Michael Chong

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Chair, in response to the question about how we can engage voters, there is an irony in that academic research has corroborated that when Canadians are asked what they think of their parliamentary institutions, about the government in Ottawa, there is a very cynical response in general. However, when they are asked about their local MP, they very often give the opposite response, that they like their local MP, that they think he is working hard for them and he is accessible and they have a lot of respect for him. When asked the broader question about Ottawa and their parliamentary institutions, it is quite the opposite answer.

MPs in the House do undertake the difficult work of engaging their voters and their constituents through town hall meetings or attending events in the riding, by telephoning constituents and so on. By and large, members in the House do undertake the work to remain engaged with their voters.

Where the problem lies is in the way Parliament operates, in the way we have allowed this institution to become sidelined since the mid-1960s. We as parliamentarians need to address some of the key issues that have allowed Parliament to go into decline. I raised earlier the issue about how question period is conducted.

I could talk as well about how the role of the Crown is rapidly disappearing. Our Parliament is made up of the Senate, the House of Commons and the Crown. The Crown is diminishing in importance in this country. We as parliamentarians and the government across the aisle need to do a better job of making sure that this is not allowed to continue, because the Crown is an integral part of our system. The change in the letters of recall and credence at the end of last year was a very sneaky under the wire act which I disagree with completely. The Queen is our head of state. The Governor General is her representative here and should remain as such.

A sort of republicanism by stealth has been orchestrated over the last number of years in this country. We need to be very careful about not going down that path. When we talk about Parliament we are including the Crown and the Queen. The problem is not with individual MPs who work very hard in their constituencies. It is how we as parliamentarians have treated Parliament, the Senate, the House and the Crown.

Another area of reform which we need to make efforts to address is that ministerial statements, big announcements for government funding should be taking place in the people's chamber, on the floor of the House of Commons. I know it is very tempting to have very formalized photo opportunities. While there may be a place for those from time to time, we also need to make sure that big announcements do happen in this chamber. This was the chamber that people like Winston Churchill addressed. The great leaders of the country in past decades addressed this chamber. Too often in recent years we have not given this chamber the respect and attention it deserves. I do not restrict that to the current government, but I certainly think we all could do a better job here, and the government is included in that.

Another area of reform that needs to be looked at is the way we as parties in the House elect our leaders. There is a bit of a conundrum in that our party leaders are elected by party members and not by the members in this House. As a result, they are not accountable back to us.

Everything this place runs on is a result of party leaders' decisions, the way party leaders decide to appoint people to committee and whatnot. I see that the Chair is asking me to wind up, so I will finish by saying that there is a power imbalance here that needs to be addressed.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Chair, it is appropriate that we are having this take note debate. I read recently in yesterday's Globe and Mail that it will be doing a two or three part series on proportional representation. It is very apt timing on our part to have a debate here in the House on this issue.

I will begin by talking about the problem that spurred us to this debate on the democratic deficit, or democratic reform. It has to do with two issues: cynicism in the voting public and what is perceived to be low voter turnout. These two issues must be put into a better perspective.

Voter turnout has not been a linear thing since 1867. We did not start 130 years ago or so with a 100% turnout in those elections and now we find ourselves today at roughly 60% turnout and that it has been a sort of straight line linear decline in voter turnout since then. That has not been the case. Voter turnout has fluctuated over the last 100 years, sometimes reaching lows of 60% to 65%, sometimes spiking up to 70% or 80% in those elections where there was a very key ballot question, such as the 1988 free trade issue.

Another reason for the way things are the way they are today is because we have a relatively good economic situation and our culture in North America, in the west, is becoming increasingly fractured. Modern life has many competing interests and the body politic is, as a result, becoming fractured. In marketing terms, we would say that the market is being segmented.

I do not deny that there is a lot of cynicism out there and that there are problems with voter turnout and that we should not make efforts to increase voter participation and civic participation.

However, that said, what I worry most about this debate is that, to use a colloquialism, we are going to throw the baby out with the bath water.

One of the solutions being talked about more recently is proportional representation. It is a system that I do not agree with and one that I would quite strongly oppose. I believe in our first past the post system. The reason I do not agree with proportional representation is that on either the full proportional representation system or the mixed one, we would weaken our system of government and would actually remove people from their democratic institutions.

With full PR we would not have constituencies, we would not have ridings, and therefore people would not know who their individual member of Parliament was and, more important I think, individual deputies or members of Parliament would not take ownership of the ridings that they do have or that they have been assigned to because they would have been assigned to them as opposed to ridings that they fought for and won.

I also think that in full PR, as in mixed PR, the party list component of proportional representation gives undue influence and greater power and authority to parties. That is to the detriment of our system as well because by allowing parties to nominate people or to control the lists of people who they would put forward in a proportional representation system we are creating a system where the voters are one step further removed from their democratic institutions.

Some people propose a mixed solution, where half the people in this House, or a quarter of the people, or a third of the people, would be elected through party lists and through proportional representation and the other portion of the House, whether that be one half of it, or a third of it, or three-quarters of it, would be elected through our current system, the first past the post system.

The problem with that is that I have a riding right now which is largely rural. It has about 100,000 people in it. I can, with difficulty, make it to all parts of my riding. It is very difficult. It is many long hours and many weekends going to different parts of the riding, but I am accessible.

If we go to a system of mixed PR where instead of having 308 members of Parliament representing the country we have 100 people on the party list and 200 as riding MPs, suddenly I may find myself in a riding with 200,000 people. In that case it would be virtually impossible for me to be accessible in the way that I am today. It would be virtually impossible for me to cover that kind of geographic territory, to try to cover that number of people and the number of towns. I simply could not possibly do that. That is why I think even mixed PR has its flaws.

The other problem with ridings that get too large is that one of the fundamental principles in our current system is communities of interest. When we get to ridings, especially rural ridings, where we have 200,000 or 300,000 people, we are talking about very different communities of interest. It would be more difficult for an MP to represent two or three very different communities of interest and try to represent them as a single voice in this chamber.

Another reason why I think PR probably would lead to possibly even lower voter turnout is that it would create voter confusion. Right now we have one of the best voting systems in the world in terms of the way we set up our polls and the way we have our ballots laid out. It is very clear. It is paper-based. We go to our polling station and walk up to our ballot box. We have ballots that are consistent across the country. It is very clear who the candidates are and what the parties are. We make our selections. It is very simple, and we walk away.

With mixed PR we would be making two selections. We would vote for a candidate and for a party. I think it could cause mass confusion. At the very least it would cause some voter confusion as to what exactly they were doing and for whom they were voting. That added confusion is also another impediment between the people and their democratic institutions.

However, more important, the reason why I adamantly oppose proportional representation is that we live in a country that is very regionalized. We have very different regions in the country. We have two official languages. We have many different groups. We have British Columbia, the west, the north, Ontario, Quebec and the east. In all general elections we have had since 1867, there have only been two occasions where the voters have sent back a majority government with over 50% of the popular vote. If we went to a full proportional representation system, that would mean we would rarely, if ever, see the kind of majority governments the country needs in order to provide strong leadership. That is why we must reject any form of proportional representation federally. The country needs strong federal governments to carry it through the various crises it will face in decades to come, whether economic or otherwise. That is the strongest reason to keep the first past the post system.

Speaking as a person who is from the Conservative Party, out of self-interest, I would argue in favour of proportional representation. It was our party, our two legacy parties during the last 10 years, that had the most to benefit from PR. For the country's interest, which I place first, we need to stick with the current system.

The problem we have with our system is, to paraphrase the words of one John Diefenbaker, that Parliament is a much misunderstood institution. As parliamentarians, we need to better understand and communicate to Canadians the workings of Parliament and what it does. Our system of government has evolved out of hundreds if not a thousand years of Westminster tradition, and it is very important that we keep that in mind and not act rashly.

I will make a few quick comments as to what I think we can do to address some of this democratic deficit.

We need to reform question period. We need to lengthen the amount of time that people have to ask questions and the amount of time that people have to answer them. I would even be amenable to requiring written submissions of questions 48 hours beforehand, as is done in the United Kingdom Parliament. In that case, we would expect real answers from the government on the real issues we are questioning.

Ministerial statements need to be made in the House. Departmental announcements need to be made in the House, not outside. Too often the functioning of government, the key announcements of the day, are happening outside the House. They need to happen in this chamber.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, April 13th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, what I will say is that this party will not be supporting any initiative by the Bloc to take down the government on a vote of confidence vis-à-vis the budget or any other motion of confidence. We will be the party that decides whether or not Canadians want an election when Canadians tell us that they want an election.

In response to my hon. colleague, I will say that my criticism of the government's bill, Bill C-43, regarding the gas tax, stands. If he wishes to examine it further he may examine the blues tonight or Hansard later on.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, April 13th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I will address the first part of the member's question which had to do with the way the gas tax will be distributed among municipalities in Ontario. The government had an opportunity to negotiate with the provinces to get them to commit to an equitable distribution of this gas tax.

As it currently stands, the government had the money. It did not have to give away the store without any strings attached. It could have sat down with the provinces and told them what strings would be attached to the money before it was given and that it wanted to see an equitable distribution of the money. To date, I have not heard anything about how the money will be distributed. I think that just to give away the store to the provinces without getting some conditions back on this is not acceptable.

Furthermore, I would say that gas utilization is not the way to go on this. I think it should be done on a per capita or population basis because gas utilization is very difficult to ascertain. With the gasoline alley in Muskoka along highway 11 and other gasoline alleys in different parts of Ontario, it would mean that those municipalities would get a disproportionate amount of the gas tax even though they do not have the infrastructure that more heavily populated areas have.

The way to distribute the gas tax should be based on a per capita basis, which is what the mayors and councillors in Wellington—Halton Hills and surrounding areas have told me.

It is the government's position, its approach to Kyoto and its plan that we are opposed to. We in the Conservative Party are in favour of a strong, clean environmental policy and strong environmental initiatives, and our critic has done a lot of work in this regard.

The problem with what we have opposed, and what we will oppose in an upcoming election, are the lack of plans as to how we are going to address the issues around emissions. We are very much in support of environmental initiatives but we oppose the government's lack of an approach and lack of a plan to Kyoto.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, April 13th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-43, the government's budget bill, which contains many flaws and recycled promises. I would like to address a number of different areas in the bill that I think are problems for Canadians and for the country.

The first area that I want to focus on is the gas tax commitment that the government delivered in its budget. To give the government some credit, it is going to deliver $600 million for the next fiscal year, which is about 1.5¢ per litre. It also announced a commitment to Ontario specifically of about $1.85 billion over the next five years. On that front, that is good news. However, there are absolutely no details on how that money would be distributed once the province receives the transfer.

Mayors and councillors from many municipalities have indicated to me that there are no details as to whether or not the money would be transferred to the upper tier of municipal government or to the lower tier of municipal government. Furthermore, there are absolutely no details as to whether or not the money would be given to more densely populated areas or be given out on a per capita basis, equitably distributed throughout the entire province. Those are serious concerns, especially for ridings like Wellington--Halton Hills.

The township of Centre Wellington with a population of over 22,000 has over 100 bridges. That township alone currently faces a bridge work backlog of close to $15 million, a huge number for a township that only has an annual operating budget of about $15 million.

In Halton Hills, which includes Acton and Georgetown, I have been told that there is a backlog in road work of $57 million, an equally big number for a community with only about 50,000 residents and an annual operating budget of only about $20 million.

Many municipalities are wondering if and when they will see this money. The budget and the bill, and its lack of details on how this gas tax would be distributed among municipalities and whether or not less densely populated areas would get their fair share leaves much to be desired.

The second area I am going to focus on is the budget's approach to child care. I think it falls short in this area. Excellent child care is important to me and to my community. It is also important to my party. I am very much in favour of working with families to obtain excellent child care, but the government's current plan for child care is seriously flawed.

First, the plan is far too vague and contains few concrete and workable details. It contains few details on how flexible the system can be and how to hold the provinces accountable. It also contains few details on exactly how many child care spaces would be created.

Second, the plan calls for the child care program to be a joint federal-provincial program. Programs based on that model have had a history of cross-jurisdictional difficulties that are hard to overcome and hard to manage.

Third, the plan would take too long to implement. For over a decade Canadians have been promised access to affordable child care: in 1993 in the red book; in 1997 in the red book; in 2000 in the red book; and in 2004. Canadians still do not have access to reasonably priced and accessible child care.

In the last election we proposed to provide families with a $2,000 year tax deduction per child under the age of 16. That is the solution to the child care issue in this country. The taxes refunded could be spent as deemed appropriate by parents. In the case of a dual income family, the money could be spent on child care either locally provided by for profit centres or not for profit centres. In other cases the money could be spent on clothes, education or other sundries.

Our proposal would avoid the difficulties of federal-provincial programs, would provide flexibility in meeting both rural and urban needs, and would allow for profit and not for profit involvement. Most important, our proposal would let parents decide what was best for their own children.

I believe our proposal is a better proposal and is more straightforward to implement. This is the best way to allow parents accessible child care. The budget does not address this problem.

The third area where the budget falls far short is on Kyoto. Conservative governments in the 1980s and early 1990s brought in environmental protection. It was a Conservative government in the 1980s that negotiated the acid rain treaty with the United States. We invested in and created organizations like the Ontario Centre for Environmental Excellence located in Elora.

We are often accused, as a party, of being anti-environmental. Nothing could be further from the truth. We believe strongly in environmental protection and share Canadians' concerns about a healthy environment for future generations.

However, the government's approach to Kyoto has been nothing short of a complete disaster. It took the government until today to deliver a plan for Kyoto even though it became the law of the land on February 16. It has announced billions in new spending on Kyoto without having a plan to implement them. This is simply risky and foolish public policy. Spending billions on a program without having a plan to implement it is simply foolish.

Our current Kyoto targets are entirely unrealistic and unattainable. In 1990 our emissions were about 28% below what they are today in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

I believe that Canada should negotiate and work with other signatories to set real targets and then develop real plans to implement those targets. We need to do far more as a country to encourage energy and resource conservation. The use of fuels such as propane, natural gas, ethanol, and other biofuels should be encouraged. There should be greater funding for the development of alternative energies such as wind power and solar power.

All these steps that I have proposed here and that we as a party have proposed would address the real environmental problem we have in this country which is suffocating summer smog.

As a resident of Wellington--Halton Hills I know about smog. We have many residents who are subjected to issues around smog in the summer. We have issues around smog days that not only apply to the GTA but apply to places like Grand Bend in as far north as the Muskokas. It has terrible health implications. The government's Kyoto plan does nothing to address the cause of that smog, which contains nitrous oxides and sulphur oxides. On that count, this budget once again falls short.

Madam Speaker, before I go on, I want to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member from Saskatchewan.

As I go on to the fourth area of concern about the budget, it is about the budget surplus. The government has consistently underestimated the budget surplus over the last number of years. We have had surpluses in the last seven budgets. This year, for the budget that was just presented, we were told that we would have a $1.9 billion surplus. It turned out into a $9.1 billion surplus.

This is unacceptable because Canadians, when they are told that we do not have surpluses, are being robbed of an opportunity to have a real debate about what should be done with our hard-earned tax dollars, whether we should spend it on tax cuts or whether we should spend it on debt reduction or whether we should use it toward new program spending.

That debate does not happen in this country, and has not happened, because the government has consistently underestimated the size of the surplus. That is unacceptable.

Our party proposed in the last election, and we do now, that Parliament needs to implement an independent budget office that reports to Parliament, so we do not get into situations where the surplus is of a magnitude five to six times larger than what was originally forecasted.

The final area where this budget fails to address the real concerns of Canadians is in its inability to address one fundamental problem we have in our economy which is a lack of productivity growth.

Incomes across the border are growing more rapidly or are higher on a per capita basis than they are in this country. As a result, we are losing our ability to pay for the wonderful social programs that Canadians coast to coast to coast have come to enjoy.

Productivity is the single most important factor in long term prosperity. That is why the government needs to address the issue by taking a look at reforming capital cost allowances and by taking a look at real personal tax relief.

This budget fails to do both. This budget proposes a personal income tax cut of $19 this year. That is completely unacceptable. Let me finish by saying that the government's budget falls far short of what the residents of Wellington—Halton Hills expect, what my party expects, and what this country expects.

[Wellington—Halton Hills, March 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I draw to the attention of the House the 2004 Georgetown Citizen of the Year, Mr. Tom Schenk. His involvement with Branch 120 of the Royal Canadian Legion has been instrumental in maintaining the memory of the sacrifice made by veterans.

As well, he has been an exceptional supporter of the Georgetown Choral Society and the Georgetown Children's Chorus that will pay tribute to Canadian veterans in the Netherlands this coming May along with the Minister of Veterans Affairs. I ask all members of the House to join me in recognizing the contributions of this remarkable Canadian.

I draw to the attention of the House also the three festivals that take place within the Township of Centre Wellington that were recently named top 50 festivals in Ontario.

The Fergus Truck Show, Reminessence Festival and the Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games all received this significant honour at the 2005 Conference of Festivals and Events Ontario.

I ask all members of the House to join with me in recognizing the contribution of these important festivals to Wellington--Halton Hills.

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, rumours are flying outside of the House in the coffee chatter circuit. Rumours are flying around Ottawa about who will be the next immigration minister. The member for Beaches—East York and the member for Parkdale—High Park both have been rumoured to be the next minister of immigration.

The immigration department is directionless, as the current minister spends all her time in damage control. Liberal caucus unity is in disarray, as members openly campaign for the job.

When will the Prime Minister put an end to this uncertainty, put some order and discipline back into his own caucus, and appoint a new minister of immigration?

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the immigration minister has proven she is not competent to hold office. She let a campaign worker jump the queue ahead of 700,000 other applicants. She accepted a $5,000 illegal donation from a member of her riding executive who also obtained eight special ministerial permits. Her office used thug tactics to dissuade MPs from further questioning any of these matters, by threatening to withhold special ministerial permits for real cases.

When will the Prime Minister do the right thing and fire the minister?

[Ken Danby, December 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this past October and November Canada's foremost realist painter, Wellington--Halton Hills resident Ken Danby, unveiled 51 new works at his exhibition at the Carrier Gallery in Toronto. This exhibition was one of the premier arts events of the year.

In addition, the National Portrait Gallery, across the street from this very House, just added Ken Danby's retirement portrait of Wayne Gretzky to its series of window banners. The Great Farewell is featured on its own large banner at 100 Wellington Street across from Parliament Hill, depicting Wayne as one of several Canadians honoured for their contributions to the country over the past 200 years.

I hope that all members in this 38th Parliament since Confederation will join me in congratulating Ken and his wife Gillian on the great success of the exhibition in Toronto, for the portrait at the National Portrait Gallery, and for their contribution to the artistic and cultural life of Canada.

[Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on Bill C-21, an act respecting not for profit corporations and other corporations without share capital.

The not for profit sector in this country is made up of approximately 18,000 not for profit organizations that collectively have over $100 billion in revenue, which is a significant part of the third pillar of our economy and something that this bill addresses but not without major flaws.

I want to speak to four aspects of this bill, some of which are good and some bad. Those four aspects concern the streamlined incorporation process, improved financial accountability, the rights and responsibilities of directors and officers, and the ability for members to appeal or seek redress for actions that a board has taken.

In terms of the streamlined incorporation process, the government has done a good job in replacing the letters patent system of incorporation by an incorporation as of right system. That will allow many not for profit corporations to more easily incorporate than in the previous process. It eliminates the current requirement for ministerial review of applications and replaces it with the standard filing specified forms and the payment of a fee. If this system were also implemented via an online form, it would also be advantageous.

However, the second element of this bill that I want to speak to is the improved financial accountability, which creates too many different classes of not for profit corporations to regulate themselves in terms of financial reporting requirements. There are five different classes: first, a low revenue soliciting corporation; second, a medium revenue soliciting corporation; third, a high revenue soliciting corporation; fourth, a low revenue non-soliciting corporation; and fifth, a high revenue non-soliciting corporation.

I think there are far too many levels of categories for these not for profit corporations to determine what their reporting requirements are and as one not for profit moves from year to year into one category and the next, it is going to create a lot of confusion as to what category they are in and what level of reporting they require.

For many larger soliciting corporations, the threshold for not reporting a review engagement, in other words, for them not to have to file with Industry Canada a review engagement, is the consent of all their members. In this particular situation, for these not for profit corporations, that have a significant number of members, this may be too onerous a threshold for them to forgo the review engagement that in some cases can cost upwards of $1,000, which may be a lot of money for a corporation that does not have a lot of revenue.

The third area which creates an onerous burden on not for profit corporations is the rights and responsibilities of directors and officers. The government has said that it wants to create a framework under this act to ensure that not for profit corporations can more easily go about their business, especially with regard to the standard of care that must be taken into consideration by the board of directors.

This is something that many not for profit corporations will find difficult to deal with because many of them do not pay their board of directors. Many not for profit corporations approach people of stature in the community to see if they are willing to lend their names, to sit on a board of directors, and to lend their expertise. Most community leaders are more than willing to lend their names and time to a not for profit corporation because they know that the standard of care is not the same that applies to corporations engaged in normal for profit business.

This bill creates a standard of care that is significantly higher than the existing standard of care that private enterprises are obligated to follow. This is going to do two things. It is going to make many people seriously reconsider whether or not they want to take on the liability of sitting on a board of directors for a not for profit. Also, it is going to lead to increased costs for the not for profits because many of the boards will now elect to take out directors liability insurance. That adds another burden on the not for profits, many of which are without a great deal of revenue.

The fourth area I want to speak to, and one which I think is onerous for the not for profits, is the provision in the bill that allows members to enforce their rights and to appeal to a court. The bill allows members to seek relief from a court if they believe their rights have been oppressed.

In this case the bill does allow religious organizations an exemption based on a tenet of faith. In other words, if the organization made a decision based on a tenet of faith, the members could not appeal to the courts to seek redress for whatever action the corporation had taken.

However, this tenet of faith is not clearly defined in the bill. My worry is that this will potentially infringe on religious freedom when appeals are made because the bill is not clear as to what exactly is a tenet of faith. For that reason also, I think this bill should be opposed.

Most important, this bill should be opposed simply because it is a travesty. It has been five years since the government engaged in the voluntary sector initiative, and this is all it has come up with. In 1999 the government announced the initiative as a result of its commitments in the Speech from the Throne.

This voluntary sector initiative at the time was announced as a five year action plan at a cost of $94.6 million. It was to examine the regulatory framework of the voluntary sector, to examine capacity building measures, relationship building measures, and to do this in strong and in-depth consultation with the voluntary sector.

One of the commitments made in this voluntary sector initiative was to clarify the guidelines on allowable expenses. It was to streamline the process and make the process more transparent for the regulation of charities under the Income Tax Act. It was to make more transparent the method by which charities receive their charitable status, and to possibly examine whether or not the rules that are currently in place and which have been in place for centuries dating back to Elizabethan law, should be broadened for charities. In other words, it was to see whether or not the rules for which charities should be recognized should be broadened to include not just those religious organizations and those organizations whose intent is to educate, but also to broaden it to advocacy work and other areas.

However, the bill is absolutely silent on that aspect. The government has fallen far short of what the voluntary sector was expecting. For that reason I oppose sending the bill to committee before second reading.