Mike Wallace

[Committees of the House, September 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the member who asked me the question to ensure that MPs understand and that they are telling their constituents the definitional difference between a census and a survey.

Under the law, a census contains penalties. All we are doing is removing the penalties. The form, the questions and the length will be the same. In fact, as I stated before, we are sending it to more people because, in my view, it is not a burden, like the hon. member's NDP colleague said, but a civic duty of Canadians to fill it out.

[Committees of the House, September 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I completely disagree with my hon. colleague's comments.

After listening to the experts who came to see us, the concept that 95%, which means that 5% of the people did not fill out the mandatory survey, but that 95% of the people filled it out because of the threat of jail time or the threat of a fine is an erroneous argument. I think that 95% of the people of Canada who filled out the long form, filled it out because they thought it was the right thing to do for Canada. They knew it would assist us, social agencies and other agencies come up with good policies and programs.

I have confidence in Canadians that when they get the long form voluntary survey, they will also fill that out. We will get good quality information back and we will continue to provide the services those individuals need.

[Committees of the House, September 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague who just spoke. We are both on the industry committee. We sat through committee meetings this summer and it was a very interesting study that we did on the census.

I do not really have a speech. I have a few comments I would like to make and I am happy to answer any questions.

A reporter asked me why we were cancelling the long form census. In fact, we are not cancelling the long form census. If we look at the definition under the Statistics Act of what a census is, it must have penalties and there must be a requirement to do so. We can require people to do things but if there are no penalties at the end of it, in my view, it is voluntary. I think most people would understand that.

I think there is a bill coming that will get rid of all the jail term aspects of all census materials in this country, including the short form, which will still have a monetary penalty attached to it, but there is a penalty. That is what makes a census.

We are having a national survey which has the exact same questions. People have said that we are changing the questions. That is not accurate. It is the same set of questions that we would be asking in the long form census that had penalties attached to it. I will give one example.

Near the end of the census, it asks how many rooms are in one's house, how long one has been in the house and whether one is a renter or an owner. Under the present system, if an individual decides not to answer that question because he or she does not think it is the government's business, he or she faces either jail time, which we all know has never happened, or a fine, but the threat is there.

I want to give a concrete example of a question asked of a constituent, which I think is inappropriate for the Government of Canada. In the previous census, it asked for one's nationality. One of the options was native Canadian. This individual's parents, grandparents and four of his great-grandparents were born in Canada. He believes that he is a native Canadian. We know that this was talking about aboriginals and first nations, but he marked that off.

My constituent's wife received a call from someone at Statistics Canada who asked, “Can we have your husband's Indian number?” She said, “No, he is not an Indian”. The person said, “He filled out the census that he is a native Canadian”. She said, “Yes, he is, in his mind, a native Canadian”. The person said, “Well, he must be an Indian then”. She said, “I have been married to him for almost 40 years. I think I would know if he was an Indian or not. Call back and talk to him directly”.

Someone from Statistics Canada did call him back and they had the discussion about whether he was a native Canadian or not. The person from Statistics Canada said to this individual, “Sir, do you know that that carries either a fine or jail time for misrepresenting yourself on this census?” They agreed to change it and the information was changed. He was not going to go to court over it but he was making a point.

I think it was absolutely inappropriate that a government agency would call a constituent, a Canadian, because it did not like his information on the census and was threatening him with what the penalties might be.

All we are doing is removing the penalties, which will Canadians the option to either fill it out or not.

The NDP mover of this motion said in his speech that we are burdening more Canadians. If it is a burden, why is he supporting it in the first place? He called the census a burden in his speech. What we are saying is that it is not a burden. We are saying that it is a responsibility.

I agree with the member who spoke before me. I believe that Canadians will have the civic duty and the understanding that it is important information for policy-making at the government level. I think they are not so concerned that Wal-Mart buys the information in order to decide where to put a Wal-Mart so it is close to those who can afford to go there. I am not that concerned about the private sector.

However, I am concerned that we have good information. Let us look at the numbers. I am on the finance committee and I like numbers. We sent out about 2.5 million before and we had a 95% return rate. That is about 2.3 million back. Now we are sending out 4.5 million surveys and, based on the information we got this summer from all the experts, they think the return rate may be 70% at the low end. It may be higher but at the low end it was 70%.

Let us take the 70%. That return rate will be almost 800,000 more surveys that we did not have before. It is a huge increase. The argument is that those who have less education, those whose first language is not English and the poor will not fill it the survey. Are people saying that people only filled it out under the mandatory system of the census because of the threat of penalty? I do not think so. They filled it out because they knew it was right thing to do. In fact, the more information we have about those who are in need, the more ability we have to have policies and programs to help those people.

I am convinced that Canadians will fill out the survey at more than the 70% mark and that it will represent all income and education levels. It will not just be, as the NDP like to present it, the rich filling it out. Frankly, I think those who have more assets are less likely to fill it out because they do not want us to know what they have.

The difference between the survey and the census is the penalty piece, and that is it.

We had experts from the National Statistics Council tell us that they would talk about the volume and the quality. They said that if they send a survey in English to an all French community, whether they send 100 or 1,000, they will get lousy results. Of course they will. How can somebody from National Statistics Council talk about a built in bias in their survey? If a bias is built into the questioning in any survey or census, that bias will be there. That was a ridiculous answer. Let us be honest. We will get more back.

On the quality side, I believe we will get the quality back, although there was a concern about quality. In the second meeting we had this summer, I think most of the experts said that we would likely to get a decent return in terms of numbers and maybe even more than we got before, but it was the quality that they had an issue with. I disagreed with them and I still disagree with them.

I think it is important for us to be advertising and promoting that Canadians should fill this information out, whether they like it or not.

However, under the census system, there was a penalty per question. It was not a penalty for the whole census but if people decided they did not want to fill out one piece of the survey, there was a penalty on that. If there was another piece of the census they did not want to fill out, there was the potential for additional penalty. We should not be penalizing Canadians for giving us this information. We should be encouraging them to do so, without penalty.

At the end of the day, there has been much misinformation about this. I will be frank. I do not think we did a great job in terms of promoting what we were actually doing from the beginning. However, if people are listening now, they will hear the actual facts. It is clear that this is the same survey as the census, the difference being that there are no potential penalties. As far as I understand, every party in the House agrees that there should never be any threat of jail time with any of the remaining mandatory census forms.

We do still have a mandatory short form that will tell us where people live and what they do. It will give us a demographic look at where this country is. It is useful information. That is mandatory. It has eight questions. It asks people which language is their first language, and other questions. It is just not right for us to require people to do it. It should be voluntary. I appreciate the government moving in that direction.

[The Economy, September 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, our Conservative government is focused on the economy, on jobs and implementing Canada's action plan. The plan is working, creating jobs and promoting growth.

The Liberal Party, however, is out of touch. It talks down Canada's economy and the economic action plan at every opportunity. For Liberals, the only solution is higher and higher taxes.

Could the Minister of Finance please tell us what is wrong with the Liberal plan?

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to give the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek the opportunity to clarify his earlier comments. He was responding to questions on his position. He stated that if we suspected that there were terrorists on ships in international waters, Canada would have the obligation and the right to go into those waters and turn those boats around. It was unclear whether it was his position or that of the NDP. I am giving him an opportunity to clarify that.

[G8 and G20 Summits, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, while the Liberal leader says that he is embarrassed that Canada is hosting the G8 and G20 summits, others recognize the benefits of bringing the world to Canada, particularly the economic benefits. Businesses of all sizes will benefit greatly from Canada's global leadership.

Could the Minister of Transport please tell us about the upside of Canada hosting the G8 and G20?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-9 has 24 sections in it. We hear often from the opposition that this is a big bill and so on. Hundreds of pages are for the tariff relief that we are providing.

However, we are providing expenditure restraint. We are improving competition when it comes to Canada Post. We are fighting money laundering. We are improving the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's abilities. There is a variety of things we are doing.

Could the parliamentary secretary tell me why anybody would be voting against this particular bill?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the venture capital market in Canada traditionally has been small and it continues to be small. It trucked up considerably during the recession.

I want to point out that the official magazine of Canada's Venture Capital and Private Equity Association states:

The Canadian government has listened to the financing community, understood the severity of the problem and removed the major tax barriers that have prevented critically needed international investment capital from crossing our borders.

That is a quote from the association. That is in Bill C-9. That is why members should support it.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for his leadership on that committee and for his work with our colleagues across the aisle on these things.

We are doing some things on the pension side in Bill C-9 that the finance minister announced earlier in the fall. The bill would require an employer to fully fund benefits if the whole pension plan is terminated. The bill would establish a distressed pension plan workout scheme under which employers and employees and retirees could negotiate changes to plan funding. The bill would permit the Superintendent of Financial Institutions to replace an actuary if he or she is of the opinion that it is in the best interests of the members and the retirees. Finally, an administrator would be required to make additional information available to members and retirees following the termination of a pension plan.

We have heard many times, not just during this process but in the process of studying the retirement system and pension plans, that people do not have any information. The changes we are making through Bill C-9 are vital changes that would allow pensioners to have control and a say in their future retirement plans.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Burlington has received its fair share of both the stimulus funding and of the longer term funding from the building Canada fund. With respect to our vision for infrastructure, we are improving the waste water plant that serves Burlington and the surrounding area. It will take a number of years, but that is a requirement to make sure that we have a proper environment and good, quality, clean water in Lake Ontario. We had that vision and we are able to fund that.

On the stimulus side, we have a number of projects, whether it is through the recreational program or the infrastructure program. Let me list some of them. It is helping to build a fire hall. We are building a new rink. We will have a new transit centre. We are creating a new park. There are four or five solid items that we are doing that have created jobs—