John Duncan

[Softwood Lumber, May 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, what we do not need today is what we are hearing: government gobbledegook on responding to the U.S. trade commission decision.

Less than half an hour ago our trade minister said that we will make the right decision at the appropriate time. That is perfect Liberal bafflegab. There is no indication that EDC or the Canadian Commercial Corporation has been engaged to develop a tariff payment scheme.

Leadership is required. When can we expect delivery?

[Privilege, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if you will recall the events of Tuesday, I brought in the things I wanted to table. I had 8,681 letters. I was summoned to speak to you by the clerk. I told you my intention. You clearly told me that the piles were too high and I reduced the size of the piles. You were aware that I intended to ask for unanimous consent to table those documents and the advice I received from my leader's office was that it was perfectly in order. I thought that you had indicated to me that as long as I received unanimous consent from the House, it would be appropriate.

I missed some of the intervention by the member for Mississauga South. If he is suggesting that I was in any way trying to intimidate him, I am not sure how that is. I have not spoken to the member since that incident. I did recognize that he was the member who had denied unanimous consent and I said so in a subsequent press release. That is the only action I have taken since that time.

[Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, April 24th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to discuss Bill C-50, an act to amend certain acts as a result of the accession of the People's Republic of China to the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization.

I was in Doha, Qatar on the Persian Gulf in November at the WTO fourth ministerial conference. The People's Republic of China and Taiwan both gained entry to the WTO at the conference. Indeed it was a very historic time. After all, China is the most populous nation with 1.3 billion people. Even at this very momentous and historic occasion it was apparent there was continuing discomfort between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. At the time I put out this statement:

The addition of China and Taiwan to the WTO membership has added complexity to achieving consensus and may force the WTO into a United Nations style compromise. If this proves unworkable, bilateral and regional trading arrangements will continue to be necessary to ensure the World Trade Organization does not stray too far from a free trade agenda.

I obviously had some concerns at that time. China having one of the biggest and fastest growing economies in the world is undoubtedly a welcome addition to the World Trade Organization.

Mike Moore, the director general of the World Trade Organization, said that Beijing's greatest policy shift since the 1948 revolution which brought the communists to power was the signing of the 900 page document requiring the opening up of China's markets. In essence, what has happened is that China has agreed to join the world trade community on the world's terms. It has agreed to open up its marketplace to foreign trade and investment in return for reciprocal access to the markets of 142 WTO members.

This will undoubtedly have profound implications for China's internal politics and the compact between the people and the government. Some people have even argued that this is basically signing the death warrant of the communist party power in China. The communist party began opening up the economy about 20 years ago but resisted political reforms. Now that it has reached its limits of economic expansion, it now requires broader social and political reform.

Accession to the WTO has actually been described as the cleaver which severs the communist party's wilting grip on the last fragments of Marxist socialism. One might say that is an optimistic view. What is an optimistic view and one which I share is that its accession to the WTO will inevitably lead toward making the state subject to the rule of law. The communist government never accepted that. Let us hope that next year, upon the retirement of the prime minister of China, who was so instrumental in pushing this through, this does not fall apart.

We must remember that it would be in no one's interest for China to once again shatter into social discord. With accession to the WTO it is a huge opportunity for the Chinese people to create a modern political, social and economic system.

China has a somewhat open market. Millions are expected to lose their jobs. One of the reasons for that is because there are so many people working on the land who were there because the communist government subsidized crop prices in order to keep people on the land. Many of them will lose their jobs. Already we have 200 million unemployed in China. Therefore that is a very significant thing for them to do in a knowing fashion.

I am optimistic about all this because, if one goes back approximately 12 months, it was last April 1 that we had the collision between the U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and the Chinese jet fighter off the southeast coast of China. We remember all the diplomacy and the toing and froing on the fact that the U.S. plane was forced down into the People's Republic of China and was not given up for a long time and not in one piece. It had to be shipped back in pieces.

It was also done against the backdrop in that same month of April of a huge arms sale authorized by President Bush to Taiwan. Even against all of that just a short few months later everyone was on the same page more or less at the talks in Doha.

China has the potential to become one of the centres of manufacturing in the world. It currently attracts about three-quarters of all foreign direct investment in Asia which approximates $47 billion U.S. last year.

As a condition of its entry into the World Trade Organization China had to agree to allow existing WTO member states to bring in such legislation to deal with possible market disruptions or trade diversions. That is what Bill C-50, which we are debating, is all about from Canada's perspective. It would manage the transition period over the next decade or so as China modernizes its internal economic structures and legislation to conform to WTO practices.

All told, China must amend 570 pieces of legislation and more than 1,000 central government rules and regulations as part of its entry into the WTO. We have ongoing training on how to handle WTO rulings and so on occurring with judges and other members of the bureaucracy in China. Other countries have had to do this also under previous accessions. There are huge compliance problems related to even existing legislation in China.

From an overall perspective the impact and effect of Bill C-50 is that it is sufficient and appropriate legislation to ensure the creation of wealth, both for Canada and China, and not simply the redistribution of wealth, a concept that is foreign to at least one party in the House of Commons.

The legislation would introduce safeguards. While temporary in nature they would increase import duties, restrict the amount of imports and impose tariff rate quotas, all of which would protect Canada's economy and eliminate the possibility of injury to Canada's domestic industry during this phase-in period.

It is important to note that there would be a huge and wrenching change in China. We are putting in our safeguards for this is not a one-sided exercise. We must recognize that there are huge changes implicit in the accession of China to the WTO. It is very positive for the international community that, after 15 years of knocking on the door, China is now a WTO member. Actually, this accession was very good psychological news for the global economy.

The U.S. is the biggest foreign market for China and it has enjoyed most favourite nation trade status for some time and has been slowly lowering tariff and non-tariff barriers to imports and foreign investment. The other psychological good news is that the international community recognizes that China's huge population is in an early explosive economic boom. This has lots of people excited, particularly since Japan appears to be in somewhat of a perpetual recession these days. Japan being the traditional Asian powerhouse.

For the record, we cannot overlook certain issues associated with China. These issues include: the nature of China's economic system, its dealings with human rights, and its treatment of Taiwan.

As a condition of member concurrence for accession of China to the WTO, all of the WTO members were allowed to bring in legislation to deal with possible market disruptions or trade diversions. We must not forget that China has a state controlled economic system that is protectionist, still exploits labour and represses human rights.

While we welcome the People's Republic of China to the WTO we must wonder how serious it is about free trade from time to time as it still has a culture that invites unilateral actions which raise concerns in the international trade community. This is not to say that China's membership in the WTO would bring about overnight change and improvement in these areas. It does mean that China is now compelled to honour its WTO promises and obligations that in effect would make China more accountable for its practices in question.

The international business community of course does not enjoy litigation and reversion to the courts but rather looks for voluntary compliance with the spirit and intent of following the rules.

Regrettably just last week China's state run postal monopoly issued an order that would: limit express delivery by private companies to articles more than 500 grams, or 1.1 pounds; require all prices to be higher than the postal authority's; and forbid delivery to government, military or communist party offices or of any item addressed to an individual.This would virtually shut down the operations of United Parcel Service, Federal Express and three other large courier-style companies that are doing about 60% of the business in China.

Foreign companies have protested this attack on a very profitable business with annual sales of $1.2 billion growing at the rate of 30% to 50% annually. This industry carries billions of dollars worth of goods and employs tens of thousands of people. The central government's unilateral decision is bad for business, sends the wrong message and is counterproductive to China's own interests.

One can assume its centralized, top down, unilateral decision making based on its historical reference took over and reality would quickly lead to overturning this dumb decision before it does further damage. However China Post insists its actions did not violate any WTO agreements.

It is true that China agreed to open up many markets, but no deal was made on the courier business. Others argue that the attempt to restrict business breaks China's promise not to further limit any industry that has already been opened up to international competition and is in violation of WTO principles of nondiscrimination and fair competition. Inevitably disputes will arise and many will not be as clearly one sided as this bad decision by China on courier services.

Disputes are a part of any relationship and I am convinced that by having China in the WTO with a rules based framework, all parties are better off than if China were to be excluded. The greatest levellers of all are investors because unless they have confidence in the system, they will not invest, and without investment there will be no new wealth generated, and without new wealth everyone is a loser.

I now wish talk about Taiwan. Taiwan has a population of about 23 million. It is Canada's eighth largest trading partner and has the world's 12th largest economy. The significance of our trading relationship with Taiwan is often downplayed and that is why I emphasize our very significant relationship with Taiwan.

Last year Canadian exports to Taiwan almost exceeded $1 billion and our imports exceeded $4.4 billion. It is close to being completely WTO compliant in terms of legislation and only 14 pieces of legislation had to be amended as a result of its entry into the WTO.

Taiwan is a democracy that upholds the rule of law and goes out of its way to ensure it meets the spirit and the intent of international trading rules. While one must realize that Canada has to deal with the People's Republic of China and maintain good relations with it, there is no reason why Canadian policy toward Taiwanese government officials could not be much more accommodating.

In fact, Canada's relationship with Taiwan is hostile. Two years ago the Taiwanese minister of foreign affairs was not permitted to enter Canada.

One year ago the Taiwanese minister of health was not allowed into Canada because Canadian authorities said he might lobby for Taiwanese observer status at the World Health Organization.

To date Taiwan has developed formal diplomatic ties and established embassies in 28 small and uninfluential countries. We all heard the Liberal minister three days ago in the House excuse the Liberal government behaviour toward Taiwan's request for observer status at the World Health Organization and Canada's lack of support for that by saying that no other western democracy at the executive level had done it either. I say that is not a very good way to display leadership on this issue.

The U.S. senate has approved that request and we are waiting for the entire congress to do the same thing, which means the house of representatives also has to support that status.

What we have is 28 small and uninfluential countries with formal diplomatic ties and established embassies. As another 100 countries, like Canada, do not officially recognize Taiwan, it is forced to operate with “economic and cultural offices”. Canada has three such offices.

The Liberal government endorses the one China policy through its actions to the detriment of Taiwan, a healthy democracy, a very significant trading partner and a friend. Quite simply, this is wrong. The Liberal government is being hypocritical on human rights. When it comes to human rights issues in China, it is prepared to overlook abuses and at the same time tries to marginalize Taiwan which upholds the rule of law.

I have recently received letters from both the president of the Taiwan-Canadian Association of Ottawa and the president of the Greater Vancouver Taiwanese Canadian Association asking for my support in Taiwan's request for observer status at the World Health Organization. I have responded to both organizations and have stated that I fully endorse and support Taiwan's request for observer status.

The Canadian government cannot just sit back and remain silent on Taiwan issues and subordinate its Taiwanese policy to the dictates of the Chinese government. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama in a May 21, 2000, interview with Reuters and the American press stated that “Joining the WTO organization, I think is one way (for China) to change in the right direction... I think it is a positive development. In the long run, certainly (the trade agreement) will be positive for Tibet. Forces of democracy in China get more encouragement that way”.

China's movement against Falun Gong and similar Qi-gong groups, Protestants, Catholics and other religious groups reveals China's lack of commitment and adherence to internationally agreed upon standards for human rights. This should concern us all and we should especially be concerned about the lack of commitment the Liberal government demonstrates in holding China and Cuba accountable.

The Canadian government pretends to crusade for human rights issues internationally but when it comes to human rights in China or Cuba, it sells them out very quickly.

For this reason, it is extremely important that Canada express its concern on a number of issues including freedom of religion, expression, assembly, association, women's rights, children's rights, minority rights, good governance, cultural, social and economic rights.

I know that my colleague from Calgary Southeast will expand on some of the issues to which I just made reference and I welcome his comments.

I will conclude by saying that the world stands to benefit substantially from the liberalization measures that China has proposed as part of its secession to the WTO. I will also add that I agree with the safeguards and provisions that are contained in Bill C-50.

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if we asked any adult Canadian if a 14 year old can make an informed decision involving sexual consent with an adult, they would overwhelmingly reject this premise.

It is no accident that the average age of recruitment for prostitution is age 14. Society feels the need to limit or protect 14 year old children by denying them access to movies with acts of violence and explicit sex. That is why the Canadian public is shocked when they discover the age of consent for sexual activity is 14. It offends the common sense of ordinary Canadians that vulnerable children as young as 14 can be targeted by adult sexual predators and as long as the act is considered consensual, it is perfectly legal. As a father of an 11 year old daughter, I find it unbelievable that in a short two and a half years she will be considered to be of an age where she can give consent to sexual activity with an adult. She has no peer group that would put the right kind of pressure on her not to do that.

Despite any argument on the contrary coming from government, the bottom line is that an age of consent as young as 14 can and does create a vulnerable target population of children for adults with predatory motives.

The Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values Association is a non-denominational, non-partisan grassroots association with a large and growing membership whose principle purposes are: to redress social injustice; to advocate, foster, safeguard and protect constitutional charter and social rights, traditional family values and parental rights; and to promote the establishment of traditional schools, social, educational institutions and charitable activities. This group, based in Vancouver, is 80% Canadian-Chinese and has worked tirelessly on important family and social issues in British Columbia and nationally. It is recognized as interveners at the supreme court on two ongoing court cases.

The reason I have described the Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values Association is because it has arranged with my office to present 8,681 letters to the Minister of Justice, which I have right here with me. I will quote at length from its media release of last Friday. It says:

The John Robin Sharpe case exposed the weakness of the laws on child pornography, the liberality and permissiveness on the part of the judiciary and the resulting inability of our society collectively to protect the most vulnerable group--the children.

Currently in Canada, the age of consent to sex is 14. In 1987, the Mulroney government reduced the age of consent from 18 to 14. The federal Liberal government has made no genuine attempt to change this despite the united voice of the provinces for raising the age to 16. Parents, police and social service agencies are hindered in protecting children as young as 14 who are coerced into sex with adults. Children as young as 14 can be exposed to the risks associated with sexual activity such as emotional distress, unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS. Recent years have seen a significant increase in crimes of a sexual nature against children. Child prostitution, child pornography etc. are increasing at an alarming rate. The low age of consent encourages societal acceptance of early sexual behaviour and appetite for pedophiles. Problems associated with low age of consent to sex are deep emotional and mental health problems, STDS, cervical cancer, teen pregnancies, school-drop-outs and criminal behaviour.

Our Association's stand is that if youth are not able to consume alcohol, vote, volunteer for combat or make other major decisions until they reach 18, an activity and the resulting consequences as complicated as sexual activity should not be legal for children...

As it has been scheduled for the current session of Parliament to discuss the age of consent next Tuesday, we have collected 8,681 individual petitions from concerned citizens including parents and people from all walks of life urging Parliament to raise the age of consent for sex from 14 to 18.

That ends the media release of last Friday from the Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values.

In 1997 the justice minister answered a question from my then caucus colleague Sharon Hayes asking for the age of consent to be raised to at least 16. The minister at that time refused to commit to raising the age of consent saying that the issue was only one of the issues involved in protecting children. It is now five years later and the government still has not dealt with this one issue involved in protecting children.

The Canada Family Action Coalition says the following on its website, and I give credit to Peter Stock for authorship since I am quoting liberally. It states:

When learning that the age of consent for sex is only 14 Canadians react with shock and disbelief...“We're dealing with a lot of calls from people expressing their anger at learning that such law exists in Canada. Some need to see the actual law in writing before they will believe that it is the case. The most common question I hear from people, after they express how appalled they are, is who is responsible for this?”...

“Parents ask me, “how could they do this to children? Aren't they parents too and weren't they supposed to be a conservative party?”

This is goes back to the change in the law under the Mulroney government. It continues:

They are astounded that this could happen... “Unfortunately, even though there was some solid pro-family MPs in that party, the liberal-types in the PC Party and in Parliament won the day”...

Police officers who have to deal with the fall-out from changes in the law in a front-line capacity have seen the tragic effects of a lowered age of consent. As they encounter situations of young teen girls and older men, they have been faced with the reality there is nothing they can do to protect these vulnerable young citizens. As a result of countless such incidents, in the last few years the provincial attorneys-general of every province in Canada have demanded that the Justice Minister raise the age of consent. In addition, the Canadian Police Association has also endorsed a motion asking for the age to be raised.

Yesterday in the House the Liberals tried to insinuate that our opposition motion would have the effect of lowering the age of consent. How can members of parliament say such a contrivance and sleep at night when what is important is protecting children not protecting the government from its inaction since 1993?

Our motion calls for raising the age of consent set out in section 150.1 of the criminal code. The Liberal member was talking about section 153 of the code which deals with sexual exploitation of young persons. We would not change section 153, the Liberals know it and they are only trying to confuse others on a technicality that does not hold water.

I have spoken at length about the 8,681 petitions from the Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values asking for the age of consent to be raised. I will take a moment to say that the Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values existed before the Canadian Alliance as a political party. Just to make it clear, there is no relationship there. However we do share some of our beliefs, obviously.

At this point in time I would like to ask the House for unanimous consent to table the 8,681 letters that I have with me today. This is just a sampling from individual members of the community in Vancouver, self-described as 80% of the membership is Canadian-Chinese.

[Government Procurement, April 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, these things may be true but public works cannot go around breaking the rules of procurement. Canada cannot argue that it does not like unilateral actions that break international treaties by other governments and then damage its own reputation by doing the same thing.

The government bent the rules on Cipro and on the Challengers. Which cabinet member authorized this exception to the rule?

[Government Procurement, April 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is a nation with a small population. Therefore it has a vested interest in international rules based trade.

Under NAFTA, government procurement over $37,500 requires a request for tenders, unless the government invokes an exception. The government did not have to break the rules to get the two Challengers as cabinet jets. They would probably have won in a fair and open competition.

Why did the government sacrifice our international moral authority for cushy cabinet convenience?

[Pension Savings, April 19th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the interventions from colleagues in the House on my motion.

The message and signal that I heard from the parliamentary secretary was that the finance department welcomes this initiative. Obviously I am pleased to hear that. I am pleased to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance say this concept of an after tax personal retirement account is worth investigating.

It is my belief that many Canadians would endorse this initiative if and when they become aware of the concept. I welcome the parliamentary secretary's statements as they probably represent the view of the department.

The parliamentary secretary was correct that there are many questions and much research that needs to be done in order to determine the appropriate design of an after tax personal retirement account. I also said that in my speech. All the points I made were only examples in order to lead the discussion in the right direction.

I urge the department to get on with it. I thank the parliamentary secretary for his supportive comments but there was no sense of urgency. If it were a worthy initiative then we should simply get on with it.

I share the concern of my colleague from Elk Island. Canadians are feeling poorer, especially our seniors. They do need other options available to them to look at when they reach retirement.

The hon. member for Dartmouth missed my point. The government gets the taxes sooner rather than later. The hon. member for Dartmouth talked about this retirement savings vehicle and described it as a tax loophole. It is hardly a loophole. As a matter of fact many governments would view this as a tax grab, a tax windfall. That is exactly my point. It is not a tax loophole. Taxes are paid up front rather than deferred until later.

Many low income earners would choose this after tax way of saving for retirement because of the certainty of what their later income would be, or could be, and also because withdrawals in a flexible way would have no impact on income for taxation purposes when people are more vulnerable to government tax grabs. That is the point the hon. member for Elk Island made with the senior with the leaky roof. Those kind of rainy day withdrawals would be much more enabled through an after tax personal retirement account than under the RRSP program.

I am not arguing against an RRSP program. I am saying a judicious mix of the two would be appropriate. The hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough spoke on the motion and I too advocate other tax relief measures.

The motion is not votable. It was deemed not votable by a small all party committee requiring unanimous consent. This drives private members' business into mundane business at times rather than substantive issues. It is time and it is overdue for all private members' business to be votable in the House.

[Pension Savings, April 19th, 2002]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should create a personal retirement account whereby Canadians may be given an after-tax option for pension savings.

Madam Speaker, I started working on this motion back in 1998 and it has been a long dusty road to get it here. I am delighted to speak to my private member's Motion No. 357.

What I am recommending is that another vehicle for retirement income be added to the array currently in existence in the Canada retirement income system. I call this the personal retirement account. It is not unlike the Roth IRA, which was recently introduced into the U.S. tax system for Americans wishing to save for their retirement by contributing after tax money into an individual registered account in which any growth is sheltered from all future taxation. Americans have had this popular new alternative at their disposal since 1998.

This savings vehicle offers no immediate tax benefit. Instead, interest dividends or capital gains income earned in the retirement account accumulate free of tax. The intention would be that withdrawals of principal and earnings after a specified age, for example age 60, are free of tax as long as the plan has been in existence for five years.

Most Canadians understand the basic concept of our current retirement income system which consists of public and private components. The public component consists of old age security and guaranteed income supplement for Canadians with lower incomes and the Canada and Quebec pension plans.

The private savings component is in the category of registered retirement savings plans, otherwise known as RRSPs, or registered pension plans, RPPs. I am proposing is a Canadian alternative for private savings under a personal retirement account which will utilize after tax money as opposed to the RRSP which defers current taxes until withdrawals are made from the RRSP and treated as income later. This income is then taxed.

Since the Roth IRA was offered to Americans in 1998, it has proven to be very popular. I believe the option I am presenting to put after tax money into a personal retirement account where all future growth in income would be sheltered from taxation, would be popular with Canadians and would offer them an alternative which would encourage them to save for their retirement.

A simple analysis clearly indicates that both an RRSP and an after tax personal retirement account are preferable to saving in an ordinary bank account. It is important for the government to encourage private savings for retirement. The federal government must plan for its tax revenues based on projections of changes to revenue based on people's retirement savings behaviour. RRSPs tend to defer taxes more than reduce taxes so what the government loses in revenues upfront, it tends to gain later.

If Canadians were offered a choice of an after tax personal retirement account, as I am recommending, and if it became as popular as it apparently is in the U.S., federal tax revenues would easily increase by several billion dollars in the next few years. Furthermore, if, as the Americans have done, Canadians were given the option of converting funds in existing RRSPs into these after tax personal retirement accounts, the federal government would enjoy a further tax windfall. The government would want to offer both RRSPs and personal retirement accounts and would have to take into account the impact of when taxation of revenues would be received.

The current demographics indicate that between 1995 and 2030, seniors, as a percentage of the working age population, will increase from 20% to 39%. This makes it essential that private savings be encouraged to enhance the public portion of retirement income which will obviously be seriously under strong pressure with current projections indicating a shortfall.

The aging of the population will have a profound impact on the ability of the government to provide programs to allow retirees to maintain a reasonable standard of living. Some of the characteristics that I would suggest as being appropriate for an after tax personal retirement account might look like the following description although the details are obviously flexible and specific details should not be used as ammunition to support or criticize the concept since they are not part of my motion and would be subject to the design of the government. I am merely offering suggestions to allow for clarity of understanding as to how an after tax personal retirement account might work.

First, the after tax personal retirement account should be created regardless of other recognized retirement schemes then in effect. Contributions allowed to the after tax personal retirement account should not be linked in any way to the contributions allowed for other retirement plans or schemes.

Second, the money contributed to the personal retirement account should consist of after tax dollars. Any contributions made to the account should not be tax deductible. However, any income earned and any withdrawals made from the personal retirement account should not be taxable.

Third, an individual may contribute a maximum of $5,000 in after tax dollars in each taxation year to personal retirement accounts.

Fourth, the individual contributor may use the unused portion of each year's allotted $5,000 in subsequent years.

Fifth, individual contributors may contribute their money to an after tax personal retirement account that belongs to their spouse or child as defined in the Income Tax Act.

Sixth, an individual may contribute to any after tax personal retirement account regardless of whether or not that individual is an income earner.

Seventh, there should be no age restrictions whatsoever on the after tax personal retirement account. Any individual may contribute after tax dollars to any personal retirement account at any time. Any individual who owns or is the beneficiary of an after tax personal retirement account may withdraw funds from his or her account at any time.

Eighth, the individual owner or beneficiary of an after tax personal retirement account should be able to invest in any investment vehicle provided that a record is kept of the invested funds of the income earned on the said investment.

Ninth, all after tax personal retirement accounts should be fully transferable on death with no tax implications for the funds retained within the account, including any income earned within the personal retirement account. Personal retirement account owners should be able to transfer their account to any other individual they choose. An individual transferee in this context should only include natural persons.

Tenth, withdrawals of principal or interest from an after tax personal retirement account should not be treated as income for any purpose.

There are obviously a host of other details and administration that would be required, but certainly the PRA would prove to be no more cumbersome to administer than a registered retirement savings plan account. For many people the certainty that all income generated would not be subject to future taxation at some uncertain rate of tax would be a huge incentive. It is my belief that it would encourage a substantial number of people who do not currently save through RRSPs for retirement because they do not see any certainty of advantage to saving subject to future taxation with the uncertainty of future rates of taxation.

Just as with the Canadian system of registered retirement savings plan modifications over time, there would be modifications in design of the after tax personal retirement account. For example, the Roth individual retirement account in the U.S. allows contributions to be used, up to $10,000 if it has been in the plan for five years, to purchase a first home. The U.S. has also built in an education savings component.

Many Canadians who put money into an RRSP during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s would have been better off with an after tax personal retirement account because in many respects they are facing tax rates upon retirement that are higher than when they were making the contributions.

My proposal for an after tax personal retirement account would be a private retirement savings vehicle in addition to RRSPs and registered pension plans and not designed to replace any of the current retirement income vehicles.

Most RRSP contributors would, in all likelihood, choose to contribute to an RRSP and also contribute to the new after tax PRA. Many people are looking for as much certainty as possible for their retirement planning and the after tax PRA would certainly be appealing from the standpoint that revenue would not be taxed after taken out after a certain age.

In the U.S., 59 and a half years of age has been designated as the age after which non-penalty of withdrawals occurs. It is my belief that any negative long term revenue impacts to the government would be offset by the fact that retired persons would be more self-supporting. The principle that the after tax PRA and earnings within it would belong to the taxpayer and could be withdrawn without the huge penalty normally associated with the early withdrawal from an RRSP would be a real advantage.

The U.S. applies a 10% early withdrawal penalty for any withdrawals of earnings before reaching the age of 59 and a half when withdrawing from a Roth IRA. Contributions however, not earnings, may be withdrawn from a Roth IRA without penalty at any age. This kind of flexibility would be very attractive to a great number of people.

The government has not had a significant reform to the retirement income system for Canadians for many years. The after tax personal retirement account that this motion is advocating would be a positive and exciting addition and alternative for Canadians who are increasingly concerned about how to structure their financial affairs for their senior years. For example, in 1998 fewer Canadians contributed to an RRSP than in 1997. This trend is worrisome. In 1998 only a minority of tax filers under age 65 contributed to their RRSP account. This worked out to 40% for men and 30% for women.

I offer this motion as advocating what could be an exciting addition to the retirement income vehicles available to Canadians.

[Species at Risk Act, April 16th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about the amendments to Bill C-5 and bring a little different focus to the discussions. A lot of people are speaking as if the landowners primarily affected by this bill might be farmers and ranchers. We also have a big slice of the public who are cottage owners, who are involved in land development or forest woodlot ownership. There are any number of other land use activities or ownership patterns that can be impacted by this proposed legislation.

In our non-urban areas right now there are two very significant initiatives on the minds of people; that is, the species at risk act and the ratification of the Kyoto agreement. That shows the kind of priority this legislation should have.

I met with the Canadian Real Estate Association this morning. I was interested to see that it has three priority items that it wants to bring to our attention this year. The first is the national debt and the second is the limits on RRSP contributions in Canada, which are longstanding issues and are financial in nature. We would expect that from the Canadian Real Estate Association. However when it has the species at risk act and property rights in its top three issues, then we know this is a major and significant bill which has the attention of people and has them very much concerned.

They basically share the concerns of my colleagues in the Canadian Alliance. I know there are a lot of people on the Liberal side of the House who also feel the same way. It will be interesting to see where they are when it comes time to vote. They also agree that the lack of commitment in species at risk act for compensation when citizens are deprived of their property rights is a major problem. Property rights are not guaranteed under the Canadian constitution and in this bill there is no obligation to provide compensation.

The bill states that the government may provide compensation and only for losses suffered when there is extraordinary impact. Of course the bill does not define “extraordinary” which obviously makes it virtually unworkable or takes it into the domain of the courts where there will be huge costs and uncertainty inflicted on the landowner. It means that this will become an exercise in frustration.

Therefore what will happen is human nature will come into play. The bill in all likelihood will be counterproductive in most instances when it comes to private land and that is very unfortunate. Property rights are the foundation of a strong economy and a democratic society. All this is doing is diluting both of those principles.

We are on the same wavelength as the real estate association and many other organizations and institutions across the country. They believe this bill should recognize property rights when landowners are deprived of the use of their property to protect an endangered species.

My background was working 20 years as a forester. I worked for industry and was responsible for land use plans for hundreds of thousands of hectares. I have dealt with endangered species. I have dealt with any number of management plans related to habitat and good conditions for many species of wildlife in British Columbia and on coastal British Columbia.

When we look at a bill like this, I believe we need to take a practical, pragmatic and realistic approach. After all the committee work, it was headed in that direction. I have an insight from some of the people involved in that committee as to the many thousands of hours of time of the committee members and other stakeholders and how much taxpayer effort was behind the work that went into creating a report from the committee. Unfortunately all this work was blown up as soon as the government got its hands on it.

This is a huge frustration. It is symptomatic of what is wrong with this place. Many of us could and would enjoy and be enthusiastic about the work of committees. However, when we see the work of committees being blown up or ignored by the government, then one begins to wonder why we would put energy and effort into that exercise. The worst part of it is that the very people who are funding that whole exercise, the taxpayer at large, are being taken for a ride and ignored in the process.

This is a clear cut example of committee work being ignored. I have been here since 1993. I cannot think of another bill that has had more input at the committee level for a longer period of time than this one. There was a set of amendments that were very well thought out. I think there could have been all party support.

Obviously everyone wants to protect endangered species in Canada. There are some things we do not want and we can learn by looking south to the U.S. which has a very heavy-handed endangered species act. The U.S. act has led to property owners doing everything they can to ensure that they do not end up with a liability. People want to do the right thing but they do not want to make their property worthless by doing it. The government cannot go with straight disincentives.

Recently there was a case where a group wanted to influence a land use decision in its favour under the U.S. act. In order to do so, it planted fur from an endangered species on the barbed wire fence of a property owner to prove that the endangered species existed there so that the land use would be denied to the property owner.

This goes to show how far off the rails that kind of disincentive can go. The legislation is now headed in that direction, against the recommendations of the committee.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to Bill C-53, which is about regulating pesticides. I am pleased to do so because prior to joining this place I held a pesticide applicator's licence for about 20 years and used pesticides in a very broad landscape, that being the forests on the coast of British Columbia. Of course that at times could be a controversial thing to do, but I think I did it very responsibly. I feel that as a consequence of that background I can bring a perspective to this issue that is different from many in the House

The average person has to think for a minute about what we mean when we say pesticide, because it can mean anything from the little spray thing used on insects to something spread by an airplane in Vietnam to knock out forest canopy. There are a lot of visual images. Pesticides is the umbrella term for herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. When we talk about using a pesticide, then, we have to define what the pest is, and the pest is in the eye of the beholder. What is a pest today might not be a pest tomorrow.

We are all sophisticated enough to recognize that when it comes to a management regime, it is important to define what we are trying to do and to target whatever we are trying to do as closely as possible. That is something I took pride in doing, because for the most part the kinds of applications I was involved with were done by hand and done, in my case, on an individual tree basis.

This did give me a certain perspective relating to how the pesticide management review agency should operate. At that time, if a product had an agricultural label, even though that might be a perfect formulation for use in the forest, one might be pre-empted from using it. Because the agricultural market then was a lot larger than the forest management market, many companies refused to pay the serious upfront expenditures required in order to get that kind of labelling because it was simply not worth it.

We oftentimes felt we were using chemicals that we would have preferred not to, but we were using them because they were the only ones authorized under the federal permitting process. I have not kept up with all of the detail behind this, but in all likelihood that probably is still occurring. I see that the legislation still includes as a part of the process that the effectiveness of the chemical be listed and I think this is counterproductive. This is one part of the bill that I definitely would like to see changed. Let the customer, the industry, whatever sector is using that formulation, determine whether or not the chemical is effective.

I can give a somewhat humorous example. When maple trees are cut down they coppice, they tend to grow up from the stump. There is a lot of energy in the roots and they have this multiple stem coppice that comes up. We found this most disconcerting in some areas that had a lot of maple. We wanted to establish a new crop, but that is not what we wanted so we tried different chemicals and chemical formulations and nothing worked. Then we had a crew go through a hillside and inject the individual stems. We found that it worked sometimes and not other times.

Through trial and error and scientific analysis we checked to see why it would work here and not work there. We found it was working where we had a somewhat lazy operator, a lazy worker who did not treat every stem or every coppice. We figured the biology is that by keeping a few alive, the material recycled enough times that it got everywhere and then eventually killed the entire coppice network.

We learned a huge lesson by accident from a worker who was not following instructions. The very way we have had some of our best scientific discoveries has been through laboratory accidents or observations where things have happened overnight in a Petri dish or in some other experiment.

The government should try to stay away from regulating all of the uses or potential uses and let industry and the user make that decision. Of course, safety has to be the first and foremost concern.

Those are some of my key observations. I am a great believer that target treatment is important. Operational and other research and development should be encouraged. The way to encourage that is to have not too much specified detail on how people utilize the material.

Other than that, the bill is going in the right direction. I am encouraged that we have let local usage be determined at the local level. That is very important.