Keith Martin

[Business of Supply, May 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my hon. colleague from the NDP that we offered quite a few solutions to the government when it put this catastrophic policy in place.

I will talk about a few of the principles that we have articulated in the interest of the public. The first is that we minimize the loss of savings for Canadians, we preserve the strength of the income trusts sector, we create tax fairness by eliminating any tax leakage caused by the income trusts sector, and we create tax neutrality by eliminating any incentive to convert from a corporation to an income trust purely for tax purposes. Those are the principles that underline a whole series of solutions that we put forward and the leader of the Liberal Party has articulated very clearly.

I encourage members of the public to please take a look at the series of solutions that we have offered to the government. We want to work with Canadians from coast to coast to offer those solutions that are relevant to their concerns with respect to income trusts, to fix this problem so that Canadians at least in some part will be able to recover a little of their assets. Also, we will avoid, we will not avoid it because the devastation and destruction has been done; however, we will somehow be able to mitigate to some small degree the devastation that the government has wrought upon our private and public sector.

[Business of Supply, May 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could educate the member on a couple of facts. Number one, he is right that the TSX is up, but does the member not acknowledge that income trusts are lagging away behind the TSX? Why is that happening?

I will tell the member the reason why income trusts are lagging behind the TSX. If the member would put aside the rhetoric, put aside the propaganda that has been given to him by his people, he might be able to open his eyes and ears and listen for a moment to the fact that income trusts have actually lagged behind the TSX. That is part of the proof demonstrating what a horrible mistake that the government made.

If the Canadian public was so happy about income trusts, why are we seeing this coast of coast furor on the part of those people who have been severely penalized? If this is such a happy moment and that the government made such a wise decision, why are we finding this massive anger across the country among individuals from coast to coast who are so angry about this that they have engaged in a national campaign to try to convince the government to change it. These are ordinary folks.

I hope that the hon. member would inquire about this with his own Minister of Finance and also ask a couple questions. Why did the government raise the taxes on the poor? Why did it lower the basic personal exemption? These are the questions that he should ask.

[Business of Supply, May 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

This is an issue that all of us have heard from our constituents at length. There is a big push across the country to get the Conservative government to mend its ways and reverse the devastating policy initiatives it has made since it has come into office. The Conservatives have not only affected individuals by raising taxes, particularly on the poor, but they have also negatively affected the private sector, the small to medium sized businesses. These businesses are the heart and backbone of our country. They provide the jobs that generate the tax revenues that allow any government to have the resources to deal with everything from health to education.

Let us take the first big blunder by the government, and we are dealing with that today. It is the issue of income trusts. I remember, as do all members of the House, what the Prime Minister said when he was in opposition before the last election. He put his hand on his heart and said, “Whether it is death taxes, or taxing income trusts, a new Conservative government will never let this happen”. He said that to all Canadians. What did he do when he came into power? He took his hand off his heart and announced to all Canadians that he would tax income trusts.

We all knew there were problems with income trusts. In fact, the former finance minister, who currently sits in the Liberal caucus, had put out solutions and said that we should look at this. The government today, the then opposition, castigated the Liberals for even thinking about it, saying that they would never do it.

As a consequence of the hand on heart promise by the Conservative Prime Minister, millions of Canadians from coast to coast put their faith in him. They thought they could trust that individual and put their hard-earned moneys into income trusts.

Who are these people? Many of them are grandmothers and grandfathers. They are individuals who have limited resources and require a standard and ongoing reliable source of income in order to provide for themselves in their elderly years. People with limited funds and had very little to spend put their money into income trusts based on the promise of our current Prime Minister.

When the Prime Minister taxed income trusts, he ripped off and destroyed $25 billion of Canadians' assets, ordinary Canadians, many of whom are poor, or have limited resources or are retired. He robbed $25 billion of their hard-earned moneys, moneys in capital that they can never ever hope to recover.

Imagine, if these individuals were our grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers or mothers who had their moneys robbed at one of the most sensitive times of their lives. That is what has happened.

It has also caused companies to be open for takeover. As a result of the government's gross and irresponsible mismanagement, we have seen, through this income trust blunder, 15 takeover attempts in the last five months and another 15 strategic takeovers in critical sectors. That is a direct result of what has happened.

We have also seen a number of other takeovers as a result of income trusts plunging in value, others coming in from outside of the country and taking these assets from Canadians. In other words, what the government has done by lying to the public is it has allowed others from outside the country to rob Canadians of their assets. That is unthinkable. Frankly, I do not know why the government does not say that it made a mistake and that it will change this, but I know it will not. I will get to that a little later.

On the income deductibility issue, for Canadians who are watching, it will not allow Canadian companies to be on a level playing field. Countries such as Japan and many others allow their companies to deduct interest on moneys that they borrow in order to acquire companies abroad. When our companies are deprived of doing that, we are hamstringing them and preventing them from competing with other countries globally.

By doing that we not only prevent our ability to expand, because we are a trading nation, but we also prevent our country from growing economically and as a result prevent the creation of jobs and the tax base that I thought the Conservative government would understand. But it does not.

Frankly, I do not understand why, other than to talk about how decisions are made in that caucus and how decisions are made in government today, which is vastly different from the way things were made before. In other words, we have a very small number of people in the Prime Minister's Office, including the Prime Minister, and a tiny number of people around him, who make all the decisions, who tell cabinet ministers what to say and what to do, and tell them what not to do and what not to say. That deprives cabinet ministers and backbench government members from being able to do their jobs and represent their constituents.

It prevents the bureaucracy from being able to provide the intelligent, informed, and knowledgeable opinions that they have and advice that they could give to any government regardless of stripe. The reason why this happens is that the Prime Minister is a follower of the political philosopher Leo Strauss from the U.S. who believes that a small number of people are predestined and predetermined to rule a country.

Because we have a small number of individuals doing this within the Prime Minister's Office, including the Prime Minister, and because this is made with a very small number of individuals without adequate checks and balances, that is why we are seeing the blunders that the government is committing today.

The normal checks and balances that have been there forever are now gone. Frankly, I have never seen it before, where a Prime Minister erodes the power of the media in asking questions that are required and erodes the power of the public sector to engage not only government members but also opposition members.

We as opposition members regardless of stripe are deprived and prevented from being able to access the knowledge, abilities and information from government workers in the public service. We cannot even get the briefings that we need when we need them because it is shut down by the Prime Minister's Office.

What does that do to democracy? It erodes the fundamental pillars that we have in our country. That hurts everybody. It hurts the government, the Prime Minister, opposition members, it hurts democracy and worst of all, it hurts the public, the people who rely on us to do our job for them.

A symptom of this is the ridiculous situation that took place with Shane Doan. Why do we have issues like this coming to the forefront when we should be dealing with health care, which never comes to the forefront in the House, and yet the average wait in an emergency department now is 8 to 12 hours? The 8 to 12 hours, when one is sick in emergency, is a crisis and it should be something that the House should be dealing with, with the provinces. But do we hear about it? No, we do not hear about it.

Do we hear about the poor? No. Why? It is because the government raised taxes on the poor. It lowered the basic personal exemption and it raised the lowest tax rate on the poor. How unthinkable is that at a time of surpluses? Why are we not dealing with issues like poverty reduction? Why are we not dealing with issues, pragmatic solutions to deal with the environmental crisis? Why are we not dealing with the aging workforce that we have? Why are we not talking about the demographic time bomb that is coming through our country like a tsunami, that is not even being addressed in the House? Why?

These are the solutions that members across party lines can put their competent minds to, to deal within the interests of the public service and in the interest of the public. We have great people in our country and in the House. We have wonderful ideas in the House, outside of the House, in the public service, across our country and around the world. We could be a place in the House where we could adopt those solutions and apply those solutions in the interest of the public. Why are we not doing that?

It is in part, as I said, because we have a Prime Minister and a new government that is focused on trying to win elections and not serving the public. The public service has been subsumed to private interests in the case of the government and in doing this, it has weakened everything that we wish to do, from trying to deal with proper economic solutions that it is failing at, and we have two today on income trusts and income deductibility, to social program renewal, the environment, defence and foreign policy where it is missing in action frequently. These are the issues Canadians care about.

These are the issues that Canadians pay our salaries to do for them. These are the issues the House should be consumed with and yet it is not. I hope that the public gets mad enough to demand from the government and the Prime Minister the responsible actions that they demand of a competent Canadian government and a competent Canadian institution. I hope they do it and they do it soon, and we will be there to help them.

[Red Cross and Red Crescent, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, today we honour the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the largest humanitarian network in the world, comprising 185 member national societies and over 100 million volunteers.

By coordinating partnerships between governments, NGOs and the private sector, the movement saves lives and reducing suffering in communities devastated by war, disease and disaster.

From Canada to the Congo and Iraq to Afghanistan, the movement rehabilitates the disabled, visits detainees, restores family links, provides essential health care and promotes humanitarian law. From reducing measles deaths by 75% in Africa to combating malaria, the movement has saved millions of lives.

On behalf of the Liberal Party, I salute Dr. Pierre Duplessis, the secretary general of the Canadian Red Cross, and the extraordinary volunteers, here in Canada and around the world, who help the dispossessed. They are true heroes.

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague was a Reformer, as I was at one time. I want to ask my friend a couple of simple questions.

How does he reconcile in his own heart a Prime Minister and a leader who has taken the public service and removed them from the equation of effectively having input into government public policy, a Prime Minister who has chosen to muzzle his cabinet, muzzle his MPs and muzzle the media, all of which are violations of the essence and the pillars of an effective democracy?

How does my hon. friend reconcile in his own heart, as a Reformer, as somebody who wants to reform the system to make it more democratic and accountable to the Canadian public, a system where the Canadian people have input into public policy, the current situation he finds himself in, with a Prime Minister who is a follower of Leo Strauss?

[Zimbabwe, April 24th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Robert Mugabe is engaged in massive human rights violations against his own people. Zimbabweans now have the shortest lifespan in the world, a shocking 33 years. Sadly, the Conservative government sees nothing beyond Afghanistan and as a result millions suffer due to this negligence.

If the Conservative government is not willing to reverse the cuts that it made to aid for the country, or indict President Robert Mugabe for crimes against humanity, will it at least do the right thing and expel the Zimbabwean high commissioner to Canada, and do it now?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to this bill, and since I only have three minutes, I am going to get to the point.

The government introduced a budget that is an orgy of spending, three times the rate of inflation. The government is sprinkling little goodies here and there with one purpose which obviously is to win the next election.

In a time of surplus, there are great opportunities. I am going to offer the government some ideas that I hope it will consider adopting to improve our country and our citizens' well-being dramatically.

I would propose that the government adopt my private member's bill on the Canadian low income supplement. It would give $2,000 to those Canadians who make less than $20,000 a year. That would put real money in the hands of the most underprivileged in our society.

The budget failed to deal with the real fiscal imbalance, and that is the imbalance between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots. That was utterly ignored in the budget and was a huge blunder on the government's part.

The government has to decrease the lowest income tax rate on those who are the poorest.

The government has to increase investments in research and development and technology. When we were in government, Canada went from being 19th in the world in Rx and D to third in the world in research and development.

The government should introduce further tax credits, something called tax shifting. If we used tax shifting we would be able to shift the taxes in such a way that would convince Canadians and industry to use green technologies and thereby improve our environment.

The government needs to deal with the crisis in affordable housing. The way to do that is to use public-private partnerships. No single segment in society is going to be able to deal with this challenge that is coast to coast. P3s would work. Canadians are looking to the government for leadership and the federal government has a responsibility to act. So far it has failed.

The government needs to provide strategic investments in health care. Health care is truly the number one issue in the lives of Canadians and the government has failed to deal with this. It should open up a centre for best practices under the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The government needs to exert a leadership role with other partners on a national workforce strategy for health care workers. As we are getting older, so too are caregivers. This is a massive crisis that will not be resolved overnight.

The government needs to do a better job of investing in local infrastructure. It should reduce the federal taxes on gas prices.

These and other solutions that my colleagues have would dramatically improve the welfare of Canadians. I hope the government does the right thing and listens to us.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent speech by my hon. colleague. I have a fairly simple question for him.

When the Conservative government came to power it made what I think was a massive financial blunder. It actually dropped the GST, a consumption tax, then raised the lowest tax and also lowered the basic personal exemption. Most economists would say that reducing a consumption tax is one of the most inefficient ways of stimulating the economy. A much better idea is to keep money in people's pockets.

Does my colleague not think a much more intelligent idea that the government should have adopted would have been to reduce the lowest tax rate from 15.5% to 15%, which is what we did, or lower it further and raise the basic personal exemption, rather than the blunder of decreasing the GST, which is a very costly and inefficient way of attempting to stimulate the economy?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague, who I thought gave an inspired speech, a very simple question. The Conservative government raised taxes on the poor. Does he think that the Conservative government violated one of the basic principles of a government, that is, to care for that group which is most needy in our society, and does he not think the right thing to do would be to drop the taxes on the lowest income earners in this country?

[Zimbabwe, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, why has the Government of Canada forsaken the people of Zimbabwe?

President Robert Mugabe is terrorizing his citizens through the use of torture, gang rape and murder. He is starving his people to death. He has kicked out the NGOs, which has resulted in a critical shortage of medications. The result is that a Zimbabwean woman can expect to live a paltry 32 years and a man 37 years, which are the lowest life expectancies in the world. The people are so desperate that they are wiping out their wildlife just to be able to eat.

What has Canada's government done? It has cut CIDA's funding to Zimbabwe for human rights organizations and relief organizations. This is an unconscionable act. Enough is enough.

I call on the government to increase aid from $4 million to $20 million for food and other essentials; to expel the Zimbabwean ambassador to Canada; to appoint a special Canadian envoy for the crisis; and to pressure the UN Security Council to sanction Robert Mugabe and bring him before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Act now and save Zimbabwe: that is what the government should be doing.