Leon Benoit

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2, February 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting point that the member has made.

We hear a lot of things said by members of the government about the wonderful things they are doing. My question is that If they are doing such a wonderful job through all these good economic times, then why on earth has disposable income not increased? That is the point I made during my speech. The answer is they are taxing our small businesses in particular to death and they are taxing families to death. It is simply that the level of taxation is much too high.

Let us focus on reducing taxes to small businesses, which would generate more revenue, although I would hope that would be left in their pockets. That is a possibility too. It is certainly what I would like to see. Also let us focus the child care measures on the individual parents and individual families.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2, February 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I do believe the hon. member understands how refundable tax credits work and understands that we can have, through the tax system, a tax credit that would go to individuals who do not pay taxes.

Therefore, rather than ignoring low income families, the system we are talking about, which has been done before, tends to target the low and middle income families. What we are talking about is focusing on low and middle income families, which is not difficult to do. We can do that through the tax system. Even where families do not pay tax up to the amount of the credit, then that money will go to that family.

We are talking about targeting. We are talking about balance. The member is talking about these numbers, $500 per individual and that kind of thing. We are talking about targeted tax reduction. We are talking about amounts a lot larger than the member seems to understand. It can be done very comfortably while still ensuring that we do not go into a deficit position.

We should not forget that our party is the party that came to Ottawa as the Reform Party in 1993. It has since merged with the Progressive Conservative Party. When we came here in 1993, what was our main platform? It was balancing the budget. We had a plan to do it in three years. We called it the zero in three plan. We are the party that has always said that we would have no more deficits, that we will never get into a deficit position again.

In the 1993 election the Liberal Party said that a deficit was not important. However when it got into power it saw that it was quite a different situation. The Liberals were forced, because of our agenda, to balance the budget. The hon. member should have, over the last 11 years, learned a little bit more about what is really possible in this country.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2, February 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we are at second reading of the Budget Implementation Act, but it is not for this year's budget. It is for last year's budget. The speed with which the government operates sometimes is simply astounding. It really is unbelievable. We have had an election, but with the empty agenda that we have seen in the House, it is amazing that we are still only now on second reading of one of the budget implementation acts for the 2004 budget.

We will be talking about the 2005 budget, which is expected to come down in a couple of weeks from now, probably three weeks from now. However, it is important before we get into the 2005 budget that we look at what was and was not put in to the 2004 budget.

Canadians were clearly looking for tax relief in the 2004 budget. Certainly, they knew that we had huge surpluses in this country. As a result Canadians, I am sure, were expecting some kind of tax relief. They had been overtaxed. That is what a surplus is.

There was more than adequate money to deal with the important issues and services that Canadians expect government to provide. There is ample money for that and some substantial tax reductions.

Yet, what were the tax reductions? The government says that it is doing wonderful things on tax reduction. It is going to reduce the air security tax. It was just a year or two ago when it implemented the air security tax. It was clear from the beginning that it was putting this tax in place to help deal with air security issues.

Over time, the opposition found out that in fact the amount being raised in this huge air tax was way beyond what was needed for security. Therefore, our transport critic, the member from British Columbia, hammered away at the government day after day, month after month to eliminate that tax because clearly it was not needed for security measures.

The government first of all completed resisted. It said that it was going to keep the tax in place. It just refused to lower the tax as our former transport critic encouraged.

However, now in this budget, it is no longer possible for the government to deny that this tax should be removed. Instead of removing the tax, it has reduced it somewhat. It is a step in the right direction, but it is not exactly a wonderful thing the government is doing. All it is doing is reducing partially a tax it put in place, a new tax from a couple years back. It is interesting the way the Liberals spin these things.

The bill makes timid attempts at dealing with measures to assist small business. It is not the time for timid attempts in dealing with the tax involved in small business. It is time for some bold measures.

However, there is one thing we have seen that is undeniable. This government is not a government of bold measures. It is a government that is really trying to do nothing or as little as possible and stay in power. The main reason for it existing is being in power.

The current Prime Minister, as we have seen, is really timid. He is weak. He has no apparent agenda and the business of the House shows that.

We had very little in terms of business in the House in 2004. I encourage Canadians to look at the bills that have been on the agenda and to look at their content. It is very thin gruel indeed. Still we are working on second reading of implementing the 2004 budget. That tells us a lot about the government.

When it comes to really important issues like some tax reduction for business, what has it done? Just very weak and timid measures in this budget. There is so much to be done.

There are a lot of indications that the economy in the United States and Canada will start to weaken. It is exactly at that time that we expect bold measures from government to stimulate business. Regrettably, we simply have not seen that.

We were hoping there would be some serious attacks and measures taken to help families across this country. This is an agenda that our party has taken on for many years, trying to have taxes reduced, especially for low and middle income families. Our party wants some bold measures taken when it comes to making it easier for families to look after their children.

What did the government do in response to the issue of child care? During the last election campaign the government made great announcements of a national child care program. However, that is not what is being asked by Canadians. This was the fourth election that the Liberals promised this national day care program. It has not been delivered yet. In my opinion that is a good thing. We expect the government to break its promises because it does it routinely. However, in this case it is a good thing because it is not what Canadians are looking for.

Canadians do not want a big national day care program, where somehow government believes it can look after children better than parents. Canadians want some measures to be taken to make it easier for parents to look after their children, as they see fit.

If parents choose to look after their children themselves at home, then they should get the same benefit as a family where a parent chooses to put children into the day care system somewhere. That is a reasonable measure to make. Leave the decision in the hands of the individual families and parents.

This is what the Conservative Party feels is an appropriate measure. We do not feel it is appropriate to do as this government is talking about once again for the fourth time and that is to put in place some grandiose national child care program. That is not what we want. This is not what we are looking for at all. It is not what Canadians are looking for.

Sadly again there is nothing in the 2004 budget on day care. I know the finance minister finally after some cajoling has talked to our finance critic. He has been reminded that he is in a minority government, not a majority. The finance minister should listen to the opposition parties. Our critic has sent the message pretty clearly that we expect some serious tax reductions in this budget, including something for families.

Hopefully, in the 2005 budget we will see a little bit of action taken and not the big void that we saw in the 2004 budget.

When we look at the 2004 budget and we go through this implementation bill, we would expect some serious measures that were taken. At the time of the 2004 budget the government knew it was going into an election. The government knew they were going to have an election. The election occurred about four months after the budget.

Most people would expect it would be a strong budget, putting forth the best effort. That is what governments tend to do when they are going into an election campaign. If this is the government's best effort, then it is indeed a sad commentary on the weakness, the lack of direction, the unacceptable focus of the Prime Minister and the government. The focus does not seem to be there.

What are the two issues that the government lays before the Canadian people? The two issues are a national day care program and same sex marriage. In both cases these are not issues that Canadians asked the government to bring to our Parliament as the major focus. The government has lost its focus. These are simply not things that most Canadians wanted the government to bring before the country.

The government and the Prime Minister have totally lost focus. They have totally lost touch with what Canadians want. This is a sad commentary. We see it in the 2004 budget and I am afraid that the 2005 budget will not be any better. My greatest concern is that not only have we not seen the tax reduction in 2004, but that we will not see it in 2005.

If we look at the one thing that Canadians need out of this 2005 budget, it has to be some serious tax relief, especially for low and middle income families. That is what we want. That is what families have told us they want. We will see in the upcoming budget, but I doubt very much that it will be a big part of the government's agenda for the country, and that is a sad thing.

The government has been ripping off taxpayers by an extra $10 billion a year, fudging the numbers on the surplus year after year, hiding the $10 billion so it can blow it on things like the sponsorship program, the billion dollar boondoggle and the gun registry which is now at $1.5 billion or $2 billion, who even knows. That is completely unacceptable.

The surplus should be reported honestly and openly but that has not been done. We have been calling for some independent analysts to examine the books of the government and forecast what the surpluses will be so Canadians will know how much of their tax money is being spent, how much is coming in and how much the surplus is. If we see surpluses of $10 billion, why can that not go to tax relief instead of to some grandiose national day care program or some of the other wasted programs that we have seen from the government? We keep asking those questions but I am afraid we do not get the answers from across the floor.

Not only does the 2004 budget, which we are still talking about a year later, the implementation legislation, weak and show a lack of leadership, but here we are going into the 2005 budget. We have a minority government. The new Conservative Party has 99 members of Parliament in the House. The government, I think, has 133. There is not a lot of difference. We should certainly have some serious say on what is in the budget.

I am actually quite disturbed by the lack of consultation between the government and the official opposition. It is not because we have not tried. I think Liberal members owe it to Canadians to recognize that we have a minority government in place. A minority government means opposition parties should be consulted, in particular the official opposition party which is what the new Conservative Party is.

Why has that meaningful consultation not taken place? Why am I so afraid that once again in the 2005 budget we will see more of this lack of leadership and more of the government trying to hide these surpluses? It is an overtaxation of $10 billion a year. How about returning that to the Canadian taxpayers so that they can spend that hard-earned money the way they see fit? That is the approach that we take to this.

Our approach should be recognized in the budget brought down by the government but here we are, unbelievably, three weeks before the 2005 budget is about to come and what are we talking about in the House? There is very little of substance. We are still talking about the implementation bill for the 2004 budget. Where is the leadership?

We have seen the lack of leadership on so many other issues from the government. The foreign affairs agenda is astounding. Our member from Calgary has done a more important and meaningful job in China than the Prime Minister did on a foreign affairs trip. I think that demonstrates the lack of ability, the lack of will or the lack of understanding on the part of the Prime Minister as to what his job is. His job is to provide some real leadership on issues that really matter to Canadians, issues like health care. Very little has been done on that issue. An agreement was reached with the provinces but nothing meaningful has been done on how we are going to sustain the health care system.

The next issue that comes to mind is taxation, especially when we see families that are having difficulty just getting by.

A recent study, which was reported widely, showed that if families feel like they have not been making progress during these so-called good years, it is because they have not been making progress. The study showed clearly that the disposable income for families actually has not been increasing through what the government calls good times.

These are good times for the government because it is raking in more and more tax money from taxpayers, but does that mean these are good times for Canadian families? No, they are not. Taxpayers have lost ground in the time the Liberal government has been in office. Through all these good economic times, they have actually lost ground. They have not made the gains.

The government's coffers are loaded with money. It has a $10 billion surplus every year but that has not helped Canadian families. All that means is that too much money is being taken from Canadian families. Canadian families are overtaxed. I know I have been repeating myself on this issue but it seems like it will take a lot more repetition for the government to get the message. It is just not listening on this issue.

If the government says that I am wrong, it can prove me wrong. What I hope to see in the upcoming budget are some serious tax reduction measures for low and middle income families. Many Canadian families simply cannot deal with their situations not improving and, in fact, situations that are actually worsening in spite of an economy that is supposed to be so strong.

What did the study I was referring to show in that regard? It showed that the government was taxing too much. It has increased taxes too much. It talks about tax reduction and makes some tax reductions on the one hand, but on the other hand it increases taxes and the take increases every year. Every year the tax take of the government from hard-working Canadian families increases. It has to end. It has to be slowed down and reversed. We can start with a tax reduction to low and middle income families.

We are in the House today looking at the budget implementation bill for the 2004 budget. The government is a year behind with no apparent direction. The Prime Minister seems completely rudderless, with no focus. We have a government that, quite frankly, does not deserve to be in office.

I am trusting that with the very positive proposals we have put forth for Canadian families, we will be on the government side after the next election, that we will provide a lot more meaningful budgets than the Prime Minister and finance minister have provided and that we will make things better for Canadian families. It is long overdue.

[Canada Elections Act, February 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the member said at the start of his presentation that he had given me an answer on November 5. That simply is not the case and he knows it. We could read it in Hansard on page 1274. That was no answer at all. Now he has given me an answer of one plant. That is one plant in 18 months. He should be ashamed of that.

He said that only one plant had asked to be registered. That is because plants have to go through the complete process which involves the CFIA at every step before they can request registration. In fact, the CFIA is holding it up and is holding it up in an unacceptable fashion. It has become an agency out of control. We opposed the establishment of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in the 1990s. I was there. We took the right stand. It is an agency out of control and the government is responsible for its actions. It has to take control.

It is an agency which is slowing down the opening of these plants now. It is also picking on individual producers who have come to me in two or three cases for help. Now the CFIA is making life difficult for them in other situations.

The member has to take control, and I look for the minister's assurance that this will happen.

[Canada Elections Act, February 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that it is necessary for me to rise today. It results from a question I asked on November 5 on an issue which was and is extremely important to people in my constituency and right across the country. It is unfortunate because had an answer been given, of course, I would have no reason to be standing today. As is the case so often, there was absolutely no answer given to the question asked.

In the background to my question I pointed out a situation to do with Blue Mountain Packers in British Columbia. Some of my constituents have shares and are among the key players in this operation. They had complained to me, rightfully so, that they have been held up in reopening the plant by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. They made the point that the local people were very good, and I think that is the case with the CFIA, but once the decision gets to the brass in Ottawa, everything seems to be put on hold.

We desperately need these plants to open to deal with the BSE situation, especially cull cows and bulls. Instead of being helpful in getting these plants open as quickly as possible, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the brass here in Ottawa, seemed to be holding things up. I talked about that particular plant and that problem in my background to the question.

On Monday, lo and behold, something was done. Three people were sent from the CFIA to the plant. Finally, after we had been hammering on this for months and I had made that week a concerted effort to make this happen, the people were sent and the plant did open. Public pressure seemed to be necessary. However, that was not my question.

On November 5 I asked this question specifically:

--how many plants has the CFIA approved in western Canada in the 18 months since the BSE crisis hit?

I asked that question because of the painfully slow process that is going on within the CFIA. Again, the local people seem to be doing their jobs very well and they seem to be very cooperative for the most part. It is when they have to go to Ottawa for some approval that the situation is held up. It is completely unacceptable.

I asked that question and I received no answer at all. I hope the minister will answer it today.

In my constituency on the issue of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency I have had several people suggest to me that the CFIA may have been instructed by people in government, provincial or federal--I have heard both--to actually deliberately slow the process down so that some of the government backed plants, let us say, do not face new competition.

If there is a grain of truth to this, and I do not know whether there is or not, that is simply unacceptable and the government has to deal with it. It should have dealt with this an awful long time ago. In Alberta the two main plants were definitely backed by the Alberta government when they were built. I am looking desperately for explanations as to why the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is being so slow and why it seems to be deliberately slowing the process down; it seems to be, but it may not be. This would be one possible explanation.

I would like an answer from the minister to my actual question. How many plants have been approved by the CFIA in western Canada in the past 18 months? I would really appreciate an answer from the government for a change.

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious to most Canadians that the minister of immigration has to go. In fact, it seems there are only three people who think otherwise: the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration herself.

The list is long. She has had people campaigning for her on the public dime. Her assistant visited strip clubs to do business. She gave preferential treatment to campaign workers. She defended the stripper program, after saying these strippers were victims of abuse. This is an embarrassment.

When will the Prime Minister, hopefully before his next vacation, do the right thing and fire the minister of immigration?

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the immigration minister gave special treatment to campaign workers and received campaign cash from others whom she helped into the country, with ministerial permits. Her actions have hurt the reputation of our country and our immigration system.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Before he goes on his next vacation, will he do the right thing and fire the minister of immigration?

[Main Estimates, 2004-05, December 9th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I know it was the spending of $5 million on a particular trip about a year ago that really brought this issue to the attention of Canadians in the greatest way.

However, these cuts have nothing to do with that. The spending on the trip was out of the foreign affairs budget. These cuts have to do with the Governor General's budget. We did think it through. We do understand the impact. It is absolutely absurd that the President of the Treasury Board would not respect that.

[Main Estimates, 2004-05, December 9th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, the minister's comment is really quite shocking. He said that the reason he brought forth the motion to reverse the decision made by the committee was because he did not agree with it. If we are going to have everything committee's do reversed because a minister does not agree with it, why do we bother having committees? Why do we bother doing the work? That is an absurd reason, and he knows it.

The spending cut is less than 1% of the total spending on the Governor General. That is the spending in her budget, $19.3 million, and in other departments. It is a little over 2% of her budget. It is 10% of the remaining portion of her budget. Will she feel it? Yes, but that is the intent. There are a lot of salaries to be paid. There are things that have to be done. However, it is supposed to make it difficult so she will be more careful in her spending, so she will reduce her spending, so she will respect the wishes of Canadians for more responsible spending and so she will report in a much more complete fashion to the House and to Canadians.

It is meant to be felt and it will be felt, but it can be managed. There will be no need to lay off members of staff. With respect to the issue of staff, however, she has increased the number of people who work for her by a large number, and she better have a serious look as to whether there may not be a few too many people on her staff.

[Main Estimates, 2004-05, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak tonight to this motion put forward by the President of the Treasury Board that would reverse the decision of the government operations and estimates committee which was to reduce the budget of the Governor General by 2%.

I want to talk about four main issues. The first issue has to do with what the government operations and estimates committee is all about? The second issue has to do with why the committee decided to recommend to Parliament a reduction in the Governor General's budget by $416,000 out of a budget of $19.3 million? The total Governor General's spending is something like $42 million.

The third thing I want to do is look at the decision of the Liberal government and at the impact it will have on the credibility of this committee and other committees.

The fourth thing I want to look at is the government's credibility when it attempts to reverse the decision of my committee.

I want to do all that in 10 minutes because I will be splitting my time with the member for Medicine Hat.

First: What is the government operations and estimates committee all about. It was established about two years ago to provide better scrutiny of government budgets and government spending of taxpayer money. One of the main roles of Parliament is, of course, to do just that, to provide appropriate scrutiny to the spending of taxpayer dollars.

The government operations and estimates committee was set up not only to provide this better scrutiny through its committee but through other committees of the House as well. The government operations and estimates committee was to look at the process used and to give advice to other committees as to how they might in fact improve their process and provide better scrutiny. This was done because there were a lot of complaints, and somewhat justified complaints, that proper scrutiny simply was not being provided. Therefore two years ago this committee was established. I think those were legitimate complaints that proper scrutiny was not being provided, but let us look at why proper scrutiny was not being provided. There were three main reasons for this.

The first reason was that in the past these committees were chaired and controlled by government MPs. The chair was from the government side and a majority of the committee members were from the government side. What they did was to make sure that whatever happened was what the government wanted to happen. Therefore the objectivity of the committees was very limited indeed.

The second reason there simply was not appropriate scrutiny was that the estimates and the budgets for spending taxpayer money were presented in such a complex way that no one could understand them. Even the people who were involved in putting the numbers together could not understand what the numbers really meant.

It seems like the estimates were, and still are, presented in a way where rather than give information to the public about government spending, they were hiding information on government spending. That is part of the reason that I think proper scrutiny was not given.

The third reason for the committee was that it would make recommendations. They would have good discussions in committees quite often. They would make recommendations but these recommendations were routinely ignored by the government. Why would we go to all the work of doing a good job of examining spending, just to have it ignored by government?

Those were the three main reasons why I believe appropriate scrutiny was not provided by members of the House of Commons.

The establishment of the government operations and estimates committee changed that to some extent I think. It is a less partisan committee than most other committees when it comes to looking at spending.

The committee was first chaired by the member for Winnipeg South, the President of the Treasury Board. To be fair, I think he was a good chair. A lot of non-partisan work went on until it came time to put the reports together. Interestingly, he stressed that the government should respect the work done by this committee. However, that was then and this is now.

The committee at that time was controlled by Liberals members who had a majority government and it was chaired by the member for Winnipeg South.

I, a member of the Conservative Party, now chair the committee and seven out of twelve members of the committee are from opposition parties. We see quite a different situation.

Now, the same MP who stressed how important it was for the government to respect the work done by the government operations committee, has put a motion before this House to completely ignore the recommendations of the government operations committee. What a change from then until now.

That is extremely unfortunate and it is very two faced on the part of the member to have these two different positions on how Parliament and how the government should respect the committee's work, depending upon whether he is the chair of the committee or President of the Treasury Board.

The second thing I want to discuss has to do with why the committee decided to trim $416,000 from the Governor General's budget, which is 2% of the Governor General's budget but less than 1% of her total spending. About another $22 million is spent on the Governor General by other departments. However we are not talking about that tonight.

The committee did that with a great deal of thought. It was not done on a whim, as the minister has said.

First, the Governor General increased her spending over her term by almost 100%. The increase in spending was 11% per year on average. That is unacceptable. How many Canadians can afford to increase their spending at that rate? I would suggest that there are very few.

Second, the committee requested in a report about a year ago that the Governor General report on her spending and on her plans for spending in a much more complete way. To be fair, the Office of the Governor General has moved on that and is doing a better job now, but there is still a long way to go.

The committee expected more and this spending cut was partly to send a message that she will provide a better accounting of spending, better budgeting or a better explanation of the effectiveness of the spending or she simply would not get the money. I think that message was sent loud and clear.

This was a responsible decision made by the committee with a great deal of thought by committee members and supported by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board. She voted in favour of this cut, the same cut that the President of the Treasury Board is now saying that we should reverse and ignore the committee.

The committee's decision was a responsible decision and the committee knew what it was doing. I am proud of the committee for making that decision.

Where do we go from here? All the members of this House will be voting on this attempt on the part of the government to reverse the decision of the government operations committee. I encourage all members, especially from the government side and especially those two government members who are members of the committee and voted in support of these cuts, to uphold the power given to the committee. We can all do something to help improve this democratic deficit that the government always talks about and does so little to improve by rejecting the motion of the President of the Treasury Board and supporting the decision made by the government operations committee.

That is what I am proposing tonight and that is what I encourage members to do tonight. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate on this issue.