John Duncan

[Quarantine Act, October 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-12, which as the House knows is a piece of legislation that repeals and replaces the existing Quarantine Act. As the House is aware, the Quarantine Act has not been significantly amended since it was introduced in 1872.

An effective Quarantine Act is an important component in our ability to deal with outbreaks of infectious diseases. The changes we are examining now emanate in part from the lessons learned from the SARS outbreak and the recommendations of Dr. David Naylor, chair of the national advisory committee on SARS.

The Naylor report noted that travel has become a key means for transmission of infectious diseases. SARS was introduced through air travel by a passenger who brought the disease with him from Hong Kong. Many of us will remember the panic Canadians felt as people got sick and died from a mysterious respiratory ailment.

As a community, Toronto was hardest hit with this disease. At the peak of the outbreak, over 6,000 people were quarantined in the Toronto area alone. However, it was our front line health care workers who carried the heaviest burden of dealing with the disease. More than 100 Canadian health care workers became ill with SARS and three died.

Canada was not in a position of being prepared to deal with SARS, despite the fact there had been earlier warnings. Colleagues may recall during the Ebola scare of 2001, when it was thought a woman who had arrived in Canada had the deadly disease. Fortunately, the woman did not have Ebola and recovered from her illness, but this incident clearly demonstrated that we were not ready to deal with a communicable disease outbreak or epidemic.

The bill before us today will provide the government with the legislative authority to deal with travellers coming into or leaving Canada. Travellers can be ordered to undergo medical examinations at their own cost. I am not certain what the government will do if the people cannot pay or refuse to pay for their health examination. Will we, for example, be sending collection notices to travellers throughout the world? This is not clear in the package.

The bill defines conveyances as a watercraft, aircraft, train, motor vehicle, trailer or other means of transportation and includes a cargo container. Conveyances can be diverted from the planned entry point in Canada by the legislation if there is concern about the spread of a communicable disease. The proposed bill also creates the authority so that an order can be given to disinfect or even destroy the conveyance if there is belief that the conveyance is the source of a communicable disease.

The bill would give the minister very wide powers to appoint screening officers, quarantine officers and environmental assessment officers. Doctors or other medical personnel can be designated as a quarantine officers. The minister can establish quarantine facilities anywhere in Canada and take temporary possession of a premise to establish a quarantine facility.

If cabinet is concerned about a severe risk to public health, it can establish an emergency order prohibiting people from entering Canada if they have been in a foreign country that has seen an outbreak of a communicable disease. Items being imported into Canada can be blocked for the very same reasons.

The proposed bill authorizes a peace officer, at the request of a quarantine officer, to arrest people who refuse to be isolated or comply with measures that have been put in place to prevent the spread of disease. There are significant offences outlined in the bill. People convicted on indictment of wilfully contravening the act resulting in death or bodily harm can be fined up to $1,000,000 and/or face up to three years in jail.

There are some items that will need to be examined closely in committee. How, when and what personal information is to be disclosed and shared with other countries need to be examined. In terms of property rights and business interruption, the bill states that compensation may be provided to owners of conveyances that are destroyed. However, says nothing about business losses that are incurred as a result of being detained.

In addition, we must ensure that adequate resources are in place to carry out the legislative powers in the bill. The national advisory committee on SARS recommended that Canada ensure that an adequate complement of 14 officers be maintained at all ports of entry and that better collaboration with port authorities and personnel be established to clarify responsibilities in the event of a health threat.

The Conservative Party supports the bill, in principle, as it is an important component of public health. We look forward to hearing from witnesses at committee.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I think this is the first time I have spoken when you have sat in the chair, so my congratulations on your appointment.

I want to also congratulate the member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock on his maiden speech. I thought it was a very good one. I remember my maiden speech was many years ago, but I do not think I was as comfortable and obviously as relaxed as the member appeared to be. That maybe comes with a long association with the political process. It certainly demonstrates itself.

The throne speech response is one that I had a little difficulty formulating from the standpoint that there was not a whole bunch in the throne speech. I think we were all expecting there would be, simply because we had been through an election. We had a throne speech something like five months earlier. Therefore, we have had two throne speeches in a very short period of time from the same administration.

What I observed was observed by many. I called it an empty vessel. Here was a throne speech that could have delivered so much but delivered very little. The most surprising part about all of this is we have a new scenario. We have a minority government in this place. Three opposition parties were waiting to be consulted by the government on what some of the priorities might be and it simply did not happen. To say it happened, even to a small degree, is stretching it because it did not happen. That means the opposition moved amendments. It means we had what the media described as a potential crisis in the making, which was not the intent of the opposition. We actually ended up with more substance in a series of amendments to the throne speech than we had in the throne speech.

It is important that Canadians recognize the significance of all of this. We are at the front end of a Parliament. We were at the point where we had a government that was used to governing from a majority position that suddenly tried to use its old methodology, which was to declare that this would be a confidence motion. The fate of the government hinged upon supporting the government and defeating these amendments.

Guess what? Four hours later the government was negotiating. We now have a different hue and character to this place as a consequence. This is productive. However, the government still appears to be directionless except when it is dragged kicking and screaming, and that is the shame of it all.

The amendments to the throne speech, which have been adopted, are generally supported by the Canadian population and by all the opposition parties. We now understand that the Liberal Party supports them as well because it supported the amendment. Why there was no reference to any of this in the throne speech is beyond us. There was no content in the throne speech.

It is important for me to talk about my riding, just for a minute. My riding is the north half of Vancouver Island. It is also the adjacent mainland coast from Desolation Sound up to Rivers Inlet. Basically, I have about half of the British Columbia coastline in all its different configurations within my riding. I have a lot of marine issues.

We have a very big resource sector. It is a very scenic area with a big tourism sector and it is a very nice place to live. We have a big retirement sector and an economy that is diversifying itself quite a bit.

The face of the federal government on the west coast is not very evident. When it is evident, so very often decisions are made that are contrary to the wishes of the people. We have example after example of this.

Usually it emanates from either the Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans which is the same thing, or more recently the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. It can manifest itself in trade disputes, as in other parts of Canada with softwood lumber.

We have a very difficult time making the centralized governance of this country, the centralized bureaucracy, and even the regional bureaucracy in British Columbia sensitive to what they are doing to our communities through some of their actions, particularly when they have negative consequences.

There are some priority areas including our salmon enhancement programs. We need to maintain them. There is also the issue of light stations. It is a real litmus test for the government. If it is not going to support those, then it does not care about rural coastal British Columbia. It is plain and simple. It is doing everything it can now to signal that it does not care about that.

We have a lot of energy issues, as do other parts of the country. The west coast is blessed with some of the best wind regimes in the world. We are going to have a major wind farm in my riding that will probably add 150 wind turbines in one location. This will change the energy economics of Vancouver Island considerably. That is just a start.

We have an offshore oil and gas resource in British Columbia, upon which there is a federal moratorium, a moratorium it would not place on any other part of Canada, but we have one in British Columbia. We are expecting the Priddle report and the Brooks report later this month. When those come out, I do not want the government to drag its feet in terms of addressing the moratorium issue. There was no reference to any of that in the throne speech.

We have an east coast offshore oil and gas issue right now where the government is to deliver within one week the mechanism by which it is going to meet its election promise. It will return 100% of offshore resource revenue to the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. We have no reference to that in the throne speech.

We have a major initiative by the government bureaucracy, from the Privy Council, on smart regulations that would do ever so much to assist the entire exercise of statutory and regulatory authority, to increase productivity and to increase the economy of Canada, and to get rid of a lot of the frustrations within industry. There was one small reference to that in the throne speech and that is it.

These are all things that need to be built on in a major way and we do not hear the government talking about it or addressing it.

[Fisheries and Oceans, October 18th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, last week the fisheries minister stated brilliantly that fog horns on the west coast would be silenced because there was not as much fog on the west coast as there was on the east coast. Maybe he thought this because there are fewer Liberals on the west coast.

Why fog even rolled in as far as Kelowna from the coast recently during a visit by the industry minister when he assured B.C. municipal leaders their concerns would be acted on. They then put this to the test by stating unanimously that they wanted to retain the fog horns that had just been disconnected by DFO. The fisheries minister's defence of shutting down the horns completely undercuts the statements by the industry minister.

Now the fisheries minister is attempting to justify incomprehensible DFO actions, but his feeble words “foggle” the mind. The horns should be reconnected today.

[International Trade, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Canada and other member countries have successfully challenged U.S. legislation, known as the Byrd amendment, which encourages trade disputes by providing that tariffs collected as a result of U.S. industry complaints are paid to those same complainants.

The WTO ruling gives Canada retaliatory rights until the U.S. repeals the legislation. What retaliatory measures is the Canadian government planning?

[Softwood Lumber, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Americans filed a NAFTA extraordinary challenge in the softwood dispute which will extend NAFTA legal action into next year.

Five senators, obviously prompted by the U.S. lumber lobby, recently spoke on the congressional record urging major changes to chapter 19 of NAFTA because of their unhappiness with losing at the NAFTA panel on the softwood dispute.

Their statements represent a major threat to NAFTA. Why has the government remained silent to this hostile attack on NAFTA?

[Employment Insurance, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I will be taking my entire five minutes, which will make many of my colleagues very pleased on this Friday afternoon.

I would like to comment on the speeches by the two government members. The member for Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey basically accused me of cynical motivation for putting forward my private member's motion. I actually do not think the member realized what he was saying in his prepared speech; otherwise I would have great difficulty with that statement, particularly since my private member's motion is clearly something that has been brought forward by many very credible organizations in this country plus two standing committees in the House of Commons. To accuse me of personal cynical motivation on this private member's motion I find to be most unfortunate and a very cheap shot indeed on this last day of Parliament.

I can understand that people may disagree with the motion. However, the disagreements that have been expressed by both government members tend to be in the category of defending the status quo and not really addressing the very significant issues, which are that there are employees who are paying premiums who will never be eligible to collect employment insurance.

Some of the most vulnerable, lowest income earners in the country are forced into applying for a refund of their EI premiums. Naturally of these most vulnerable of people, the least well armed, more than one-third of them are failing to apply for and receive the refunds. The government has an obligation and a responsibility to treat these people in a way that would give them the option of never having to pay in the first place. That is what this motion is about.

It is also about the fact that this would create simplicity for employers. It would also make it consistent with the yearly basic exemption provisions of the Canada pension plan. When the second government member who spoke said that this was a step backward, if the government believes that, then I can assume that the government will soon be changing the yearly basic exemption which it currently applies to Canada pension plan contributions. It works in exactly the same way as what I am proposing.

I do not think I am going to go into any more detail than that, other than to say that the government members did a good job of putting up what I call red herrings which did not apply to what I had to say. They totally defended the status quo. I never did suggest that the hours based system of EI, the changes that were made, were inappropriate. That is something to which we have accommodated ourselves, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the proposal for a yearly basic exemption for the EI premiums.

I will conclude with those remarks. This will probably be the last piece of business in this Parliament, Mr. Speaker.

[Employment Insurance, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I may be off base, but is there a question and comment period after I spoke? Is that not the case in this part of the sequence?

[Employment Insurance, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that I find very interesting when we had so many people proposing this and so much buy-in from two all party standing committees in the House of Commons that the government has actually chosen not to adopt this measure.

There is a suggestion that when it comes to designing programs, to avoid the embarrassment of the EI surplus, the government had choices to make and it chose, first , not to reduce rates to the degree it could have reduced the rate. If it is going to design differences in the way EI applies, the compassionate leave and parental leave programs actually harvest more votes. It targets a group to the point where the government thinks it is more likely that it is going to get some credit for doing this as opposed to following a principle, which I think is more important, which would benefit the entire economy. I think that is the motivation behind how we got to where we are.

In terms of the current $2,000 refundable limit, the point of the yearly basic exemption is that the government never would have retained this money and so there would be no need to obtain a refund, but once people had reached the $3,000 level of annual earnings, contributions for all would be based on all of their earnings. It is not a holiday for the first $3,000 worth of earnings for those earning more than $3,000.

[Employment Insurance, May 14th, 2004]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should establish a Yearly Basic Exemption (YBE) within the Employment Insurance program whereby the first $3,000 of earnings is not subject to Employment Insurance premiums, similar to the YBE of $3,500 allowed by the Canadian Pension Plan program.

Mr. Speaker, this appears to be the last day of Parliament and I am up on the last piece of private members' business. It might be appropriate for me to state at this time that what happens so often in life is that we save the very best for last.

Motion No. 300 reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should establish a Yearly Basic Exemption (YBE) within the Employment Insurance program whereby the first $3,000 of earnings is not subject to Employment Insurance premiums, similar to the YBE of $3,500 allowed by the Canadian Pension Plan program.

This is not a new proposal. It has been proposed or endorsed by groups including: the Retail Council of Canada, the Hotel Association of Canada, the Canadian Tourism Association, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association.

This proposal is known as the yearly basic exemption for the EI program. It has been studied by the all party House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance and the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, both of which recommended that the federal government consider implementation of this concept.

The main reason why I believe that the yearly basic exemption would be a very positive measure for government to take is because excessive payroll taxes are recognized to have a serious detrimental effect on job creation, business expansion and economic growth. The service and hospitality industry is labour-intensive and is a major factor in job creation. Anything we can do to reduce payroll burden, particularly for these entry level jobs, is positive.

The YBE targets payroll tax benefits to those most punished by current EI levies. These include lower income workers and labour intensive businesses. Universal application of the yearly basic exemption makes it fair to all and simple to administer. The way it stands now, employees earning less than $2,000 per year can apply for a full refund of EI premiums. Employees earning more than $2,000, but less than $3,000, cannot apply for a premium refund despite the fact that they have virtually no chance of qualifying for EI benefits due to the number of hours required for eligibility.

It is a fact that it is highly unlikely that those earning less than $2,000 per year will qualify for employment insurance. The minimum number of insured hours required to qualify ranges from 420 to 700 hours, depending upon the rating for the economic region within Canada.

For retail, service and hospitality industry jobs, it is likely that $3,000 in earnings will still not be based on enough hours to qualify for EI benefits. These same individuals are allowed an EI premium refund on their first $2,000 of income, but the reality is that one-third or more of these eligible individuals never apply for it and therefore never receive it.

This premium refund, when it is given, applies only to the employee contribution and not the employer contribution, so essentially what we have is a hardship on low income earners with no benefits, and an increased burden on the business which creates no gain for their employees and is a cost burden to them.

The yearly basic exemption for EI is consistent with the yearly basic exemption which is already in existence in the CPP and QPP programs. Surely, if it works for the Canada pension plan program, it will work for the EI program. The yearly basic exemption for EI refers to the annual earnings within which premiums are not applied, and I am recommending that this be only for the first $3,000 of earnings.

The implementation of this yearly basic exemption requires no change in the calculation of EI benefits and the $3,000 exemption should be included in the contribution base.

Who would be the major beneficiary of such changes? Students, part time workers and new entrants to the workforce, including immigrants. The latter is a group who the government has an obligation above all else to treat fairly and not to penalize as they are the least well armed and well prepared to deal with government bureaucracy and government forms and complexity.

I think government should remove the necessity for students and other low income earners to pay premiums in the first place, rather than have them claiming them at tax time.

Some people argue that unscrupulous employers might terminate employees as they approach the yearly basic exemption threshold of $3,000, as this would add a payroll burden to their costs. However, this same argument is applicable to the CPP and QPP programs, and in that case employers are paying a much higher rate per $100 after the minimum threshold of $3,500 is reached. Yet, this phenomenon has not been a concern and the advantage of the exemption for simplicity of administration has been recognized.

The Canadian Restaurant and Food Association has been the main proponent of the EI yearly basic exemption, believing that this policy change would increase the disposable income of low income Canadians who also have the highest propensity to spend, while increasing the ability of labour intensive businesses to retain staff.

People in the business only predict positive outcomes. Predictions of increased staff turnover are incorrect and staff turnover would actually decrease. Most employers in the hospitality and service industry recognize that staff retention, training and upgrading would all benefit from this policy change, and would be a net benefit to the business and the overall industry.

The 2002 Standing Committee on Finance report predicted that the cost of the yearly basic exemption for EI would be about $2.2 billion annually, which at that time would still have led to annual surpluses in the EI program.

Since then, the government has added parental and compassionate leave benefits via the EI program. The government has funded the parental and compassionate leave program from the EI program to blunt criticism of its string of surpluses, which has grown to almost $45 billion in a straight line since 1995.

I would have much preferred to see the parental and compassionate programs funded on their own merit, rather than from an EI program designed to protect workers from unanticipated job loss.

The yearly basic exemption for EI may not be sexy, but it would have major positive consequences for job creation, business expansion and growth of the economy, and it is still something the government should adopt.

The finance committee report had some further important points to make. For example, the yearly basic exemption would reduce administrative complexity and ensure that all individuals, not just those who apply for a premium refund by filing an income tax return, are treated equally.

The report also noted that the YBE would not only be fairer to workers with low earnings but also to employers because as it is now they continue to pay premiums for those lowest income employees who do end up filing for and receiving a refund for their premiums. Some of them actually do.

Another observation made to the committee was that the yearly basic exemption will provide a financial incentive to create a bias for full employment because employers will save money by reducing hours instead of reducing the number of employees during recessions. They will also have a natural incentive during good times to save money by hiring rather than relying on overtime. For this reason, the finance committee recommended that the EI Act be amended to create a yearly basic exemption to stimulate consumer spending and employment creation.

The Standing Committee on Human Resources Development studied the subject of employment insurance in 2001 and summarized its objectives by saying that the EI program should provide adequate access and income support to unemployed workers while maintaining incentives for individuals to secure jobs and invest in skills required in the workplace. Of equal importance, EI should be fair to all premium payers.

In terms of fairness to ensure that everyone is treated equally, the all party Standing Committee on Human Resources did recommend an EI yearly basic exemption, which would make the EI program progressive in the same way as CPP or QPP. The committee report suggested that the yearly basic exemption be set at $2,000 to be consistent with the current refundable level. The committee clearly saw the benefits to retaining the money in the employee's hands and the employer's hands and simplifying administration.

Rather than argue whether the yearly basic exemption for EI should be $3,000 or $2,000, I think the principle is what is important to establish and this motion urges the government to consider this positive change.

The Standing Committee on Human Resources Development did recommend that since the $2,000 limit fails to capture many individuals, especially students, who earn more than $2,000 a year but are unable to obtain enough hours of insurable employment to access EI, the government should consider increasing the current earnings threshold for an EI premium refund to $3,000, as well as to consider converting this refund to a yearly basic exemption.

These recommendations from the two standing committees and from many other groups are now several years standing. I think at this time the merits of such a program are obvious and I do believe it will occur. I hope to bring some light to this issue and to urge the government into action rather than inaction on this very important and fiscally smart change that could be adopted with very little in the way of complexity.

I will be interested to hear what the government spokesperson has to say on this motion.

[Employment Insurance, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the measure has been recommended by two all-party House of Commons standing committees plus the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, the CFIB, the Hotel Association of Canada, the Canadian Tourism Commission, and the Retail Council of Canada.

This is not new. This is since 2001-02. The benefits are many and the unfairness to low income earners is obvious.

Why does the government continue to use low income earners and students for a tax grab?