Mauril Bélanger

[Petitions, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of presenting a petition signed by citizens of Manor Park, which is in the riding I have the privilege of representing in this House.

The petition calls on the House of Commons to encourage the government not to fund the proposed interprovincial crossing at Kettle Island.

[First Nations Elections Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will try this again. Earlier, I asked the minister a question, but he did not answer it.

If the government had chosen to send the bill to committee before second reading, we could have used the same number of hours of debate but avoided this confrontation and this situation, which is undermining the role of Parliament. Those are the rules of the House. That would have been far more respectful of the parliamentary process.

Why did the government choose to impose time allocation instead of sending the bill to committee before second reading?

[First Nations Elections Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat what the minister just said.

He wants to send the bill to committee so that members can propose amendments. However, after second reading, members are more limited in the amendments they can propose.

The question that I would like to ask the minister deals with procedure. If what the minister just said is true, why did the government not choose to send the bill to committee before second reading?

A period of five extra hours is allotted for debate, as with the motion moved today. No vote is necessary; the bill is automatically sent to committee. The committee would therefore have all the latitude it needs, and the minister seems to want to give the committee that latitude.

In addition, we could have avoided this 44th time allocation motion, which imposes a time limit and a vote and undermines Parliament. We are going to waste another hour—a half-hour of debate and a half-hour to call in the members for the vote.

If the Conservatives were really serious, why did they not choose to send the bill to committee before second reading in order to make the committee's job easier?

[Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there is a concept that has been developing over the last two decades, and that is the honour of the Crown as it applies, in particular, to the aboriginal communities of Canada. I have been listening to some of the interventions on this debate at various readings, but I have yet to hear this mentioned. It puts on the Crown, as my colleague for Burnaby—New Westminster said, a true obligation to consult, and not to consult without the conclusions the consultations would lead to. The honour of the Crown is almost a fiduciary obligation and responsibility vis-à-vis our aboriginal peoples. I was wondering if my colleague would comment on that.

I hope that some members from the government side will speak to this later today. I might ask this question again. This is a very important matter that, unfortunately, has been neglected, but it should not be, because there is an obligation upon the Crown, and therefore the government, to act in a very particular manner vis-à-vis the aboriginal peoples of this country.

[Radio-Canada, June 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Radio-Canada officials are reversing their decision and are bringing “Radio-Canada” back to television, the Première Chaîne and its website. I congratulate them on that decision.

We would like to encourage them, through the minister responsible, to go even further by adding the same catchphrase to regional television stations, which would become, for example, “Ici Radio-Canada Acadie” or “Ici Radio-Canada Windsor”. This would help francophones across the country to identify with the new structure of Radio-Canada.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, June 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Louis-Hébert is absolutely right.

I did talk primarily about credit unions, but what I said applies to caisses populaires as well. I am not talking about Desjardins Group; I am talking about caisses populaires. I belong to one of them, a small one that will have to pay more taxes. Nobody consulted my caisse. In fact, it found out about this on the news because the government is not interested in consulting people when it knows they will not say what it wants to hear.

My caisse is in a big city, but I know that there are a lot of small towns in northern and eastern Ontario, across Quebec and throughout regions that are far from major centres where the only financial institution is a caisse. I would not be surprised if some of them have to close their doors because of this tax hike. Small Canadian communities are in danger of losing access to local financial services because the government did not talk to anyone about its decision to hypocritically—yes, hypocritically—cover up the fact that it is just trying to boost its revenues.

The government is justifying the fact that it did not have the decency to consult people by saying that it is trying to level the playing field between banks and caisses populaires. That is hogwash. I looked at the numbers. Caisses and credit unions are not even on the same playing field. Unlike banks, they do not have the ability to issue share capital. They have to accumulate capital through retained earnings. If the government taxes those earnings, caisses populaires and credit unions will no longer be able to help communities as they do now, or at least, they will be less able to do so.

Let us hope they can survive this. If they succeed, it will certainly not be because the government did anything to help the co-operative movement. It will be because communities rallied behind their co-operative financial institutions—their caisses populaires and their credit unions.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, June 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to do so.

Indeed, this is happening as well in the riding I have the honour to represent. There is a hospital in my riding, Montfort Hospital, that made headlines quite recently. A provincial Conservative government in Ontario tried to close it, but the community rose up and fought back. Those people not only saved the hospital, but also made it twice as large and improved it. However, anyone who uses this hospital will have to pay another hidden tax.

Ultimately, this is not where the real problem lies. I understand that government must have sources of income, but the problem with the Conservatives is their lack of transparency and honesty towards Canadians. They even lost one of their own this week, a member who decided to leave because of their lack of transparency.

When a government is committed to being honest, it must tell taxpayers that it needs to raise government revenues and explain how it will go about it. We understand that not too many people want to pay more taxes, but the government must be honest and admit to what it is doing with its budget.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, June 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Markham—Unionville for sharing his time with me. I also wish to inform the member for Louis-Hébert that the two subjects I plan to discuss have to do with credit unions and crown corporations. I will begin with credit unions.

The matter of credit unions is rather troubling, in the sense that we have a very adequate system. Credit unions have been able to offer services in communities where sometimes the banks do not go because the profit margins are not sufficient for the banks in small towns throughout this country, yet they are going to be suffering a rather dramatic setback because of the implementation of Bill C-60. When I asked why the government had chosen to do this, the Minister of Finance and others suggested that it is because the credit unions are now sufficiently large enough to compete and that the banks have to be protected. Though they did not quite say this, it was almost insinuated in their responses.

I need to provide some information about the relative comparison of the banks versus credit unions. The top five banks in this country, in 2012 numbers, have dramatically different sized assets than credit unions. The Royal Bank, in 2012, had $455 billion of assets under management; TD had $429 billion; Scotiabank had $347 billion; CIBC had $327 billion; and BMO had $278 billion. The largest credit union, Vancity, had $17 billion. I keep going back to the smallest one, which is First West, also in B.C., which had $5.9 billion. The other three are Coast Capital, at $12.6 billion; Servus, in Alberta, at $12.2 billion; and, finally, Meridian, in Ontario, at $8.8 billion. These numbers have been provided to all parliamentarians. If they have not, I would be quite prepared to share them. This has come from the Credit Union Central of Canada and these are publicly available numbers.

The largest credit union, Vancity, is 16 times smaller than the fifth largest bank, BMO. To say that we have to change the rules to allow for competition is ludicrous. The corporate structure of the two institutions is totally different. Because of the co-operative structure of credit unions, they cannot issue share capital. Basically, they have to accumulate capital through retained earnings; whereas the banks can issue share capital, as they do on a fairly regular basis. Forty years ago governments accepted that to enable the credit unions to function properly and build up capital, they would be treated as small businesses, and the tax rate of small businesses would apply to them.

I found it rather ironic during question period that one of my colleagues asked the Minister of Health a question about a bill that was introduced yesterday and the need for voices of communities to be heard. The government introduced this change in taxation of credit unions without any consultation whatsoever. Last summer there were five days of hearings that were held by a specially constituted committee of the House. They were unanimously agreed to, as per a motion that I put forward. The committee heard from the government, credit unions and the banks, and nobody at any time suggested that should be done or hinted that it might be happening. So much for consultation. Only when it suits the government, it seems, will it consult.

To do what the government has done, not consulting and then proposing that it is to allow for a level playing field, is absolutely not accurate. The consequence of this is that $200 million, which is basically the increased taxation that will be applied to credit unions over the next five years, will be that much less for small businesses in these communities and community economic development. This totally goes against the grain of what the government is trying to say in its budget. It says it welcomes competition, especially in the banking and financial sectors, and by introducing this measure it has actually reduced the competition and the ability of small institutions, the largest being 16 times smaller than the smallest of the big five, to compete.

Liberals do not understand what has driven the government to do this and whether it might be the banks saying that they do not need competition whatsoever. If that is the case, Canadian consumers, especially rural Canadians, will actually be negatively affected by this measure. That is certainly why I intend to vote against this measure, and I suspect most people on this side will vote against it as well.

The second issue has to do with crown corporations and section 17 of Bill C-60. Basically, the government is granting itself the power to interfere in crown corporations. It is absolutely incredible that this government wants to do such a thing. I think this shows utter contempt for the usual governance practices.

All crown corporations have an executive and a board of directors and that is usually appointed by the government. Perhaps one or two members may already be in place before the government makes it appointments, but that is how the government delegates it authority to manage crown corporations.

I would like to read some parts of the bill currently before the House, a bill that amends the Financial Administration Act. The first excerpt concerns the amendment cited in subsection 89.8(2):

If the Governor in Council directs a crown corporation to have its negotiating mandate approved, the Treasury Board may impose any requirement on the crown corporation with respect to that negotiating mandate.

The bill then goes even further on another matter. It gives the government the right to attend the negotiations. We are talking about collective bargaining and therefore unionized workers. However, there is also subsection 89.9(1), which states:

The Governor in Council [cabinet] may, by order, direct a Crown corporation to obtain the Treasury Board’s approval before the Crown corporation fixes the terms and conditions of employment of its non-unionized employees who are not appointed by the Governor in Council.

Thus, the government decided that it wanted to give itself the authority to bypass the boards of directors that it appoints, and to directly interfere in and infiltrate crown corporations. To start out with, that is already too much. It is totally inappropriate for any crown corporation.

More than anything else, what really crosses the line in a democratic society is the fact that the government wants to give itself the right to interfere in CBC/Radio-Canada. The Canadian public should really wake up, because we are dealing here with a measure that undermines the democratic capacity of a society.

I will also read section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Section 2 sets out fundamental freedoms, which include:

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

This government wants to give itself the right to interfere in CBC/Radio-Canada, which is a public news and broadcasting corporation. I hope that this bill and this division will be challenged in court, if the bill is passed, as we expect it will be. It has a majority in both chambers.

If the bill passes, we will have taken more than just a small step down a slippery slope. We will be undermining our democracy and our freedom of the press, and allowing the government to give itself the right to interfere in a crown corporation that has the responsibility to communicate with Canadians. This is unprecedented, and I hope that this will never happen again.

[Gaston Isabelle, June 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we were saddened to learn of the death of a man of vision from the national capital region, Dr. Gaston Isabelle. He was a Liberal member from 1965 to 1988, successively representing the ridings of Gatineau, Hull and Hull-Aylmer. Dr. Isabelle passed away on Monday.

During his long career, he played a key role in the project to transform downtown Hull through the construction of federal buildings, which resulted in a better distribution of federal jobs on both sides of the Ottawa River.

He also campaigned vigorously for a monorail linking Ottawa and Gatineau. If such a monorail is ever built, it should certainly be dubbed “the Doc”. Dr. Isabelle never stopped practising medicine throughout his life. Even while serving as a member of Parliament and parliamentary secretary, “Doc” Isabelle was a fixture in the region.

He was a generous, intelligent man who loved life and was attuned to the world around him. In short, he was a fine member of Parliament who made a lasting impact on his community. Rest in peace, Dr. Isabelle.

[Petitions, June 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition signed by hundreds of Canadians, mostly from western Quebec and eastern Ontario, who are among the more than one million Canadians who actively support the creation of a federal department of peace. They call upon the government to create such a department to provide leadership toward ensuring the government's commitment to the promotion of peace worldwide.