John McCallum

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, last year the presidents of China and the United States personally agreed to 10-year visas for tourists and business travellers from both countries. Meanwhile, Canada is out in the cold at a great cost to Chinese Canadians, the tourist industry, and Canadian jobs.

Will the government immediately enter into discussions with China to get the same treatment as the United States, that is, 10-year reciprocal visas for visitors and business people?

[Assaults Against Public Transit Operators, February 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that the Liberal Party will vote in favour of this bill.

My colleague from Wascana once introduced a similar bill, though his was a little more vigorous than the one we are talking about today. We are therefore very happy to support this bill.

Far be it from me to predict the voting decisions of hon. members on a private member's bill, but I will not be surprised if this bill receives the unanimous support of the House. We shall see later if this is the case.

In effect, it would be difficult to oppose this proposition. Bus drivers and other public transit operators provide a valuable service for all Canadians every day. The statistics show that they are subject to much more abuse than one might expect, and certainly much more abuse than they deserve. Therefore, it is incumbent on Parliament to take measures to help protect them. It is true that all three major parties of the House have, at one time or another, presented similar legislation in this regard. Therefore, I would be astounded if the bill did not receive overwhelming, if not unanimous, support.

To provide a few of the statistics, 2,061 bus drivers were assaulted in 2011, with attacks ranging from being spit on and punched in the head to knife attacks and sexual assault. It is partly because of the nature of their work that they are at greater risk than most because they are subject, willy-nilly, to whoever should enter their buses, taxis, ferries, or whatever means of transit. They have no control over who enters and are much more susceptible than most to this kind of attack. This is why they deserve a level of protection that is higher than that provided for most Canadians in other walks of life.

It is important to indicate what exactly the bill would do. I know the member has done so, but it would make the nature of a victim's employment as a public transit operator an aggravating circumstance which must be taken into account when a judge sentences an accused after conviction on specific Criminal Code charges. These include bodily harm, assault, aggravated assault and causing bodily harm. The definition of “public transit operator” includes not only bus drivers but also those operating taxis, trains, subways, trams and ferries.

We are happy to support this proposed law. As I indicated, the bill put forward by my colleague, the member for Wascana, was a little stronger in the sense that the fact of being a bus driver was to be an aggravating circumstance in sentencing for any crime against a bus driver no matter what the specific charge. However, that, in a sense, is a fairly small detail and the two laws are in the same spirit. We therefore are very happy to support it.

As my colleague from Winnipeg North pointed out, passing this law should not be the end of our pursuit of greater fairness for bus drivers and other public transit operators. There is scope for further actions, and a lot of those actions would probably involve more of the provincial and municipal governments than they would the federal government. At the federal level, we clearly have jurisdiction in the area of criminal law and can take this action, but also in the future the federal government could, and should, work with other levels of government to produce other measures and policy initiatives to enhance the safety and security of bus drivers.

I do not think there is controversy on this, so I will not go on any longer. The Liberal Party will enthusiastically support the bill.

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague referred to two-handed economists, and I referred to two economists, one from the left—one could even say the far left—and one from the pretty far right. Those are two hands of two different economists of opposite persuasions who totally agree that the NDP policy would do nothing but favour the rich and would not create jobs. Members should not listen to me. They should listen to economists on the left and economists on the right who are in total agreement.

As for parties in government, I actually gave some credit to NDP provincial governments, which from time to time have behaved competently. However, thank goodness we have no evidence of an NDP federal government, because such a thing has never existed and, God willing, never will.

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I do not give much praise to the government, but I do give a lot of praise to the hon. member opposite, not only because of some of the good work he has done in the House, but also because he is one of the few people I have met in the last decades who has actually read my Ph.D. thesis. I thank him for his good taste in that regard.

I would also acknowledge that Canada has done better than Spain and Greece in terms of recovering from the economic crisis.

However, my view would be that it is largely not the government's doing. It is largely because we had oil, when oil prices were higher, that helped and it is largely because our fiscal house was in order, and that is thanks to the actions of the Liberal government. It is also largely because we did not allow our banks to regulate themselves, which is thanks to the decision by the Liberal government not to allow mergers and not to allow banks to deregulate.

If we put all those ingredients together, while it is true we have done better than Greece and Spain, much of the credit for that rests with the previous Liberal governments of both Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased, and even proud, to say that the Liberal Party will vote against this motion. At its heart, it reflects the core incompetence of the New Democratic Party on anything related to economics.

The motion reveals the New Democratic Party's fundamental incompetence when it comes to economic issues.

However, before I say any more about the NDP's economic incompetence, I would like to talk about the government's incompetence. This is important because we are living in uncertain times. In uncertain times, the people want the government to take a clear stance.

It is clear that oil prices have plummeted and economic uncertainty has increased. In such an uncertain climate, people want economic leadership from the government. They want an action plan to reassure Canadians that everything will not be for the worse. What is that plan for the government? It is to delay its budget to April or later. That is the opposite of an action plan to reassure Canadians. It is a sign that the government does not seem to know what to do, so it is punting the budget into the future.

Why? On the one hand, the minister seems to be saying that in these uncertain times we have to wait a few more months to see what will happen to oil prices, as if knowing oil prices in two months would help us know them in 12 months. No one in the world predicted oil prices would go from $100 to $50. I do not think a couple of months from now we will know a huge amount more.

On the other hand, the minister talks as if he does know everything right now. He says with certainty that the Conservatives will balance the budget. He says with certainty that they will deliver their tax cuts. If he knows all that, why delay the budget? If everything is so clear in his head, as he pretends it is, why not do the budget tomorrow and relieve the uncertainty of Canadians.

The other problem is this. Why does he use the hard-earned money of Canadians at a time of potential deficits to give $12 billion over six years in the form of income splitting that will go to a tiny minority, 15%, of households, which is geared toward higher income Canadians? It does nothing for growth and resembles the policy of the NDP, which we are discussing today.

This brings me to my core issue of NDP economic incompetence. In order to set the stage for this hypothesis, let me take a little historical step backward and look at the NDP through history.

The New Democrats like to refer to provincial NDP governments as being competent. To some extent I will grant them that point. If I think of people from the past, like Roy Romanow, Ed Schreyer, Doer, et cetera, they actually ran governments, balanced budgets and showed competent economic leadership in some cases. Some of them were so good they could have been Liberals. One of them became a Liberal.

However, it is a totally different animal when we get to the federal NDP, because it is a party that, thank goodness, has never been the government. The New Democrats are living in a kind of 1950s class warfare mentality where they are debating in Ottawa ideas that were current among the left in the 1950s and 1960s. They have a somewhat other worldly element to them, not only in economics but also wanting to get out of NATO and other silly things.

Now we have a new leader of the NDP who has decided enough of this left wing stuff, that the New Democrats will not do crazy incompetent ancient history lefty stuff, that they will move to the centre and become much more conservative, and do all these nice things for corporations. Therefore, we come to this motion and this plan.

As my colleague has pointed out, I do not think even the current leader of the NDP, who wants to be more conservative, wants to be so conservative to present a policy that economists on the left and the right agree would do nothing for growth. All it would do is give huge benefits to wealthy Canadians. That is what the left wing and right wing economists say. I am an economist. I know economists do not always agree, but when we have a lefty economist and a righty economist saying exactly the same thing, there is probably an element of truth in it.

This misguided NDP policy with which it is trying to burnish its pro-corporate credentials to Canadians has fallen flat on its face because it would do the opposite. It would do nothing to create jobs in small business and other business. It would do everything to favour high-income Canadians in tax shelters.

This speaks to two points about the NDP. The NDP tries to be more mainstream or pro-corporate, but it remains incompetent. It is not proposing anything that would actually help create jobs in the corporate world. It has been deluded by bad research into thinking that this measure, which it proposes to create jobs in the private sector, in fact would not do so. It would simply raise the incomes of the higher-income, most privileged Canadians.

In this respect, as my colleague says, it is as if we are entering into some sort of coalition behaviour between the two other parties that wish to favour the higher-income Canadians. Only the Liberal Party is left as the champion of middle-class Canadians because we will neither do income splitting, which would favour the rich. Nor will we do this stupid NDP tax cut, which would also favour the rich.

There it is on paper. Concrete measures from the Conservatives that favour higher-income Canadians and concrete measures proposed today from the NDP, which really does not understand what it is doing, that favour the rich, unknown to the NDP. In that respect, those two parties are united. The Liberal Party, alone, is fighting for middle-class Canadians. For that reason, we are very happy to oppose this ridiculous NDP motion.

[Citizenship and Immigration, January 30th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, with mushrooming processing times for family-class immigrants and too many unwarranted denials of visitor visas, it is hardly surprising that Conservative MPs hear complaints when they meet constituents on this topic. At one such meeting, the member for Willowdale actually told Iranian Canadians to go back to Iran.

Apology or not, will the Minister for Multiculturalism acknowledge that such comments have no place in Canada, let alone coming from his own parliamentary secretary?

[Taxation, January 30th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is wrong and the Prime Minister was wrong when he said that the government was not in the business of raising taxes. Indeed, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance tabled a document setting out $4.5 billion in tax hikes. Yesterday that same parliamentary secretary described this tax hike as “absolutely ridiculous”. How can the parliamentary secretary describe the tax hike as ridiculous, when he was the one who signed and tabled it in this House?

[Taxation, January 30th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are counting on high oil prices.

Their forecasts have completely missed the mark, and they are preparing Canadians for more cuts. However, they still seem to have billions of dollars to put toward income splitting, which benefits only 15% of families. The Conservatives are making things up as they go along.

How can they justify this unaffordable tax break?

[Pakistan, January 30th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, on December 16, 2014, 132 Pakistani schoolchildren were massacred by the Taliban, and many more were injured. Of course, we all condemn this act unreservedly.

Khalid Usman, chair of Canadians of Pakistani Origin, has been working with the mayor of Markham and other community leaders to arrange vigils for the victims of this terrible crime. However, there is more that could be done. Many of these young victims have been left terribly disfigured by this attack and are unable to afford the cosmetic surgery they so desperately need. Mr. Usman and the Pakistani Canadian community want to bring some of the children to Canada for treatment.

The Pakistani community in Canada is currently raising funds to help pay for these procedures and for travel to Canada. However, consistent with Canada's humanitarian traditions, the federal government can help by ensuring that these families get their visas in a timely manner, and it should also consider further assistance.

[Business of Supply, January 29th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the member is actually quite right. It is possible to do two things, and both of those things he mentioned are things the Liberal Party is committed to do.

On the one hand, he mentioned that the provinces have already taken action on this issue. That is correct. We applaud the provinces for that. It would not be the intention of a Liberal government to repeal what the provinces have done.

The second component that he mentioned, which is also true, is that a federal Liberal government would provide leadership on this issue in terms of the direction of the country as a whole. The Liberal government would do something that the current government never does, i.e., we would actually meet with the provincial governments and discuss what each is doing and forge, together, a national and responsible plan for the environment.