Jim Maloway

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, once again we are in our third day of speeches on an 880 page omnibus bill, which has a number of measures that do not belong it, and not one government member has spoken to it. The debate is just among the opposition parties. We are not debating the government. We cannot ask the government questions on aspects of the bill. We have a lot of backgrounder notes that need clarification, but there is nobody here to answer for the government.

The Liberals say that they will vote against the bill, but not in sufficient numbers to defeat the government. The other day, their postal critic talked about how important it was to stop the remailer issue, which the Conservatives have tried to get through the House over the last couple of years, under Bill C-14 and Bill C-44, but have been unable to it. They knew they could not get it through the minority Parliament, so they dumped it into this bill, where it does not belong. It has nothing to do with the budget. They are basically defying us to defeat them and have an election.

How can the Liberals defend the issue of postal remailers knowing full well—

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have a friendly question and request for the member. Bill C-9 enables a voluntary code of guidelines regarding credit cards and debit cards. The government is constantly siding with big banks and big business against consumers.

Canada's first air passengers' bill of rights was opposed by all the Conservatives, who are more interested in protecting the interests of Air Transat and Air Canada. All opposition parties, the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals, voted for the bill at second reading. However, at the transport committee, the Bloc critic turned against Quebec consumers, and he is now supporting the Conservatives to kill the bill.

I know most of the Bloc members are very progressive in their outlook politically. Could the member investigate why the Bloc critic has turned his back on Quebec air passengers and sided with the Conservatives? I think that would be very helpful, because I thought we had a very good understanding with all three opposition parties supporting the bill. Something went wrong at committee, and I am very curious to know why it happened.

[Petitions, April 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition, also signed by dozens of Canadians, requests an end to the war in Afghanistan. Canadian soldiers and Afghan citizens continue to die in a never-ending war that gets worse with each new deployment of troops. There has been a 40% increase in civilians killed in 2008, with more than 100 tons of bombs dropped by NATO each month. Clearly, women's rights are not on the agenda of the Afghan government. The war has cost Canadians more than $18 billion. That money could have been used to improve health care and seniors' pensions right here in Canada.

Polls continue to show a clear majority of Canadians want the war to end before the scheduled removal date of 2011. The petitioners call on the government to bring home the troops now.

[Petitions, April 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

The first petition is signed by dozens of Canadians calling on the House of Commons and the government to bring greater accountability and transparency to the credit card industry. Debit card transactions are currently handled by Interac, which is a non-profit organization made up of Canadian banks. Debit card fees are currently flat fees per transaction, and there is no review process for increases to credit card or debit card fees at this time.

In addition, there is no requirement that credit card and debit card fees be disclosed at the point of sale to consumers. Also, debit card and credit card fees can be increased without justification.

Credit card fees are a percentage of the total sale, and the federal government is prepared, now, to allow Visa and MasterCard to enter the debit card business, effectively allowing Visa and MasterCard to change from small flat fees to a fee which would greatly increase the cost of all purchases.

The petitioners demand that the Conservative government enshrines in legislation that debit cards be kept at a flat fee and that credit card fees be made transparent and accountable.

[Petitions, April 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is also signed by dozens of Canadians and it is a call to end the war in Afghanistan.

Canadian soldiers and Afghan citizens continue to die in a never-ending war that gets worse with each new deployment of troops. There has been a 40% increase in civilians killed in 2008, with more than 100 tons of bombs dropped by NATO each month.

Clearly, women's rights are not on the agenda of the Afghan government and therefore the petitioners call upon the government to withdraw now, not wait until 2011.

[Petitions, April 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

The first is from dozens of Canadians who signed a petition, calling upon the government to bring greater accountability and transparency to the credit card industry.

Debit card transactions are currently handled by Interac, which is a non-profit organization made up of Canadian national banks. The debit card fees are currently flat fees. There is no review process for increases to credit card or debit card fee increases. In addition, there is no requirement that credit card and debit card fees be disclosed at the point of sale to the final customer. As well, debit card and credit card fees can be increased without justification.

Credit card fees are a percentage of a total sale and the federal government is prepared to allow Visa and MasterCard to enter the debit card business, effectively allowing Visa and MasterCard to change from small flat fees to a fee which will greatly increase the cost of all purchases.

The petitioners demand that the Conservative government enshrine in legislation that debit card fees be kept at a flat fee, and that credit card fees be made transparent and accountable.

[Committees of the House, April 13th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I guess it is kind of disappointing to hear that in the committee the Conservative chair was supporting the motion, the two Liberal members on the committee were supporting the motion and now we get into the House and we have a different cast of players here.

I do not know what the Conservatives have done to their chair but obviously the chair is not asking any questions or making any presentations tonight. I do not know where the Liberal members are but their representatives here are not reflecting in my opinion what my understanding was that they agreed to in the committee.

Having said that, I listened to the member for Timmins—James Bay make an excellent presentation tonight. Some of the observations he made about the government were particularly interesting because we have seen them played out over the last few months, particularly on the issue of whether it is a levy or a tax. The Conservatives are running around trying to exaggerate and essentially misrepresent this as a tax. They say that it is a $70 tax on iPods when the member for Timmins--James Bay pointed out that we are talking about $2. It is not a tax. It is a levy to help artists. That is what it is all about.

[Committees of the House, April 13th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thought we were making some progress with the Liberals until the second part of the member's speech. He started off rather strong and rather positive, but I hope we can get this issue resolved before the vote. As the member of the Bloc mentioned, two Liberals on the committee were solidly behind the motion. Certainly the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, my good friend, has spoken seemingly in favour of it. He does not seem to have the same confusion as the existing speakers, so perhaps they can resolve it among themselves.

However, it is very clear that the government cannot get this job done. I remember Bill C-61, when the Conservatives announced it and then pulled it. Therefore, we cannot rely on them to get a successful conclusion through this process. How long have they have been working at this? To leave the job to them, we will never see a solution.

Clearly the motion gives some direction, has some good vision to it and has a solution to it. We should stick together as opposition. We support Liberal initiatives that we do not always—

[Committees of the House, April 13th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the member for Timmins—James Bay on the terrific work he has done on this whole issue now for a number of years.

The bottom line for me comes down to the question of compensating or litigating. We see what is happening in the United States. We cannot live through a process where we have lawyers chasing kids and senior citizens. This is going to be an absolute minefield if we allow the lawyers to solve these problems. The fact is the Conservatives are misrepresenting when they are talking about a $70 tax and we are talking about a $2 levy. Let us get--

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, several speakers have pointed out over the last two days that there are $3 billion missing in tax havens. Seeing how the government is so desperate to get tax revenue and is supposedly a law-and-order type of government, one would think it would be taking some sort of action to try to recover some of the taxes on some of this money invested in tax havens.

What does the government do? It provides an amnesty so Canadians are streaming into Canada Revenue Agency offices over the last year declaring money they invested in banks in Switzerland. They are only doing it because an employee of one of the banks a couple of years ago took a computer back-up and sold it to the German government and made the information public. So now these people are running into Canada Revenue Agency under the amnesty program to own up to the fact that they were evading taxes all these years, and the government thinks that is acceptable.

I want to know when the government is going to get tough on people who take money and put it in tax havens and avoid taxes. When is the government going to get tough on them and live up to that claim of being tough on crime, which is certainly not what it does?