Jason Kenney

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 32

That Bill C-9, in Clause 2, be amended by deleting lines 3 to 33 on page 2.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to finally have an opportunity to debate this bill.

I am disappointed that I have had to wait until debate at report stage for this opportunity on such an important bill which can be construed as constituting a constitutional amendment, according to many of the expert constitutional presenters who appeared before the committee.

According to the official opposition in British Columbia, the Liberal Party there, this treaty constitutes a constitutional amendment. For that reason alone I find it really quite disturbing that the government has rammed the bill through the House with undue haste, with a fraction of the time taken to consider it at the provincial legislature in British Columbia.

In fact, two weeks ago, as we know, the committee studying the bill travelled through five communities in British Columbia hearing from a hand-picked witness list. Many of the organizations and individuals who applied to appear before the committee to express their concerns were refused the opportunity.

One of those organizations was the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a large advocacy organization representing some 80,000 Canadians; representing some 20,000 of them in British Columbia.

This organization had prepared a 30-page study, including thoughtful appendices and original research by constitutional and economic experts, and yet it was denied the opportunity to present its views on behalf of its members to the committee.

I will take the opportunity to read part of its submission, which was never heard by the parliamentary committee because of the Liberals' refusal to have a full and complete debate. I will take the opportunity to read some of their analysis into the record.

Before I do so, there has been something of a debate today on whether or not the treaty constitutes a template for future land claims agreements. Indeed, it is not the official opposition in this place who originated that argument, rather it was the then British Columbia premier Glen Clark, one of the principal negotiators of this treaty, who said that it constitutes a template for future lands claims settlements. We are simply taking one of the principal negotiators at his word when he suggests that this treaty will be a template for the future. Obviously it will not be a precise template, but a very important precedent.

I hear my colleagues from the New Democratic Party speaking in caustic tones about the Reform Party's opposition to this treaty, yet they seem to ignore the fact that perhaps the most credible New Democratic attorney general in Canadian history, Alec MacDonald, the former NDP attorney general in British Columbia, has spoken out publicly and vociferously against this agreement. This opposition does, and ought to, cut across partisan lines.

One non-partisan organization that I know something about, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, was denied a hearing on this treaty. It released a study which called on the minister of aboriginal affairs to read the fine print of the Nisga'a treaty. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says that the $490 million cost of the Nisga'a settlement for cash, land and resource transfers, is likely understated as it does not include any estimates on mineral, water or fisheries resources to be transferred. It also says that fair party compensation is likely, significantly underestimated.

It goes on to say that “the $490 million cost quoted by the government does not include taxpayer transfers to the Nisga'a government which will cost taxpayers, according to federal negotiators, a minimum of over $400 million in additional transfers over 15 years for one settlement with one native band. The Nisga'a treaty is not final in a multitude of senses”, according to the CTF. It says that four appendices in its study from constitutional legal expert Mel Smith, a former principal constitutional adviser to three successive B.C. governments, are attached to the review and that they list 49 sections of the treaty where there are explicit requirements to consult or negotiate agreements and a further 22 sections of the agreement where paramountcy is unclear or not stated.

It says there is a ratchet up provision where any favourable tax exemptions granted to other bands over the next 20 years will need to be given to the Nisga'a as well, and that there are 17 instances where the Nisga'a treaty or future Nisga'a laws will prevail over federal or provincial laws in the event of an inconsistency. The Nisga'a government will be anything but municipal as proponents claim.

Municipal governments do not possess power over citizenship, culture, adoption and all levels of education, timber resources and court systems whereas the Nisga'a under this treaty will.

The decision on whether non-Nisga'a will be able to vote in Nisga'a elections is up to the Nisga'a government. Senior levels of government have traded away a core political right, the right of taxpayers to be represented by those who will have the power to tax them in this agreement.

The CTF's B.C. director, Mark Milke, is quoted as saying that the Nisga'a treaty “is neither fair nor final to taxpayers and it gives powers to one native band similar to powers possessed only by the federal and provincial governments”. He says that “in addition it trespasses upon the basic political right to vote for those who would set the taxes. Canadians deserve better than a document negotiated by a distrusted B.C. government and rammed through parliament by a federal government afraid of debate”. He says that “when politicians horse trade core political rights and negotiate open and financial commitments, taxpayers deserve a vote on it”. By that I infer a referendum, which I think something like 80% of British Columbians have expressed a desire for. The CTF's submission goes on to say:

—the Nisga'a treaty and the B.C. treaty process will involve a substantial reallocation of taxpayer money, Crown-owned resources, and Crown-owned land. Because of federal and British Columbia cost-sharing agreements, every Canadian from St. John's to Victoria will be affected. In addition to the costs to taxpayers, forgone tax revenues (from forestry stumpage for example) will result from land to be transferred. Such land transfers could one day also affect the public treasuries of not only Canada and British Columbia—given the lack of treaties in some provinces and the possible judicial reinterpretation of treaties already signed and thought to be final—but other provinces as well.

Moreover, municipal tax bases within British Columbia may be affected—

It goes on to detail how that is the case. In addition, the Nisga'a treaty in fact removes the long-held political right to taxation with representation, and thus runs counter to the basic principle of liberal democracy. Disenfranchisement for any reason, cultural or in pursuit of justice for past wrongs, can hardly be said to be either responsible or in taxpayers' interest. It goes on to say:

Moreover, the size and responsiveness of governments to taxpayers is directly related to the powers that such governments possess. The more portfolios that a government possesses, the higher the price tag for such a government is likely to be... The Nisga'a government will far more closely resemble provincial and federal governments than municipal governments. That is an important point to remember in the context of taxation, tax transfers, and the disbursements of such tax dollars by the proposed Nisga'a government.

It asked how much the treaty will cost. In 1995 there was $125 million in cash according to government estimates. In 1996 the agreement in principle cost $190 million in cash. At the time, the B.C. government failed to include the value of the crown land and resources transferred in the deal. When pressed, the government reported the land to be worth $107 million. Thus in 1996 government estimates totalled $297 million.

In 1998 leading up to the final agreement, the B.C. government still insisted the cost of the treaty was only $190 million according to press releases. But the opposition Liberals leaked a copy of the treaty, the official estimate jumped to $312 million. When questioned on the breakdown of the costs, Premier Clark admitted it was closer to $382 million. The premier's staff shortly thereafter added items not mentioned by the premier and the cost rose to $459 million. The next day the figure was again revised to $490 million, where it remains.

This does not include any estimate of mineral resources to be transferred, any estimate of water resources to be transferred or any estimate of fisheries resources to be transferred. There are monetary transfers to the Nisga'a of $160 million over five years after implementation of the treaty as well.

The report goes on but unfortunately I have run out of time. A serious concern is being raised by a major taxpayer group about the long term fiscal implications not just of this treaty, but of dozens of other treaties which will be negotiated with this as a template. We should pause because of these concerns rather than rush to the judgment which we see from all four other parties in this place.

On behalf of my constituents I will be voting for these amendments and against the bill.

[Freedom Of Speech, December 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, three journalists arrested and carried away in a paddy wagon for photographing a peaceful protest; a grandmother handcuffed and hauled off by the police for staging a silent, solitary vigil; a peaceful citizen arrested for displaying a sign quoting from the UN charter on children's rights.

Where did all these gross violations of freedom of speech occur? In China? In Cuba? No, right here in Canada. What do they have in common? They were all perpetrated on Canadians speaking out for their belief in the sanctity of human life.

A variety of injunctions and laws have sprung up across Canada prohibiting Canadians who oppose abortion on demand from expressing that view. Consequently, attacks on their right to peacefully speak have become widespread, from citizens arrested for displaying signs in Sturgeon Falls to students attacked for handing out pro-life literature at the campus of UBC last week.

John Stuart Mill told us that if the right to freedom of speech exists for one person, it exists for all and that unpopular opinions much be protected as much as popular ones. It is time for society to consistently defend freedom of speech.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 2nd, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 21

That Bill C-9, in the preamble, be amended by replacing lines 14 and 15 on page 1 with the following:

“achieve this reconciliation;”

[Canadian Institutes Of Health Research Act, November 25th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-13, an act to establish the Canadian institutes of health research, to repeal the Medical Research Council Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Never let it be said that members of the official opposition oppose all government legislation for the sake of opposing. While we have an onus to oppose as the opposition in this adversarial parliamentary system, we frequently support bills which we think are in the public interest. We are pleased to lend our support to this thoughtful bill which seeks to improve the administration of grants and funding for medical and scientific research.

As we have heard in this debate, currently grants to finance medical research are administered by the Medical Research Council, an agency of the government established many years ago on the common bureaucratic model of such agencies, with a minimum of accountability and transparency and, many would argue, an excess of administrative costs and wasteful bureaucracy, money which ought to be directed toward real frontline, concrete, scientific research.

Following consultations with members of the medical research community and those involved in this field the government decided, I think correctly, to reform and streamline this process by creating the Canadian institutes of health research to decentralize the administration of these grants and the funding of this research and to make somewhat more accountable and perhaps less bureaucratic the structure of these new agencies.

The new institutes of health research will have one central co-ordinating body or governing council which will consist of a president and an advisory board of no more than 20 members. This governing council will be empowered under the bill to appoint a scientific director and advisory board for each institute, which will deal with particular areas of research, each incorporating expertise in their respective fields.

While we are pleased to see that the decentralized specific advisory boards will be appointed by the governing council and not by the cabinet or the government, we are concerned that the governing council of the CIHR will be appointed by the federal cabinet.

This is a point that we raise in virtually every bill that comes before us. We are as deeply concerned as most Canadians about the enormous, largely unchecked power of the Prime Minister through governor in council appointments to name political friends of the government to sensitive positions throughout the entire public service, agencies, crown corporations and the like.

Many objective observers have suggested that in Canada our executive branch, our Prime Minister and cabinet, exercises more power and more unchecked discretion with respect to appointments than any other parliamentary or republican government in the democratic world.

A case in point would be the recent selection by the Prime Minister through a governor in council appointment of the president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We could look to our mother parliament in the United Kingdom where such decisions as the appointment of the president of the British Broadcasting Corporation are delegated to the board of that crown corporation rather than retained and exercised by Her Majesty in council. I would strongly suggest that the government review how it could decentralize this appointment process for the governing council of the health research institutes.

I commend the government for its commitment, in the presentation of this bill, to spend no more than 4% to 5% of the operating budget of the CIHR on administration. However we would like to see some firm guarantees that this will be the case. It is a tragedy when scarce tax dollars are directed toward important agencies of this nature and are eaten up by bureaucracy and administration. Too often we see that happen. One would say that it is almost inevitable. It is almost the result of human nature that bureaucracies will tend to grow if given the opportunity.

I propose that there ought to be a legislated maximum of administration costs. Those administration costs ought to be defined and should be verified by the auditor general who is answerable to this place. That would be an important guarantee, a step toward reforming agencies of this nature in the public sector in general to ensure that the tax dollars we allocate actually go to frontline research.

This is critically important research. I am glad to see that the importance of medical research is recognized by all parties and, I would suggest, by all people across the ideological and partisan spectra.

Sometimes members of the Reform Party are accused of opposing government per se and in toto. It is alleged that we support the libertarian night watchman state and see no role for government agencies or programs. I would say, to the contrary, that in our last election platform and in our fiscal proposals of the past several years we have consistently supported increased funding for medical research and frontline real, hard scientific research, because we think that government is in a unique position to use public resources to finance the sort of research that would not otherwise be properly financed through the private sector.

Let me be on the record as a frugal fiscal conservative in saying that even I strongly support the proposed budgetary increases from the Medical Research Council to the Canadian institutes for health research contemplated in the bill.

We understand that the government has proposed for the fiscal year 2000-01 to allocate a budget of some $374 million to be increased in the following fiscal year to some $500 million. Again we hope that every cent possible will be directed to real research of a practical nature rather than to administration and overhead.

I understand the selection committee estimates that approximately 200 more research grants will be awarded under the new institutes than will be awarded under the current Medical Research Council, which is a positive step forward.

We hope this new structure will incorporate the advice and active involvement of all so-called stakeholders in the medical research field, including academic researchers, researchers in the private sector, in pharmaceutical companies and in other health care companies, and researchers in government agencies and departments. Working together these various branches of society will be able to identify the most important targets for medical research.

We know that we have made enormous advances in the century now coming to a close, in finding cures and treatments for ailments and diseases which have plagued mankind throughout history. We see this reflected in the enormous improvement in vital statistics and life expectancy, lower infant mortality and the general quality of life that we all enjoy.

The kinds of medical treatment that have been discovered by modern medical research, which we often take for granted, were unthinkable for our ancestors who founded this country. We owe it to them and to the future to continue directing a substantial portion of our collective social resources to stamping out the scourges and diseases that remain unresolved, such as cancer and many other diseases that claim so many lives.

In closing, I am pleased to announce my support for this bill and commend the government for its introduction.

[Municipal Grants Act, November 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a delight to be invited to speak while Your Honour is in the chair, someone who truly understands the procedures of this place.

I would like to begin by expressing my opposition to the bill before us today, Bill C-10, an act to amend the Municipal Grants Act.

As we have heard, this bill purports to amend the federal government's relationship with municipalities. As we know by the original act of confederation, the Constitution Act, 1867, the federal government and its legal creatures were excluded from having to make tax payments to subsidiary levels of government, namely those of the provinces and the municipalities.

It has been common practice since 1950 for the federal government to assist municipalities in covering the cost of services provided to the federal government and its creatures operating in those places through grants in lieu of taxes or payments in lieu of taxes.

The bill seeks to regularize and modernize the payment of those grants. However, we believe it is filled with loopholes because it provides far too much ministerial discretion, as do so many other bills we see in this place. There is far too much discretion given to the minister and the executive branch of the federal government to choose whether it will make adequate payments and grants in lieu of taxes to municipalities.

Let me begin by saying in principle that we in the official opposition, the Reform Party, believe strongly that municipalities are the first order of government. We believe strongly in the principle of subsidiarity, a principle deeply rooted in political theory, which suggests that the order of government which is closest to the people ought generally to provide the most services; that is to say, proximity to the people who are being served is the best criteria for determining whether a level of government should provide a service. We would tend to place a preferential option on municipalities. We think they are the most important level of government and that generally the role of the federal government should be reduced and minimized while the role of municipalities should be strengthened and upheld.

It is amazing how long it takes for this place and the federal government to work. I understand that this bill originally resulted from a panel of the public works department in 1992, which was an effort to review payments in lieu of taxes. Then it took until 1995 for the joint technical committee on payments in lieu of taxes to do its work. Here we are in 1999, virtually into the next century, before the legislation is actually introduced and acted upon. It has been eight years, with different governments and three parliaments, before action was taken. So often important legislation and important changes are just left to stew in the back rooms and these reports left to gather dust on shelves while we deal with less important priorities.

What really concerns me and my colleagues about the bill is the extraordinary discretion it gives to the minister of public works with respect to payments in lieu of taxes. The bill does not require the federal government to provide payments to municipalities in lieu of taxes. It leaves that up to the minister and his discretion. I refer specifically to the proposed subsection 3(1) of the bill, which states that the minister may, not must or shall:

—on receipt of an application in a form provided or approved by the Minister, make a payment out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to a taxing authority applying for it—

That is to say, a municipality:

(a) in lieu of a real property tax for a taxation year, and

(b) in lieu of a frontage or area tax

in respect of federal property situated within the area—

If I look at the current act, which this bill seeks to amend, the wording in Bill C-10 is essentially the same. It is almost the same. We will not change the nature of the relationship between the federal government and the municipalities in this respect.

The Reform Party includes in its statement of policies and principles, its blue book, the statement that we will insist that all laws pertaining to individuals and the private sector apply equally to the Government of Canada, its personnel, its agencies and parliament. We believe that this should not be a discretionary matter left up to the whim and will of the minister, but rather we should recognize by act of parliament a positive legal obligation of the Government of Canada to pay for municipal services which it consumes, that it pay its fair share.

Not only does the bill give enormous ministerial discretion, but the bill also fails to include certain agencies and crown corporations of the federal government in Schedule IV of the act. We will propose at report stage or at committee that the schedule be amended so that the Canada Post Corporation, the Royal Canadian Mint, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation all be added to Schedule IV so that they, as creatures of the federal government, be included in the system of payment in lieu of taxes.

It really disturbs me that it is not just in the bill that we see the government's tendency to treat itself to a different legal standard from the standard we impose and expect from other Canadians and other levels of government. For instance, I have a private member's bill on the order paper, which is now No. 29, which is an act to amend the Income Tax Act regarding allowances paid to elected officials. It will be of interest to Canadians to know that the same parliament which is not going to require the federal government to pay its fair share of municipal taxes similarly does not require members of parliament to pay their full share of federal income taxes. Believe it or not, by act of this place we exempt elected officials, alone among all Canadians, from school board trustees to MLAs, MPPs and MNAs, and members of parliament are allowed to exclude one-third of their real income, the equivalent of one-third of their taxable income, from taxes through the so-called non-receiptable expense allowances, which is just an effort to legally avoid the same tax obligation we impose on the rest of Canadians.

If members of this place take out their pay stubs they will see that they are not required to pay the employment insurance premiums which we impose on the rest of Canadians, the same employment insurance premiums which are operating now at a $20 billion surplus, which is allowing the finance minister to pad his budget and cook the books.

We believe, as I said before, that all laws pertaining to individuals and the private sector should apply equally to the Government of Canada, its personnel, its agencies and parliament. That means that we must pay our fair share of municipal property taxes, and Bill C-10 should be amended accordingly.

It also means that members of parliament should pay their full share of income taxes and that all of our regular income from the federal government should be taxable, for full transparency, so we do not treat ourselves to a separate legal standard. It means that we should pay the employment insurance premiums that we impose by power of the coercive law of this place on the rest of Canadians. In fact, if we look at the members of parliament pension plan, there too we have treated ourselves to a different legal standard than is generally available to Canadians through pension plans registered under the Income Tax Act.

In all of these respects parliament should come back to the first principle that we should abide as individuals and as a government by the same laws that we impose upon everyone else.

Mr. Speaker, if you are a municipal property taxpayer, a corporation, a small business or a resident and you fail to pay your full share of property taxes to a municipality, there are legal sanctions. You could have that property taken away from you. If the federal government refuses to do so, if the minister fails to use his discretion, there is no sanction which those municipalities can impose upon us.

I call upon parliament to abide by the same law we impose on the rest of Canadian society.

[Taxation, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, that is the new Liberal math. I wonder if the member really believes that there has been a 10% tax cut when everybody has seen their tax burden increase.

Why are the disposable incomes of people shrinking if in fact the tax burden has gone down? The member is talking about a so-called reduction which has been overwhelmed by bracket creep and the Canada pension plan increase.

Why do people like Adam Grabowski have to continue working harder and making sacrifices when the government refuses to provide real tax relief?

[Taxation, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we continue to receive hundreds of paystubs from Canadians who are fed up with having to spend half of their income to finance the government's tax and spend habit.

People like Adam Grabowski, a teacher from Hamiota, Manitoba, sent a paystub showing that income tax took 49% of his pay or 54.7% when CPP and employment insurance premiums are included. He wants to know why the government thinks it knows better how to spend the money than he does on his family.

[Taxation, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago we launched a pay stub campaign to have Canadians tell parliament about how much they are paying in federal tax.

We have received over 200 pay stubs from Canadians who are outraged. One was from Adam Grabowski from Hamiota, Manitoba, a teacher with 12 years experience, who said, “My last pay stub in October showed that I grossed $4,412. Federal income tax takes $1,130 and for approximately 10 months of the year I lose $110 to employment insurance and $140 to the CPP”. He is afraid that he will not collect the CPP and he cannot claim employment insurance. He said, “Even before I get a chance to pay into other things that are supposed to help take care of my family, I have to give almost $1,400 to the federal government. Because of the debt we have, my wife and I have decided that only the kids will get gifts this year for Christmas. We will not be buying for ourselves or our extended family. So much for merry. There is no money for it”.

He goes on to say that either his wife will have to leave the kids and go to work or they will have to sell their house—

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would not deign to suggest that member is a thief. He voted with his colleagues to take from me the right to speak on that bill by limiting debate through time allocation. I do think that is pertinent because we are talking about an important treaty which I would like, obviously, to address.

The treaty for Canada's participation in the international civil space station ultimately is the legal culmination of a 15 year process which began in 1984.

The member for Wentworth—Burlington spoke of his enthusiasm for the human spirit. There was a great leader, probably the greatest leader of the free world in the post-war period, who in 1984 proposed this vision of an international space station. His name was President Ronald Reagan. He was the man who proposed the international space station as a way for humankind to work together across national boundaries, to co-operate by bringing together the strengths of technology to further the endeavours of human science and the expansion of man's reach into space.

I want to say how proud I am to have an opportunity to stand and speak to an initiative that was begun by that great leader and defender of freedom in this century. I would furthermore say that members of the Liberal Party mocked that great leader back in the mid-1980s when Ronald Reagan was proposing that the world reach farther into space to expand our frontiers of science, research and travel. They called it star wars when Ronald Reagan suggested that perhaps the western nations of the world should co-operate to find means of strategic defence through space, using technology like that being developed in the space station, to defend the western countries, the free countries of the world from the enormous strategic threat posed by the intercontinental ballistic missiles of the evil empire.

They mocked him, but now they stand and applaud that man's vision. I want to put that on the record, that whatever benefit comes to mankind from this kind of bold scientific venture, which we in the official opposition support, ultimately came from the vision of a man who was mocked and vilified by members opposite.

This treaty will give Canada certain opportunities. We are only funding about 2.5% of the cost of this space station. We will of course have the prominent use of the Canadarm which will be employing an entirely new generation of robotics technologies, one of the very few areas of high technology where Canada has an edge. I hope this funding will have a spin-off in terms of private sector investment and development in the high technology field.

I believe that if we in Canada really wanted to take full advantage of the private sector opportunities afforded by the development of this technology in the space station, we would create a fiscal and economic environment where those scientists and the people who want to invest in that kind of science would stay in this country. Instead what do we have? A job killing tax burden which is driving away the people who would invest, the entrepreneurs who would finance the kind of real private sector development of technology represented by the Canadarm.

Sure, we are prepared to provide seed funding for this sort of technology through government, but when it comes to allowing the private sector to take over, we end up sending those people south of the border through high taxes. It is exactly what the Prime Minister said yesterday. The millionaire Prime Minister was speaking to his group of impoverished Liberal friends who paid $350 a plate at last night's dinner. He said that productive Canadians can just leave the country if they do not like staying here.

In any event I am pleased to see that the Canadarm will be used. Canada will be able to take advantage of the monitoring of the earth, the monitoring of crop conditions, the monitoring of the environment. We will be able to measure climate and the Arctic ice pack which will assist navigation for the transportation industry. We will be engaged in various sorts of experiments relating to longevity, et cetera.

Again, I want to emphasize that it is important that parliament ratifies treaties after debate. Yesterday we had before us a treaty which we did not have a chance to debate fully. The official opposition, the only party opposing that treaty, had only four hours to debate it in principle on second reading. Now it has been shunted off to committee and the government hopes that the public will not notice.

This is important because public debate on treaties such as those in Bills C-4 and C-9 is a very important part of parliamentary accountability. That is why I was quite surprised to see the remarks of a man I know and respect, Gordon Campbell, the leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party, speaking on another treaty that was before this place. He called the closure of debate yesterday “a reprehensible abuse of democracy that is an egregious abuse of democratic process and shows flagrant contempt for all British Columbians”. He said that the limitation of debate on that treaty was “an unacceptable slap in the face of all Canadians”.

While we support Bill C-4 and this treaty, we want real debate on all treaties. We did not have it yesterday and we will demand that in the future we have that kind of debate.