Jason Kenney

[Supply, February 18th, 1998]

I am being heckled by the hon. member for Markham. A comment he made during his speech was interesting. This new found champion of fiscal rectitude was quoted in the Economist & Sun of Markham on November 25, 1997. I would be happy to table the article. He is quoted as “putting some distance between himself and the provincial Tories as he spoke to Markham high school students” the week previous.

Of the Mike Harris tax cutting, deficit cutting, waste cutting Tories, he says “If they don't get a gentler heart and get a little humanity and sensitivity into it, not only will they hurt themselves but they will hurt us, the federal Tories”.

Do my Liberal friends believe that a party at 12% is saying that the tax cutting champion of Canada, Mike Harris, is going to hurt it when he is at 35% in the polls? I would expect as much from a party that raised taxes 71 times and cut the average after tax disposable income of Canadian families by over $2,900 in their last term of government alone. I would expect it of a party that raised federal revenues to 16.9%, their highest point in history. My friends remind me of their GST, their great glory. They bask in the glory of the GST.

I hope my hon. friends in both parties will listen not to me but to the voice of the Canadian people. Let us look at the most recently released major national poll, released February 9 by the Globe and Mail .

The government promised in the campaign to spend 50% of every $1 billion in a future surplus on debt reduction and tax relief. We did not hear a word about debt reduction and tax relief in the throne speech. We heard very little about them in the November economic statement by the finance minister. Now that the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister are doing their prebudget spin, it is very clear that 75% or 80% of the surplus will be directed to new big government Ottawa programs.

That is not what Canadians want. In that poll Canadians were asked “Do you think the federal government should start to grow again? Should it get bigger?” Guess how many think it should start to grow. The grand total is 15%. Some 44% thought it should stay the same size and 40% of Canadians think the government should shrink further than where it is today. The government is to spend 80% of its surplus on new programs and only 15% of Canadians think that is an appropriate response.

When asked what the priorities ought to be with the surplus we will be facing next week, 45% of Canadians chose debt reduction as their preferred option; 29% said tax relief to create jobs, hope and opportunity for young Canadians to which this motion speaks; and a grand total of 23% said it should go into new program spending like the blow away millennium project of the Right Hon. Prime Minister.

When those 15% who think we ought to spend more were asked what their spending priorities were, they said their top spending priority was to increase transfers to the provinces for health care and higher education. When they asked about a federal government sponsored scholarship fund, it fell so far down the list that I cannot even find it.

They want to repair the damage the government has done by cutting over $9 billion to health care and education. The government wants to take the credit. Instead of co-operative federalism, instead of transferring the money to the provinces where it will be most efficiently and creatively administered, the federal government wants the credit. That is what the $3 billion millennium fund is about.

It is not about the future. It is about a past rooted in the 1960s, a past of big government, a past which offers very little to my generation. We need the tax relief and investment in education and research development which will provide real hope and opportunity. For that reason I am pleased to support the motion.

[Supply, February 18th, 1998]

There is no MP pension. In fact there is no pension for people who work in the independent schools. They are there because they are profoundly dedicated.

My father worked for the air force but not long enough to get an air force pension. Then he worked in independent schools where there are no pensions. When he retired he and my mother simply did not have enough money to live on. That is the truth.

One day my father opened up the careers section of the Globe and Mail and found that a school in the United Arab Emirates, in Dubayy, was seeking a headmaster for a new international school. Lo and behold, my father applied and was selected.

In the United Arab Emirates, which is not a country I would suggest as a model for the Canadian economy, the tax rate is precisely zero. There are no taxes.

I am not suggesting that Canada ought to adopt the Arab economic model. However, when we are competing in an international marketplace with the best trained and the most skilled professionals, we are competing with jurisdictions like the United Arab Emirates which allow people to keep 100% of the fruits of their labours, not 30% or 40% as in Canada.

The moral of this personal story is that in three years my father and mother will have been able to save more for their retirement there than they were able to during the time they worked in Canada. That is a shame.

My oldest brother is a very skilled lawyer with an expertise in a particular area of international law. He went to Canadian universities. We subsidized his education, for which he is grateful. When he went on the international marketplace offering his wares, he found that by practising in New York State he was able to keep 20% to 30% more of what he earned than he could here. He just relocated to Dublin, Ireland, with his company, taking 30 employees who would otherwise be in Toronto or Montreal.

There is a kind of personal irony in this story because some of my ancestors actually came to this place 150 years ago during the Irish potato famine, from which I have since recovered. They came here 150 years ago for economic reasons. They came to the shores of this great country aboard the coffin ships in 1847, seeking a life of hope and growth and leaving behind them a life of subsistence agriculture and no opportunity. They found opportunity in Canada and prospered in many different fields.

I am proud of my ancestors who worked so hard to build the country and give so much to me and my generation. However, I find it tragic and ironic that 150 years later the descendants of those very same potato famine emigrants are now going back across the Atlantic, back to the land from whence they came where they now find economic opportunity.

The grandchildren of paupers from Ireland are going back to Ireland now because the tax rates in Ireland have been lowered to a point where it is now leading the OECD in growth. There has been a 9% growth in real income for each of the last four years.

There is no more a brain drain in Ireland. The greatest export in Ireland used to be its people. Now it is keeping its people because it has invested in higher education, in lower tax rates, and in research and development. It is the model growing economy of Europe as a result.

Young Canadians are pulling up their stakes and moving from this place to Ireland because they do not have the kind of opportunity they need here; because relative to our G-7 partners the personal income tax burden of Canadians is a whopping 56% higher; because the Canadian property tax burden is the highest in the entire OECD; because the corporate income tax burden is 9% higher in Canada than the average in our G-7 partners; because the average Canadian family paid a total bill of $21,242 or 46% of their income last year compared to only $17,000 in food, shelter and clothing.

If one were to keep constant the personal income taxes brought in, in 1994 by the government, it would necessitate a $6.5 billion tax cut just to keep income taxes constant with where they were three years ago.

The top marginal tax rate in Canada kicks in at $60,000 a year while in the United States it kicks in at $271,000 a year. The Americans have many flaws but at least they are prepared to reward risk taking and the kind of venturous spirit that is necessary in a free market economy. We penalize those people. We think the wealthy are those who earn over $60,000 a year but the middle class knows differently.

My family and other Canadians have moved abroad because working Canadians and their employees are currently paying a deficit reduction tax of $7 billion into the unemployment insurance fund. It is basically a cook the books fund for the Minister of Finance to cloud the actual size of the deficit.

Young Canadians are moving abroad, are moving to the United States and leaving with the skills we have given them. We have just raised CPP payroll taxes by 73% over six years, the largest single tax increase in Canadian history. It is a $10 billion tax increase which I am ashamed to say my hon. friends in the PC caucus voted for at second reading.

While I am speaking about my friends in the Tory Party, I cannot help but recall their economic record, those who introduced—

[Supply, February 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to this supply motion from our friends in the fifth party caucus. We are pleased to support this motion even though it is a conversion on the road to fiscal Damascus as it were for our friends in the fifth party. Late conversions are welcome ones nevertheless.

I must commend the hon. member for Kings—Hants and his colleague from St. John's West for their eloquent remarks on this subject. Later on in my remarks I will address the extent to which their party and their colleagues contributed to the problem.

Let me begin at the outset by saying it has been remarked many times that the government opposite will have to increase the federal chiropractic budget because of the amount of back slapping that is going on over there. It truly is remarkable. They should take up yoga. Such flexibility is required.

This government has applauded itself for its fiscal rectitude, a government that has added a $100 billion to the national debt in three and a half or four years, bringing our debt interest costs up to $47 billion a year. We spend more on debt interest as a percentage of our federal budget, as a percentage of our national accounts and as a percentage of our gross domestic product than does any other G-7 country.

That is money that does not go to post-secondary education. It does not go to support students or higher education. It does not go to help health care or those less fortunate. It goes to line the pockets of bondholders and those to whom we owe this money here and abroad. It is an enormous waste. It is a sinkhole of resources and economic potential. It costs the average Canadian family $6,000 a year in taxes just to finance the $47 billion in debt interest payments.

The party opposite, and occasionally the party to my literal right and my figurative left, sometimes argue that it is cruel and hard hearted to talk about tax relief, that we are misplacing our priorities, that what we need are more big government programs like the Prime Minister's $3 billion endowment fund.

To put it in context, the reality is that $47 billion is almost equivalent to the entire budget of the Government of Ontario for all of its health care, welfare, social programs and everything. It is also equivalent to what the provinces of Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan, the five smallest provinces, spend annually on their budgets for all of their programs. That is how much is being flushed down the Liberal-Tory sinkhole of debt financing.

We believe there is a need for radical, dramatic policy change to offer hope and opportunity to younger Canadians, those who are presently struggling to get into university, those who are in university and struggling to get out from under their debt, and those who are out of university struggling to get into the labour market but who are unable to do so because of the 17% youth unemployment given to them by this and the previous government. They need economic opportunity and it is not available to them today.

It is no accident that we find in this caucus—and I will grant in the Progressive Conservative caucus—a number of younger Canadians, people like myself who are not very long out of university, people who have faced economic challenges in a very real and concrete way.

We will not find among the younger members of these two caucuses professional politicians who have been shifting between municipal councils, provincial legislatures and federal parliaments that have been legislating taxes, tuition increases and cuts in transfer payments for higher education.

We will find people who know what it is like to graduate with $20,000, $30,000 or $40,000 of debt and to try to find their first leg up the ladder in a labour market which offers so little opportunity to young Canadians.

That is why we will find in this caucus, and to some extent in the Progressive Conservative caucus, an appetite for a different approach. Not more big government, Ottawa style programs administered by bureaucrats; not more back to the future of the 1960s and 1970s. We want to move ahead to the 21st century, a 21st century not characterized by a family tax burden which consumes 47% of what the average family earns, not burdened by $600 billion of public debt and not limited in opportunity with a 17% youth unemployment rate.

Imagine a future where tax freedom day comes on April Fool's Day as opposed to the end of June. Imagine a tax burden which only takes 25% or 30% of the average family's income instead of 45% or 50%. Imagine a country which only spends a few billion dollars on debt interest and is able to spend the rest on tax relief, job creation, health care and higher education. That is the kind of country I want to live in. That is why I ran to be in this place.

Speaking of the tax burden, I will run through some of the numbers, but before I do so let me say that the brain drain of which my hon. colleagues speak has a very personal meaning for me. It is not simply an economic concept. I will speak of the experience of my family.

Some of my family are fifth and sixth generation Canadian. I have ancestors who like yourself, Mr. Speaker, descent from the United Empire Loyalists. Mine is a Canadian family which goes back 250 years. I am in a sense ashamed to say that today my entire immediate family—my parents and both of my brothers—are now working and living abroad because they could not find the economic opportunities in Canada they were able to find overseas. They are not happy about the fact they had to leave the greatest country in the world. I am not happy about that fact.

I would like to tell a personal story about my father. My father served in the Royal Canadian Air Force for 11 years as a jet fighter pilot and as a squadron commander of CF-100s at various air force bases. He then went on to teach and become headmaster of several fairly well known Canadian private schools. Those who know about the private school industry will know it is not a very compensatory vocation. People earn far less there than they do in the public school system.

[Supply, February 18th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I am entertained watching our Liberal and Tory friends quibble over their GST. It is very entertaining indeed.

I was very interested in the remarks made by the hon. member for Markham. He is a strong advocate of tax relief as a policy for economic growth. However, not too long ago I read some remarks made by the hon. member in the local Markham newspaper. He said that if Mike Harris continues his harsh cuts which are necessary in order for him to impose tax cuts, this would hurt the federal Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario. I find it ironic for a party which is at 12% in Ontario to be criticizing at party which is at 35%.

I wonder if the hon. member could explain how he squares his remarks this evening with his earlier comments which criticized the fiscal virtue of the Mike Harris common sense revolution.

[Taxation, February 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, once again the minister demonstrates that he has no capacity in his file. It has nothing to do with writing off the expense. It has to do with Revenue Canada retroactively assessing these training courses as taxable benefits. Yesterday somebody was hit with $30,000 for taking a university course.

The Business Council on National Issues says that millions of Canadians may be hit with high retroactive taxes for their companies having invested in their training.

How could the government square this penalization, this punishment of people investing in their futures, while at the same time brag rhetorically about investing in training and education?

[Taxation, February 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister announced for about the 15th time his $3 billion monument called the millennium scholarship fund. While he was blowing hot air about his commitment to education, his tax collectors were cracking down on employees who dared to upgrade their education at work.

Yesterday a scientist with Ipsco was hit by Revenue Canada for $30,000 in back taxes because his company paid for specialized training.

How could the Prime Minister brag about his commitment to education when his tax collectors are punishing employees for investing in their own education?

[Small Business Loans Act, February 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member said in his remarks that small businesses do not just want tax relief, they want big government programs and subsidies like this.

For seven years I worked with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, an organization largely supported by small business. I spoke personally with thousands of small business people across the country, surveyed tens of thousands of them, as have groups like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. I have never once encountered a small businessman who said to me that they wanted more big government handout loan programs. What I heard again and again from groups like the CFIB is that they want lower taxes. Will the member respond?

[The Budget, February 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, five out of ten provinces have balanced budget laws and all of those provinces have balanced budgets. Eighty-five per cent of Canadians in the same poll say they think the federal government is big enough today and should not get any bigger.

The Minister of Finance is preparing with his spendaholic colleagues to increase the size of government with new Ottawa style, big government programs.

Why is the minister ready to make government bigger in this budget when Canadians want it to become smaller?

[The Budget, February 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, a recent national poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Canadians believe the government should make deficits illegal from now on.

Close to three Quebeckers out of four want the government to pass balanced budget legislation.

When is the finance minister going to protect Canadians against future excessive spending through balanced budget legislation?

[Senate Of Canada, February 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday one of the Senate's own members called on the red chamber to show some guts and expel absent Andy Thompson.

Who is this agent for accountability? He is Ron Ghitter, a red Tory bag man, a Mulroney sycophant, appointed in the dying days of the Tory chief's patronage orgy.

Who is this new found defender of the public interest? Last year he cost Canadians more than 150,000 tax dollars including $40,000 for travel alone.

Who is this model of excellence? Having shown up only 148 times since 1993, his attendance record is a pathetic 55%. What hypocrisy. Canadians simply do not buy this feigned outrage from an unelected and unaccountable political hack.

At least absent Andy Thompson has the decency to stay in Mexico and not pretend he is doing his job. As for Ron Ghitter, if this Mulroney hangover is so concerned about accountability, why does he not resign his seat so Albertans can elect their own senator?