Leon Benoit

[The Budget, February 19th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member reiterated in her presentation what the finance minister said this morning in a CBC television interview.

He said that we are going to focus spending on things that really count to Canadians. Our values are health care, education, children and job creation. But when we look at the record, the government has cut $7 billion a year from health and education funding. That is a 40 per cent reduction. So the actions are quite different from the words.

The government's record on jobs is not good. The unemployment rate is about the same as it was when it came into office.

I would like to ask the member to tell me how the words that the finance minister presents and those that the member presents are so much different from what the record really demonstrates in these areas?

[The Budget, February 19th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this morning on CBC the finance minister said his government is focusing spending on those things which are most important to them: health care, children and jobs. Let us look at the record.

The minister has slashed $7 billion from health care, education and welfare. In fact health care has been cut 40 per cent. This is how the finance minister focuses on health care.

The minister has gouged the average family's after tax income by $3,000. Parents are working longer and harder just to make ends meet. This is how the finance minister focuses on children.

And jobs? Our unemployment rate is hovering around 10 per cent compared to Japan at 3.4 per cent and the United States at5.4 per cent. If the minister taxed less and left more in the hands of those who earn it, this would increase consumer spending and drive the economy and businesses to create jobs. Instead, through 36 tax increases this minister takes $24 billion more every year, killing jobs in our communities. This is how the finance minister focuses on jobs.

The finance minister's words and his record conflict.

[Points Of Order, February 18th, 1997]

It was going to hurt the government, that is what it was going to do.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 18th, 1997]

Has it dealt with accountability? Yes, but it has made it worse as my colleague says.

I refer to section 3.93(1) and read from the bill:

The directors, officers and employees of the Corporation in exercising their powers and performing their duties shall:

(a) act honestly and in good faith-

It talks about what the officers should do. When we read section 3.93(3), it says:

Directors, officers and employees are not liable for a breach of duty under subsection (1) or (2) if they rely in good faith on

(a) financial statements of the Corporation represented to them by an officer of the Corporation or in a written report of the auditor of the Corporation as fairly reflecting the financial condition of the Corporation; or

(b) a report of a lawyer, notary, accountant, engineer, appraiser or other person whose position or profession lends credibility to a statement made by that person.

The bill says they should act honestly. Section 3.94 goes on to state:

The Corporation shall indemnify a present or former director, officer or employee of the Corporation or a person who acts or acted at the request of the Corporation-

It indemnifies former directors or officers or employees. We have to wonder why. I would like to ask the minister why this protection has been given to former officers and directors of the board. To my way of thinking the only reason is that there is something to hide. That subsection certainly cannot be left in the legislation.

Because of time restraints I will go on to my second area of concern. Farmers do not have control over the board. They pay for the operations of the board but they have no control. Has this been changed? The answer is not necessarily. The legislation may not give farmers one bit more control over the board than they have now.

I refer to section 3.6(1) which states:

On the recommendation of the Minister, the Governor in Council may, by order, designate one or more positions on the board to be filled through election by producers in accordance with this section and the regulations.

Does this mean necessarily that even one director will be elected? The answer is no. It is unbelievable. "The minister may decide to have an elected director". That is not what he has been telling farmers.

The minister will probably change that because it certainly will not be tolerated. If that is slapped into place, the backlash from the farm community will be unimaginable. I think the minister can see that and the clause will be removed. However, that does not excuse him for this being in the legislation.

It is one of two things. Either he has intentionally deceived farmers and the public when he said that there would be elected directors, or he is showing incompetence. This is sloppily drafted legislation and that is intolerable. Either one of those two possibilities are completely unacceptable and the minister has to answer to that. Are farmers given more control? Not necessarily.

The third concern is the monopoly, the whole issue of giving farmers a choice. Farmers generally want the wheat board. But they also want to have the choice of marketing through a grain company or on their own. It is a choice that is given to anybody else in the country.

Will the bill give them that choice? Absolutely not. The monopoly power is maintained absolutely and that is unacceptable, especially when we look at how the monopoly was given to the wheat board in the first place.

In the memoirs of Mitchell Sharp, a former Liberal member of Parliament and cabinet minister under the Trudeau government and a close colleague of the Prime Minister, he spoke about when he was a high level civil servant in the finance department during the war in 1943, when under the War Measures Act the Canadian Wheat Board was given its monopoly powers. What did Mitchell Sharp say about that? Every Liberal in the House should read what Mitchell Sharp said. He said that because we were in a situation of war it was reasonable to give the wheat board a monopoly to control the supply for wheat. He acknowledges that it drove prices down. That was the purpose, to drive prices down so the government could afford to help Canada and Britain in the war effort.

What Mr. Sharp said was that he believed at the time, and he still believes, that it was absolutely wrong that this monopoly was kept in place after the war. He believes that it has cost farmers a pile of money.

In particular, he acknowledged that the five year contract that was put in place after the war cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars. That was only allowed because of the monopoly that was given to the board. The farmers have never been compensated for that.

The books are closed. Secrecy is there. The board is unaccountable. The monopoly remains. It makes no sense. It has to be changed and it has to be changed soon. Farmers are absolutely sick and tired of this issue not being dealt with and we have to deal with it.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, February 18th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a motion to refer Bill C-72 to committee before second reading. I support that move because so much of this legislation needs to be debated and discussed before the bill is allowed to be passed.

People have three main concerns regarding the Canadian Wheat Board. The first is the lack of accountability of the board. It has a security level equal to that of CSIS. The second is that farmers do not have control of the board yet it is their money entirely that funds the operations of the board.

The third issue is that the Wheat Board has a monopoly that was only given to it under the War Measures Act but which has not been removed. Farmers want a choice. They want to make it extremely clear so that no one can possibly say otherwise.

Most western farmers and certainly most Reformers support keeping the Canadian Wheat Board as a marketing agency. That is not the issue here. We support that. We support giving farmers a choice. In a democratic country, it is almost unimaginable that they have not had that choice.

I want to deal with these three issues. I know I will not have time to cover them adequately but I will give it a try. I will relate them to this legislation. By the time I finish it will be abundantly clear that scrutiny of the bill is necessary before second reading.

First, the Canadian Wheat Board has a level of secrecy the same as CSIS, almost unimaginable. Yet it is not accountable. People have to ask themselves why that level of secrecy is in place.

The auditor general, for example, does not have access to wheat board documents and to information from inside the board. Therefore, we cannot rely on an auditor general's report to deal with the operations of the board and to determine whether things are being done as they should be done. That is the level of secrecy.

For example, the only way we found out that a commissioner who quits or is fired is entitled to a severance package of somewhere around $290,000 was through a leaked document. Yet as a grain farmer, as someone who pays for the board's operation, I was not entitled to know that. We do not know the salaries of commissioners. We do not know, certainly, the benefits package of commissioners.

Farmers believe generally that the benefits package is totally beyond anything that is reasonable. As the people who are paying for these benefits, paying these salaries and paying this severance package, we have a right to know exactly the dollar amounts that are involved.

Accountability is the first issue. Has this bill changed accountability?

[Grain, February 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, farmers and Reform MPs stressed the importance of dealing with the rail car allocation problem, removing fixed freight rates and making other changes to introduce competition into the system before removing the Crow benefit and before the new transportation act was signed.

The minister refused to do this and must be held accountable. Every day grain does not move farmers pay dearly. What will the minister do to fix this mess that his government has imposed on farmers? What is he going to do to get grain moving again?

[Grain, February 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of agriculture.

Grain movement on the prairies is at a standstill, causing farmers real hardship. The government removed the Crow subsidy on grain freight, more than doubling farmers' freight costs with a promise that things would work better. Does the agriculture minister believe that things are working better, as he promised?

[Canadian Census, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking on Motion No. 277 which is sponsored by the hon. member for Beaver River. It is an important motion because it deals with an issue which was brought to my attention by many people in my constituency during the time of the last census.

The people who came to me were concerned that they were not given a choice on the long census form when they were asked about background. They were not given the chance to choose Canadian. Many of these people who contacted me, in fact all of them, were upset because Canadian is what they are and is what they consider themselves to be.

Why was Canadian not given as a choice? It has been talked about by some of the hon. members who have spoken on this issue before me. One of the reasons of course is that if that choice is given it is too difficult, you do not get accurate information for employment equity legislation. That is certainly one of the key reasons.

Employment equity legislation insists that in government agencies and agencies regulated by the federal government people be hired based on quotas. Many provinces of course have employment equity legislation as well.

Many of the people who support the idea of employment equity argue that we are not talking about quotas at all. All we are talking about is giving everybody a fair chance and a fair shot at things. Clearly some groups, in particular some visible minorities or gender or someone with a certain sexual orientation have not been given a fair chance. We only want to make that fair but we are not talking about quotas.

A young fellow, the son of a person I have come to know through Reform, came home when I was with his parents. I asked this young fellow what he was working on. He said he worked with computers. This was a job during the summer. I knew he was in university and would be going back. I asked him what kind of work he did. He said he was doing a project for the Ontario government with regard to employment equity. I said that is interesting and asked what the program is for.

He said it is to determine how many people should be hired by chartered banks. Actually the work he was doing was going to be sold to chartered banks so that the banks know how many people to hire from each group. I said: "Do you think that is right, that you would hire based on quota?" He said: "It is not about quota at all. It is just information for the banks so they can determine how many people they should hire".

After we pursued this a little the young man came to realize this is quota, and that is what we are talking about here, quota. He did acknowledge this after a bit of discussion. I found it really surprising that this young fellow had been so brainwashed by the people who were promoting this employment program he was working for never to refer to this as quota when clearly that is what is was.

What does this have to do with this motion sponsored by the hon. member for Beaver River? The connection is that the reason StatsCan is getting these numbers and is not including Canadian as one of the groups to choose is that the numbers are needed for employment equity. That is one of the reasons. It has everything to do with quotas.

When the statistics are collected and it is found out how many people there are in each of the visible minority groups, in the other categories, the different colour groups, once that information is obtained, that information is applied directly to government hiring and to hiring by agencies that are regulated by the federal government, such as banks. They will be used in the provincial employment equity programs where they are in place. That is without a doubt the most important reason these statistics are collected.

When these people came to me during the last census and after the last census that is why they were so upset. They knew the reason this information was being collected. They knew it had everything to do with employment equity, that it had everything to do with quotas. It upset these people.

Many of these people had immigrated to this country themselves from some other part of the world or their parents had emigrated from some other part of the world. They did not want to be referred to by their ethnic background. They did not want to be categorized based on ethnic background or skin colour or any other visible characteristic. They wanted to be referred to as Canadians. That is why this motion has come forth. It would give Canadians a chance again, no matter what ethnic background, what skin colour to just be Canadians.

It certainly is one reason this information is being collected. There are other possibilities. One of course is to determine how much funding should go to different multicultural groups, multicultural spending. Polls have shown and certainly people who talk to other people in large numbers would know that Canadians do not accept spending taxpayers' money on promoting certain cultures. The general principle that people believe should guide spending on culture is that the money should come from the people who are interested in preserving that culture.

Certain groups have done this extremely well. They have protected their culture. They have promoted their culture. They have put their culture to others in the neighbourhood in a way that has fascinated people. It has not caused resentment because they know it is not taxpayers' money that is doing this.

One group I can think of is the Ukrainian group. In my constituency there is a large group of people who emigrated or their parents emigrated from Ukraine. Long before multicultural grants were available they did a super job through the church and through work in the community of keeping their culture for themselves, for their children and for the interest of others in the community. Because people knew that they were doing it with their own money, there certainly was not any resentment.

Now that there are multiculturalism programs a resentment has built toward the people from visible minority groups themselves who are funded with taxpayers' money, who are promoting their culture with the use of taxpayers' money. That is what causes the resentment.

There are some other possible reasons for wanting these numbers. I wonder. Leading up to the last election the Liberal Party chose women candidates, it just chose them. The Liberals did not allow the proper nomination process to take place because there were not enough women to become members of Parliament who were going to be running for the Liberals.

I am wondering if part of the intent of getting these numbers is that the Liberals are now going to appoint candidates for the next election based on the numbers obtained in the census. I say that kind of tongue in cheek but I am not so sure it would not happen. Let us all hope it would not. Let us let the best person for the job get the job.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again to speak to this grouping of amendments. Before I talk about the amendments in detail, I would like to comment on some things which happened earlier in this debate.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the finance minister chastised both the Bloc members and the Reform members for not speaking directly to the amendments that were in the grouping. He went on to indicate that it was unfortunate the debate had not focused on those particular amendments.

I would say that no amount of amendment to this legislation would make it suitable. This legislation is being referred to as the harmonization of the GST, but harmonization is really not a good description of the legislation.

In the latest issue of "Let's Talk Taxes", put out by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the author of the article described harmonization in this way: "Harmonize is such a nice word. Aside from its soothing musical connotations, it implies a sense of unity, togetherness and co-operation. When applied to the GST, however, it means coercion, confusion, cost and cover-up". The author of this report went on to explain what he meant with regard to those issues.

Clearly this bill does not harmonize. What we have are three provinces in Atlantic Canada that have signed on to this legislation. We have other province that have said that they will not sign on. They will not do it. They think it is wrong.

Of course the price that taxpayers pay for this, and this issue is an issue that should be talked about by taxpayers and taxpayer advocates, is about $1 billion. Taxpayers from the other provinces, other than those three that are taking part, will pay $1 billion to put this so-called harmonized tax in place in Atlantic Canada.

It is a lot of money. It is a lot of money to cover for a broken election promise. We know of course that many Liberal members were elected on that promise to get rid of the GST, to abolish the GST. How many? Who knows, 10, 20, 30 members elected because of that promise? It is hard to know but it was a lot.

The Prime Minister before the election campaign, during the campaign and since the election has said "We are going to get rid of the GST. We are going to abolish. We are going to kill the GST". It has not happened and this legislation is an attempt to cover up. It is an attempt that is costing taxpayers from the other provinces $1 billion. That is an awful expensive cover-up.

I really take exception to the parliamentary secretary to the finance minister's chastising Reformers and Bloc members for talking about the broader issue, the fact that this harmonization is not harmonization at all and that it is going to cost taxpayers almost $1 billion.

The member for Mississauga South has taken on in an admirable way many causes, especially on family issues. I commend him for that. However, I was absolutely saddened from what I heard from him today. This member stood up in the House and said to Canadians, through their televisions, that the Liberals never promised to get rid of the GST when the television tapes that have been shown across the country, especially since the town hall meeting, have show the Prime Minister promising on at least three occasions to get rid of the GST. I do not understand how the member can say that.

Then he went on to say, as unbelievable as this sounds, that what they did say is they would replace the GST. Then he said: "When we looked at replacing the GST, what we found is", and this is the member for Mississauga South speaking earlier in debate today, "the best replacement for the GST is the GST". By his own admission the member for Mississauga South admits they have not even replaced the GST with this new so-called harmonized GST.

Canadians are not going to be fooled by what is going on here. It is a cover-up and it is an unacceptable cover-up. I find it so sad that the member for Mississauga South would get involved in this kind of activity.

Just as I speak about this it leads me to reflect on the great need we have in this country for a recall of members of Parliament. It makes it so clear that we have to have tools to put in the hands of the voters and the taxpayers to keep their members of Parliament accountable. Those tools have to be given to the people so that politicians who run for office and who do not deliver on their promises can be held accountable.

If the people in Mississauga South could see and could hear what their member said regarding this harmonization legislation, absolutely outright denying that they ever said they would get rid of the GST, saying they promised to replace it but when they really looked at things they found the best replacement for the GST was in fact the GST, I suggest there could well have been a recall petition started against that member.

To explain for those who may not understand when I talk about recall, I am talking about putting in the hands of the people the ability to fire their member of Parliament, not only at election time when some of the main issues are being deflected from, but also between elections. Recall comes into play between elections.

When a basic promise which played such a great role in getting many of those members across the floor elected is broken, that is the time recall should be implemented. That is why the Reform member for Beaver River sponsored a recall bill. Had it passed, it would have put into the hands of the people a tool which would allow them to fire their member of Parliament between elections when they felt that their MP was not honouring a commitment made at election time.

The member for Beaver River sponsored legislation which came before the House. Had it passed, it would have been law. Why do we not have the right of recall, the right given to the people to fire their members of Parliament between elections? Why do we not have that legislation in place? The answer is that it was shot down. It was voted against by members of the Liberal Party and by members of the Bloc Quebecois. They refused to put this important tool which would hold members of Parliament accountable into the hands of the people.

I would suggest that those 10, 20, 30, 40 members of Parliament from the governing party who campaigned on getting rid of the GST will be held accountable at the next election. Many of them will not be re-elected. That is accountability. The voters will exercise their right in this case. It is unfortunate the voters do not have recall, the tool that would allow them to do it now rather than waiting for the next election.

[Excise Tax Act, February 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this group of amendments to Bill C-70, the so-called harmonization bill.

Those who have been listening to the debate over the last couple of days will know that this bill will not lead to harmonization at all. It will mean that three provinces will live under a completely different set of rules than the rest of the country. Part of the reason for that is that the other provinces do not think it is the right thing to do and will not give the federal government their approval. We have anything but harmonization. What we have is more disunity and more divisiveness in the country as a result of this legislation.

Any amount of amendment to the bill will not fix it. The fact is that the bill will not make things better. It will not harmonize the tax across the country, it will lead to a split. It will not fulfil the

Liberal promise to get rid of the GST. Those who have been listening to the debate over the last few days will know that.

Leading up to the last election campaign, during the election campaign and since the election, many Liberal MPs and the Prime Minister have very clearly promised to abolish, kill, scrap the GST. There is no doubt about that.

This harmonization bill is not a well thought out piece of legislation. It is a smoke screen so the Liberals can say on the campaign trail that they kept their promise to scrap the GST, but it will not sell. Those 10, 20, 30 or 40 Liberal MPs who were elected on the promise of getting rid of the GST are in danger of losing their seats on that one issue alone. No amount of amendment and certainly not the amendments in this group will solve the problem.

I want to speak to these amendments and to the so-called harmonization of the GST from another point of view. As the Reform Party critic for interprovincial trade, I want to deal with that issue and explain how this legislation clearly violates the government's agreement on internal trade. That agreement does not allow legislation such as this to apply to one part of the country and not another. This bill clearly violates the agreement. I will speak to the bill from that point of view.

Some people may not be surprised that this piece of legislation or one piece of legislation would clearly contradict legislation that was presented earlier by this government, but that does not mean it is right.

I suppose I should not be surprised that the government would break its own law, a law it has put in place, the agreement on internal trade, through the introduction of another piece of legislation. That is what it has done. I should not be surprised but I do not accept it. Many other Canadians do not accept it. Canadians expect government to honour the laws it puts in place just as they expect everyone to honour the laws that are put in place. This legislation clearly violates the government's own law.

The agreement on internal trade is falling apart. The agreement was put in place after the negotiations between the provinces and the federal government throughout 1994. After it was signed in 1995, I thought the government had made some progress on this issue. It had reached an agreement in some areas on removing barriers to interprovincial trade. In other areas it set a framework and a timeframe for removing further barriers to internal trade and the provinces had agreed in principle to removing the barriers to internal trade. I thought progress had been made.

Unfortunately very little progress has been proven over time. The set deadlines have been broken one after another to the point that British Columbia is saying that it will not even take part in the negotiations on the so-called MUSH sector, the sector that deals with procurement for municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals. British Columbia announced earlier this week that it will not even take part in negotiations to try to finish this agreement.

Deadlines have passed. The agreement never had a mechanism to ensure that the provinces and the federal government would abide by the rules of the agreement. With the formula for approving changes to the agreement, being unanimous consent, it was clear from the start that it would be very difficult to complete the agreement. And that has proven to be the case.

There are several reasons this is such an important issue, why it is so important to Canadians that these barriers to interprovincial trade be removed. First, according to the Fraser Institute, it costs the average Canadian family $3,500 a year just having these barriers to trade in place. We have a situation in Canada where it is actually more difficult for a company based in one province to do business the other provinces than it is for a company in the United States to do business with all Canadian provinces.

The barriers have created an incentive for Canadian companies to relocate into the United States so they can have open access to all Canadian provinces. This drives jobs out of the country. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce stated in a report before Christmas that just reducing internal trade barriers or increasing internal trade by 10 per cent will create 200,000 jobs in this country. That is a lot of jobs.

For a government that was elected on the promise to get rid of the GST and partly on the promise to create jobs, you would think it would be enticing to make relatively simple changes compared to some of the other changes that would have to be made to create jobs. Just increasing trade between provinces by 10 per cent would create 200,000 jobs, but the government does not seem committed to this idea.

Now with British Columbia saying that it will not even negotiate, we are left to ask whether this 1995 agreement, which I said at the time was real progress, is really going to accomplish a thing.

We have a problem that needs to be dealt with with urgency. This harmonization bill and these amendments we are debating in this House are not going to solve a problem. They are not good for business in Atlantic Canada. They are not good for the people of Atlantic Canada, as jobs will be lost because of this deal. Many businesses involved have stated this clearly.

There is a further aspect to this agreement on internal trade and the importance of the trade between provinces that has not been talked about very much. We have put the Canadian economy at risk, a risk we have put in place unnecessarily by coming to depend more and more on international trade before we have done the work

to encourage trade between provinces and to make it easier for businesses to trade between provinces. There is an increased risk.

If we have a substantial increase in our dollar we are going to have a dramatic reduction in trade and this government and this country have come to depend on trade for jobs. Any new jobs that have been created have been pretty much due to international trade. We have an increase in the dollar, our trade surplus has decreased, which happened in the third quarter of last year. Our economy goes in the tank, unemployment increases. That is why it is so important to deal with this issue.

I will certainly continue on this topic relating it to the debate in future groups of amendments.