GST relief in cases where one's “home is destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt,” flies in the face of the minister's comments I just read to the House.
If I understand the government's position correctly, then it will not give GST relief to owners of leaky condos facing unexpected repairs and affected by the 1999 collapse of the new home warranty program, but his colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, will offer GST relief to those “facing unexpected repair costs arising from one particular cause”, in this case fires, even though in many cases fire damage is covered by insurance.
Such a contradiction in policy seems typical of the government. It offers help to those who do not really need it while taxing and profiting from those in distress. The Liberal government is even contradicting a core principle of the GST. Many Canadians know that by law the government extends partial GST relief to Canadians who build a sun deck, add a second storey to their house, or turn their carport into a garage.
However the government will not extend that relief to Canadians who try to repair their own leaky condos and thereby avoid deterioration of their homes. This sort of judgment, with a clear contradiction of principle and policy and with blatant disregard to its impact on victims, is the sort of judgment that alienates Canadians from this institution and undermines the ability of parliament to claim to represent those in need.
We have seen how the government is prepared to give GST relief to cases where certain repairs and renovations are undertaken and even to the construction of new homes. However it stops short of extending the umbrella of GST relief to those most in need, namely 10% of my constituents. A respected provincial commission recommended such relief. The province was quick to embrace the same recommendation and has already established an efficient mechanism to distribute this relief. Surprisingly the government stops short of giving this GST relief to only those who need it.
On behalf of thousands of my constituents, tens of thousands of British Columbians and all those who seek compassion and justice on this issue, I ask the government to implement Barrett commission recommendations 79 and 80 to give leaky condo owners the same treatment as those who repair fire damaged buildings and to show compassion to those whose homes and lives have been destroyed by this crisis. I call on the government to support my motion and to treat leaky condo owners with the justice, respect and sense of compassion they deserve.
Private Members' Business May 4th, 2001
Mr. Speaker, backbench government and opposition MPs have few legislative tools at our disposal to raise issues of private or local concern here on the national stage.
One legislative mechanism we do have is the ability to draft private members' bills and motions to be drawn by a lottery and brought to the House.
By pure luck, my first ever private member's bill, to take the GST off the repairs of leaky condos in British Columbia, was drawn.
Unfortunately my one legislative avenue to have this issue of dominant importance in my constituency brought to the House for a vote will not happen. Like dozens of other private members' bills and motions, it will see the light of day in this House for 60 short minutes and die on the order paper.
All private members' bills and motions should be deemed automatically votable unless and only if the bill's sponsor deems it otherwise. There are no credible arguments for this to not be the case.
Each and every one of our constituents, the 30 million Canadians who we collectively represent, deserves an open and democratic system that respects their concerns first and treats those concerns with respect. Anything short of this is a defamation of this place and of the nature of true democracy that all Canadians deserve.
Supply May 1st, 2001
Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague for his excellent speech on the subject. It is interesting to listen to people from different political parties speak to the subject. However the detractors of free trade keep trotting out Ethyl Corporation and Metalclad as examples of chapter 11 without any knowledge or thorough understanding of it. They just say the corporation sued and the corporation won, but there seems to be no deeper understanding of the issue than that. However that is not the basis of my question.
I wanted the hon. member to comment on the assumption which has been spun that there is swelling support of young people against free trade. I am the youngest member of the House. I am speaking uniquely for myself, unlike other young people who are active in politics and who claim to speak for all young people.
Members of my family have left Canada because of high taxes and lack of opportunity. They came from British Columbia where the NDP governs. They decided that high taxes and shutting off trade was not the way of the future.
I also want to speak to the issue of civil society. We have heard this term trotted out by Maude Barlow and her ilk, that they represent the burgeoning group of civil society. They say that those who oppose free trade are examples of civil society.
Any serious political scientist who understands the nature and root of the ethic of civil society, where it comes from in communitarianism, knows for a fact that the term civil society is being hijacked by the radical left.
Civil society is organic people coming together and voluntarily deciding that their ideas have a common cause through community instinct. It is not the well informed and badly intentioned leading the badly informed and well intentioned, which is precisely what happened in Quebec City.
My question is for the member for Kelowna. What does he think of the hijacking of people by the radical left that claims to speak for all young Canadians, the hijacking of the good ethic of communitarianism and real civil society that represents people?
Supply May 1st, 2001
Mr. Speaker, this speaks precisely to the comment I made earlier. If this is an issue of national sovereignty, if the member wants to debate the issue, and if the member wants to talk about the impact of NAFTA's chapter 11, why is he asking us who our trade critic is?
We have had a whole list of speakers. The member for Lethbridge has spoken. The member for Kootenay—Columbia, with whom I am sharing my time, will be speaking in a minute as well. We have consistently spoken up on this issue and consistently spoken for free trade.
I suggest to the member for Burnaby—Douglas that he ought to have his platform thoroughly ironed out with his provincial party and spend a little more time analyzing free trade agreements such as the Canada foreign investment protection agreement with Croatia. Members of his party have said nothing about it in the House. They are totally negligent of their responsibilities to bash capitalism. If he spent more time studying free trade rather than—
Supply May 1st, 2001
The member for Burnaby—Douglas is heckling and that is fine. I will never forget the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas at the battle in Seattle. Some of the protestors there had about as much credibility as a 13 year old quote.
My favourite scene from the riots is a protester, vehemently opposed to globalization and integration of nations, who picked up a rock, smashed the front window of a Radio Shack store and stole a satellite dish. Typical.
Supply May 1st, 2001
Mr. Speaker, we have heard those predictions for centuries. Mr. Yeutter is probably not laughing today, 13 years later. Canada has an enormous trade surplus with the United States. I do not think he would be laughing about that now.
I suggest, frankly, that when members of the fourth party want credibility on the subject they regurgitate quotes that are a little younger than 13 years old.
Supply May 1st, 2001
Mr. Speaker, I am reluctant to judge people's motives but they do seem suspect. If one feels passionately about an issue then one has a responsibility to bring it to the fore.
Perhaps the members of the fourth party we have heard here today have talked about the issue at the constituency level. The leader of the NDP did not bring it up in the leaders' debate. It was not raised in my constituency because the NDP in British Columbia are free traders. If federal NDP candidates in British Columbia stood and said that they were opposed to free trade, they would be contradicting 85% of their base supporters who put up lawn signs, raise money and so on. Perhaps that answers part of the member's question.
However, it is suspect that they feel passionately about the issue but did not raise it. They say the issue is central to the essence of what it is to be Canadian and will have a profound impact on our sovereignty. They knew the issue was coming down the pike and yet they said nothing. The member opposite has a point. Why did they not raise the issue? That is a good question. Perhaps we will hear an answer from members of the fourth party.