John McCallum

[Government Advertising, September 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, last year, the Conservatives doubled their advertising expenses to $89 million. A number of the ads looked like advertising for the Conservative Party.

When will the government implement a third-party review process to ensure that government advertising serves the interests of Canadians and not of the Conservative Party?

[Government Advertising, September 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, while Canadians struggle with rising debt, the Conservatives made an economic decision to install and track exactly 8,587 giant signs. Media reports say each one costs upwards of $8,000 to buy and install.

Since the Conservatives have spent so much effort tracking each sign right down to the square metre where it was installed, can they tell Canadians just how much these signs cost down to the last penny?

[Business of Supply, June 10th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, it is clear that the government is playing Russian roulette with $300 million of Canadian taxpayers' money. That is imprudent and irresponsible.

In response to the questions, as I said in my speech, in terms of blind faith in markets and no regulation at all, thank goodness the Conservatives were not in power in the 1990s. They would have allowed bank mergers. They would have deregulated banking and we would now be in the soup, just as they are in the U.S. and the U.K.

[Business of Supply, June 10th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, if the member is right about the Supreme Court, then the Conservative government will have thrown a third of a billion dollars of Canadian taxpayers' money down the drain. However, I will not try to guess what the Supreme Court will say.

In terms of the member's question, I do not really think that because regulators might have worked at a bank before that they would condone embezzlement or fraud. I do not think that. I do not really agree with him on that.

The reason why we have been relatively unsuccessful in dealing with white collar crime, as compared with the U.S., is mainly due to the fact that the Conservative government has not put sufficient resources into the RCMP. I do not think the RCMP has sufficient resources to deal effectively with all of these issues. In my view, that would be a big part of the solution.

[Business of Supply, June 10th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party has been clear that it agrees with the preamble of the Bloc motion, to the effect that the Prime Minister has been a failure in terms of federal-provincial relations.

However, we stand by the position that we enunciated before the Conservatives and that is to say, refer it to the Supreme Court. I do not think there is much point having detailed plans of precisely what to do before we hear from the supreme court. We will hear from the Supreme Court in about a year. After that decision, the Liberal Party will have a clear plan.

What I would criticize is the Conservative Party for taking a huge gamble with a third of a billion dollars of taxpayers' money that it is spending on this project before it even knows whether this project is constitutional.

I think the prudent action, what is prudent from the standpoint of Canadian taxpayers, is to spend modestly on consultation, not a third of a billion dollars, and just wait for the year or so that it will take before the Supreme Court makes its decision.

As I said in my speech, we have debated this thing on and off for 56 years. I do not think one more year of waiting for the Supreme Court decision is a high price to pay.

[Business of Supply, June 10th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I remember that back when I got my start in politics 10 years ago, I answered a hypothetical question and my old boss, Mr. Chrétien, told me quite seriously that I should never answer hypothetical questions. This is clearly a hypothetical question. The Supreme Court will not be ruling on this for a year or more. I criticized the government because it spent over $300 million before knowing what the Supreme Court has to say. In other words, the government could lose that $300 million of Canadians' money if the Supreme Court says no. In my opinion, what we should do is wait for the Supreme Court's decision. Everything depends on that decision, and once we have it, we can decide what to do.

[Business of Supply, June 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on this opposition day motion.

The first part of the motion is a bit of a no-brainer: that the House denounces the government's unrelenting efforts to marginalize the Quebec nation. Indeed, Liberals agree that the Prime Minister has been a failure when it comes to federal-provincial relations and we disagree with the Conservative approach of acting unilaterally to sow divisions in the country. It is a party that governs by division, a party that believes so long as it can retain the support of the 35% of Canadians it needs, it can ignore and marginalize the remaining 65%.

In fact, I would expand the first part of the motion as the Conservatives not only marginalize Quebec, but all Canadians who they feel they do not need to win an election. We hear it all the time. We have heard the Prime Minister voice his disdain for people who attend arts galas. To the Prime Minister, those people are not real Canadians. We have heard the Conservatives attack our hard-working police officers, dismissing them and their views on crime prevention, because Conservatives believe police officers are part of some nefarious cult.

Therefore, yes, I agree with the Bloc motion that the current Conservative government marginalizes not only Quebec, but virtually everyone who they feel they do not need in order to cling to power.

The second part of the motion deals with the issue of securities regulation. As we all know, last month, the finance minister referred a draft securities regulation bill to the Supreme Court for its opinion on the constitutionality of the bill.

Some experts believe the regulation of the securities industry falls under the property and civil rights sections of the Constitution; that is to say, under provincial control. Others believe the regulation of securities falls under the federal government's powers to regulate trade. There has been an academic discussion on these issues for decades, and it could go on for decades more.

Technically, the debate began in 1964, when the Royal Commission on Banking and Finance recommended that a single securities regulator be established.

In 1973 the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs began a five-year study on the idea of a single securities regulator.

Then, around 1988, federally-regulated banks began to enter the securities market and the debate took on a new form. At the time, it was reported that Pierre Fortier, Quebec's minister of financial institutions, and Tom Hockin, his federal counterpart, were close to a deal on the issue. However, in the end, nothing was accomplished.

The idea of a single regulator appeared again in the mid-1990s, and here we are again debating it still in 2010.

One thing is clear. Today, we have the opportunity to hear the Supreme Court's opinion about the constitutional and jurisdictional issues that have never been answered clearly in the 56 years of this debate. I am happy to report that we only have this opportunity because when the Conservatives announced that they would unilaterally impose a securities commission on the provinces, back in February 2008, the Liberal Party said, no. We said that, first, the matter should be referred to the Supreme Court and that the government should seek the court's opinion on whether the federal government had the constitutional authority to proceed in this way. The Conservatives eventually came to their senses, agreeing with the Liberal Party, and last month they took our advice by referring a draft bill to the Supreme Court for its opinion.

Now that we are roughly a year away from a Supreme Court ruling that would answer the 56-year-old question about a single regulator, we should at least wait to hear what the court has to say. If the Supreme Court agrees with the Bloc's legal opinion on this matter, then Bloc members should be ecstatic. The whole issue would go away after 56 years of on and off debate.

That is why the Liberal Party, after we called for the referral to the Supreme Court, is eager to hear what the court has to say. It is why we cannot vote for this motion that would essentially lead to years of more debate that, for all intents and purposes, is pointless until we hear the opinion of the Supreme Court.

It is here as well that I take issue with the government. While it followed our advice and eventually referred the matter to the Supreme Court, it has acted in such a way that it is assuming the Supreme Court will go in its direction or it is taking a wild gamble with one-third of $1 billion of Canadian taxpayer money. It is spending money lavishly on this project before it knows what the Supreme Court will say.

If the Supreme Court decides against the government, the government will have thrown down the drain more than $300 million of taxpayer money. Why would it spend so lavishly before it even knows what the Supreme Court has to say? I would contend that it should spend more modestly.

Yes, some money is required for consultations and so on, but that does not cost over $300 million. The government is taking a big risk spending Canadian taxpayer money on a project that may never see the light of day, depending on what the Supreme Court says.

Make no mistake, all Canadians want an efficient securities regulation regime that protects their interests. Once the Supreme Court has made its ruling and provided clarity, the Liberal Party will approach this issue with the belief that the best approach is one that protects investors, promotes capital market efficiency and ensures the unique expertise of each region is not lost.

The Liberal Party, as everyone in the chamber knows, has a long track record of financial leadership, of which this regulator issue is one aspect. The stable financial system in Canada, which the Liberals built, has become a model for the world during the economic crisis.

I would note that strong banks have fared Canada well in this past crisis and that a single regulator certainly is not a panacea for stability during a financial crisis. We observed in the U.K. and the U.S., each of which has a single regulator, that their banks required bailouts and did far worse than Canadian banks.

If the stability of the banking system has little to do with a single regulator, to what can we credit the relative stability and success of Canada's banks? The answer is pretty clear. During the 1990s, under a Liberal government, we resisted the fad or trend of the day to move in the direction of deregulation. The U.S. and U.K. moved in that direction. The then Conservatives, Reformers or Canadian Alliance, whatever they were called back then, were pushing the Liberal government also to move in the direction of deregulation. They were pushing the Liberal government to allow Canadian banks to merge.

Mr. Chrétien said no to bank mergers and he said no bank deregulation. He was right and the Conservatives were wrong. I would admit that I was wrong too on one of those points. At that time I worked for the Royal Bank and believed merger was a good idea. However, now that we have seen the fate of Canadian banks versus others in this financial crisis, it is clear to me that, notwithstanding what I might have thought in those earlier days, the Liberal government was right to say no to mergers and to the deregulation of the banking system and the Conservatives in opposition were wrong.

I think we can all agree that the strength of Canada's banks, which has helped us during this financial crisis, is part of the Liberal legacy to the country, a legacy the Conservatives were extremely lucky to inherit and would not have existed had they been in power. They would have allowed mergers, moved in the same direction, as the U.S. and U.K., of bank deregulation and our banks would probably have ended up in no better shape than the banks of the U.K. and the U.S. This is an example of the financial or fiscal stewardship that one can expect from the Liberal government, carried out in the 1990s.

The other dimension of that, which the Conservatives inherited, is the strength of our fiscal situation. As we all know, in the mid-nineties the Liberals inherited a $42 billion Conservative deficit. In a few short years we converted that to surplus. We paid down debt for a decade.

Whereas at the beginning, when Liberals came to power, Canada was the basket case of the G7. The Wall Street Journal said we were on our way to becoming a third world country. By the end of the Liberals' period of government, we had the lowest debt ratio in the G7 countries and a fine record of paying down debt.

That was the other thing, in addition to strong banks, that the Conservatives inherited as a consequence of this Liberal legacy. While it is true that they frittered away their inherited $13 billion surplus to the point where they were in or near deficit before the recession even struck, nevertheless, they were unable to undo the basically good fiscal record, fiscal situation, which they inherited.

The reason I go into these issues is that members of the House can be assured that once the Supreme Court decision comes down, perhaps in a year, that we on the Liberal side, should we be the government at that time, will act in the best interests of what is good for the Canadian financial situation and the Canadian economy, just as we did in the 1990s with respect to ensuring sound regulation of the banks, to not allowing mergers, resulting in strong Canadian banks today.

In terms of fiscally prudent behaviour, which eliminated that big fat Conservative $42 billion deficit, we paid down debt for a decade, left Canada in good stead to deal with the financial crisis which happened a couple of years ago. And in some respects this is ongoing.

[Business of Supply, June 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would note it was back in 2008 that the Liberal Party recommended that this matter first be sent to the Supreme Court for it to decide whether it was constitutional. The Conservatives followed our lead and that is fine. My problem is that they seem to be assuming that the Supreme Court will decide in their favour.

The Conservatives have already spent about one-third of $1 billion on this enterprise. There was $2.8 million in the supplementary estimates in 2008, $154 million in budget 2009, and $161 million in budget 2010. It seems that the Conservatives are acting out of disrespect for the Quebec provincial government in assuming that this will go through and charging ahead with one-third of $1 billion.

Why are the Conservatives gambling one-third of $1 billion of taxpayers' money on an enterprise which will simply go down the drain should the Supreme Court decide against the government?

[Banking Sector, June 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, we are opposed to the global bank tax. The point is that the minister's opposition to this tax was a phony crusade and a calculated distraction.

Countries like Korea, Japan, China, Brazil, Mexico and India were never going to back it. Yet, the government sent ministers all over the world in a show of phony bravado.

Just how much did taxpayers spend for ministerial publicity stunts in Washington, Mumbai and Shanghai to thwart something that never had a chance of getting through in the first place?

[Banking Sector, June 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, we are two weeks away from the G20 summit and after more than a year of discussions, the new banking regulations are far from complete.

Instead of working on these regulations, the Conservatives went on a crusade against a global bank tax that never really stood a chance.

What exactly are Canadian families getting out of this billion dollars the Conservatives are spending?