Kennedy Stewart

[Points of Order, October 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I retract any unparliamentary language, although in his statement the House leader had his own untruth so I think the game continues.

[Member for Lethbridge, October 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, since returning from the summer session, Conservative MPs have been sullying this House with fabricated policies and outright untruths.

The member for Lethbridge is the perfect example. Instead of representing his constituents in this House, he knowingly aids his Ottawa bosses in propagating these falsehoods.

Canadians have become adept at recognizing when their tax dollars are being misused. When they see a member standing in this House to repeat statements they know are untrue, Canadians see right through it.

The message is simple: the member thinks it is more important to stand and attack the NDP on behalf of his Ottawa bosses than represent his constituents. This misguided regurgitation of falsehoods by the Conservatives is nothing short of an embarrassment.

I encourage the next speaker to find the courage to stand up and speak for her riding, do what is right for her constituents, what is right for this House and what is right for them.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I really do not think Parliament was created for us to ask real questions and to get stock answers back. Bills are then forced through without any real debate before Canadians get a chance to look at the details. We should pause and try to respect the institution we are in.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I really think this is an abuse of Parliament. The measures in the budget are important for Canadians, whatever we think of them. These really need to be debated.

In their effort to rush through measures through the industry committee, the latter's members seemed to be making a major error with the SR and ED tax credit. That is not just my opinion. The changes have been dismissed by RIM, by pharmaceutical companies, by Genome Canada. They all have great concerns about these changes to the tax credit.

We should just slow down a bit, split this up into a bunch of bills and look at them separately before we make a gigantic mistake.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I did have the great pleasure of sitting down with the president of MDA to talk about RADARSAT specifically, and he was beside himself. There are really six phases to this contract. The government has agreed to the first five and cut the money for the final phase of the contract, which would put the satellites in the air over our Arctic, and it is only through satellite technology that we can do surveillance over the Arctic.

It is extremely disappointing that the Conservatives have chosen not to support the final stage of the RADARSAT satellites. I urge them to find a place in the budget to make this project go ahead.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand and speak today to Bill C-45, the second omnibus budget implementation act. As with Bill C-38 this past spring, New Democrats oppose Bill C-45 on both content and process. This bill continues on the path set by Bill C-38, which puts more power in the hands of cabinet ministers and guts environmental protections.

As the official opposition critic for science and technology, I will focus my comments on the aspects of the bill concerning my area of focus, especially those concerning the scientific research and experimental development tax credit. However, I will start with a few general comments.

As we have heard in the House today, Bill C-45 is another massive omnibus bill. Once again, the Conservatives are trying to ram legislation through Parliament without allowing Canadians and their MPs to thoroughly examine it. What is disturbing is the PBO has said that the budget will actually cost 43,000 Canadians their jobs, but we hear otherwise from the Conservatives. In fact, this budget actually plans for unemployment to rise from the cuts that are being made to government, especially the scientific and research community. New Democrats oppose budget 2012 and its implementation, unless it is amended to focus on the priorities of Canadians, which is creating good quality and strengthening our health care system.

Turning to science and technology, I have been meeting with scientists, engineers, technologists and members of industry since appointed as the science and technology critic. I have done a lot of face-to-face meetings, I have spoken with people electronically and I have had the opportunity to visit a number of public and private facilities. The scientific community, and I mean this very broadly, not just natural scientists but also social scientists, engineers and technologists, is very concerned, and so am I, about the government's approach to science and technology. I will provide a few details especially as they concern this budget.

We have seen in report after report that one of our main strengths in terms of productivity in our country concerns the world-leading research done at our universities and government institutions, like the National Research Council. Many people may not know this, but almost 3% of the peer-reviewed papers published in Canada are produced by researchers at the National Research Council. This is a good fraction of what is produced worldwide. Peer-reviewed research is produced at universities but also at the NRC.

One of our strengths is our research output, but one of our main weaknesses is that Canadian companies are not investing in R and D at the same rate as companies located elsewhere in the world. This point was hammered home in the Jenkins report that we hear quoted in the House very often. Lack of investment in research and development has led to plummeting productivity levels as compared to the U.S. Our productivity is around 70% of U.S. productivity.

The Conservatives are right to view this is as a problem, but the solution to this problem of declining productivity is mind boggling. The Conservatives are trying to fix productivity rates that are really caused by low levels of private investment by Canadian firms and are planning to attack the part of the innovation supply chain that is performing well. The scientific community working in universities and government research organizations is really punching above its weight internationally. The government is shifting funding from these well-operating parts of our economy over to business, and that is a mistake.

The Conservatives are cutting hundreds of scientists from government rolls, they are closing world-class facilities, one of which I visited just the other day, they are radically changing the funding structures for scientists, both within government and without, and they are muzzling the government scientists who remain.

I have talked to researchers both in industry and outside of industry and in universities. I sat down with a panel of physicists the other day. The physicists said that what was developing in Canada was poisoning the culture, that scientists were afraid of speaking out because they were worried about having their funding cut or, worse, getting fired. This is a really dangerous thing to do. The Conservatives are attacking a scientific culture that has taken almost a hundred years to build. For example, the National Research Council came in place in 1916. We were almost going to celebrate a centenary, but now we find this is under attack.

The National Research Council was considered the jewel of the Canadian research crown for many years. It is headed by Nobel Prize winners. It has brought us all kinds of inventions that started as just ideas and made it all the way to the factory floor and onto the shelves of consumers

The Minister of State for Science and Technology has said that he wants to take this venerable and well-respected research institution and turn it into a 1-800 concierge service for industry. Therefore, instead of winning Nobel Prizes, Nobel scientists will now hold the door open for industry and carry its bags. If I were a research scientist looking at where I would take my top level research, going to the National Research Council in its past glory would be great, I would get the funding and atmosphere that I need to work, but becoming a concierge or a bellhop is not really what I would be looking for.

Let us talk about the 124 NRC researchers who received their pink slips this year, 90 of them last week. If we think about the progress of a researcher, they get a BA after four years, a Masters in Science for two years, a Ph.D., a post-doctorate, to have to go and set up labs. We are talking about 15 to 20 years someone has invested in becoming a researcher. It is a portable skill, but it has to be located at an institution. What concerns me is people at the NRC who have come out of university and set up these labs, when they are given a pink slip, it is not like they go next door and start up another career. It is a major loss of investment. This really needs to be thought through before we go too much further down this line.

This fear of the change in culture has been expressed to me in many letters. The Minister of State for Science and Technology is familiar with this because I am copied on most of the letters he receives. They express fear and really want the government to slow down in terms of how it is hacking away at these various institutions.

I want to change now to a more specific matter, and that is the scientific research and experimental development tax credit. The government proposes to reduce the tax credit rate from 20% to 15% and this will particularly affect large businesses. It will eliminate the eligibility of capital expenses. Although it would save up to $500 million a year by making these changes, it has not made it over to any new program, or not all of it anyway. It is really just straight savings for the government and attacks businesses right where they live in the innovation field. This will hit the manufacturing sector hard and it is likely to drive firms to move their R and D activities to other countries that have better incentives.

Conservatives have done nothing to fix the complexity of the SR&ED tax credit, which I agree needs some adjustment but it is more in the administration of this tax credit rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of reducing the credit for industry, it should be looking at administrative changes instead. The government has done nothing to reduce the complexity and overhead costs of applying for and administering the SR&ED tax credit.

The member for Burlington said earlier today that he was getting positive feedback from industry, but I have had a number of different comments and he should be aware because they came at the industry committee. For example, Declan Hamill, vice-president, Legal Affairs, Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., said when asked about the SR&ED tax credit:

From our perspective there are changes to the SHRED tax credits that have some potential negative impacts on our member companies.

Probably most serious, were the comments from RIM. Morgan Elliott, director of Government Relations for Research in Motion, which makes the Blackberry, said when I asked him directly what this change in the SR&ED tax credit would mean. “It cuts our support by one-third”. Here is the jewel in the private industry crown of technology in Canada that has been struggling lately, seems to be getting back on its feet, and what does the government do? It cuts one-third of its support with these changes.

It is hardly a ringing endorsement for these changes. I submit there are problems with the bill and the government should, at the very least, split out the SR&ED tax credit changes and refer them to the industry committee for further study.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question about what is missing in the budget implementation act. On page 32 of the Conservative 2008 platform entitled “The True North Strong and Free”, under the heading “Developing a Cap and Trade System to Cut Pollution and Greenhouse Gas Emissions” it promises that a re-elected Conservative government will implement the cap and trade system between the years 2012 and 2015.

I want to ask the member how that is coming along.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech and I have read the budget and the budget implementation act. What seems to be missing is a promise from the 2008 Conservative platform. On page 23 of this platform, it says, “A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will prevent any company from exporting raw bitumen”.

Could the member tell us if we might be—

[Science and Technology, October 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, weak excuses and political spin are one thing, but hard facts are another, and facts are not like Conservatives. Facts do not lie, and that is why we rely on empirical research and invest in R and D. However, Conservatives reject facts, reject science and they are recklessly firing over 90 of Canada's top researchers.

Conservative cuts are hurting the economy. Why are they firing researchers and killing economic spin-offs?

[Petitions, October 24th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday there was a giant rally in Victoria where almost 5,000 people rallied to defend our coast. I was happy to address these thousands of people who are concerned about B.C.'s coastline.

I have a petition from my constituents regarding the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline through my riding. They are opposed to this expansion. I would like to submit this to the government for consideration today.