Nathan Cullen

[The Economy, March 4th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, one of the things the Conservatives are fond of asking the opposition when we propose various ideas for government is: has it been costed out? Has the concept been put forward and run through the numbers?

In view of the concern of the government for job creation, has it costed out what the HST will cost taxpayers, what it will cost the economy, and how many jobs will be impacted by that tax increase? By any measure, there is no economist in the country who can look at an increase in taxation on consumers and say it is not a tax increase, except for the wonderkids over in the government.

The question for my hon. colleague is, has the government costed out the impacts and effects of raising taxes on Canadian consumers at this most fragile of times in our economy?

[The Economy, March 4th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague. He is somewhat new to this place so he might not remember the number of budgets that his colleagues helped pass, those same Conservative budgets that he just criticized, which spilled billions of dollars into unfortunate areas.

I sense the conviction in my hon. colleague, although he is not listening, when he tries to represent those who are hardest hit by the recession. He made a somewhat unfortunate argument about a national housing strategy. His party was in power for 13 years. It was his party's 1995 budget that everyone will remember, the crippling rebalancing and reshaping of Canada's social fabrics. Those social programs were created in the early seventies by a minority Parliament with the assistance of New Democrats. They were then dismantled in the social transfer payments to the provinces.

While I commend my colleague for his obvious passion for those less fortunate and those struggling to make ends meet, it is a little rich for Canadians to hear this from Liberal members who for so long have supported the Conservative government's agenda, its budgets and essentially its beliefs on how the country ought to be run.

If the words were matched by action, perhaps we on this side of the House could be more sympathetic, but unfortunately they are not.

[The Economy, March 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the government's plan for economic recovery in Canada involves Walmart.

The government committed $1 billion to the pine beetle crisis in British Columbia and yet has spent less than $200 million of that. That is a three-year-old promise for a crisis that the government, along with the opposition, identified.

Of the 6,000-plus words in the Speech from the Throne yesterday, 26 words were dedicated to forestry but no money commitments were made to the pine beetle crisis. Will that be rectified this afternoon? Will the member urge the finance minister to come forward and meet this crisis head on, finally?

[Provincial Choice Tax Framework Act, December 8th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, what my hon. colleague seems to want to ignore is that he and his party, along with the government, are making the decision along with the provinces. The $6 billion bribe fund is set up explicitly for this. Both provinces, Ontario and British Columbia, have said that without the $6 billion coming from Parliament, with the support of the member, his party and the government, this would not be happening at all. We would not be having this conversation.

In terms of first nations' right to consult, that sits in the Constitution and is constantly ignored. It was ignored by his government when it was in office. It is being ignored again, because this is an effect of Parliament having a direct impact on first nations in Canada, period. The Constitution explicitly states that we then must consult and accommodate first nations. Every court decision that has come down has said so.

Does Bill C-62 have an effect on the lives and the quality of life of first nations in Canada? Yes. Does the federal government have a duty to consult? Yes. Is it consulting? Absolutely not, and that is what is wrong. This will very likely end up in a court, and he should know that if he has been paying any attention to first nations history, law and practice in the last 85 years.

The fact of the matter is that he is helping enable the HST to come in. If he thought it was such a great idea, then certainly he would have campaigned on it in the last election, but not having been in Mississauga, I am going to take a guess. I am going to guess that he did not mention this. It was not in his flyers. It was not a promise. They have no mandate to do this, and this is why the people of Mississauga and all across Ontario and British Columbia are upset with him, his party, and the Conservative Party as well. They feel that these politicians have no mandate to do this.

The mandate is $6 billion. That could be used for other things. He wants to talk about first nations. He should intimately know then that the housing on first nations reserves across this country is in desperate need of help. It is stuck at 1982 funding levels. Surely the $6 billion would be better applied to something like affordable housing in this country.

[Provincial Choice Tax Framework Act, December 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in their suggestions today, the hon. colleagues from the Liberals and the Conservatives have wondered why the federal government has anything to do with this.

However, I will quote from the BC Care Providers Association. It helps 10,000 seniors a day. It has written a letter to all parties saying this:

“It is our strong belief that the Government of Canada should also play a more direct role in mitigating the negative impacts of the HST on seniors' care in B.C. and Ontario.”

The fact that the government is ramming this bill through prevents groups like this from coming to this place and being able to tell us how this tax should be implemented.

“The very fact that the feds are washing their hands of this makes groups like seniors in Ontario and British Columbia furious because they have no opportunity to be heard, no opportunity to have this mitigated at all. People who can least afford it, seniors in care, are going to be hit by this tax.”

The member seems to have some misunderstanding as to why the NDP members have a problem with this whole process being used, and with ramming it through. Neither his party nor the Conservatives nor the Bloc members have considered things like this.

Seniors in British Columbia and Ontario are saying they are going to be hit by this. This group, which provides service to 10,000 seniors a day, wants to be heard.

Will it be heard by this member? Will we be able to change this legislation? Of course we will not, because the government is ramming it through. That is the problem with this whole process. The substance of the process stinks as well.

I wonder if the member could address the BC Care Providers Association and the 10,000 seniors it is serving today.

[Provincial Choice Tax Framework Act, December 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is fond of quotations, so I will quote a couple back to him. The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, from his own party, said:

First, I want to make it clear that this was a change initiated by the Province of Ontario and was not a decision made by the federal government in any way.

Yet in 2006, the finance minister, his boss, said:

The Government invites all provinces that have not yet done so to engage in discussions on the harmonization of their provincial retail sales taxes....

Later, in 2008, the same finance minister said:

....we're also calling on the remaining provinces that have not harmonized their PST with the GST to work with us to accomplish that goal....

He and his party cannot have it both ways. When they are back home, they say it was not their idea, but a provincial one. However, when they are out speaking to the business community and talking to the provinces, they are not only inviting them, as the finance minister did time and time again, to get into discussions with the feds, but are also putting up $6 billion to make it happen.

The provincial governments have said this would not happen without the $6 billion allotted by the federal government. In fact, as my colleague from Windsor said, they are borrowing money from future Canadians to bribe provinces to raise the provincial tax rates and raise taxes on Canadians.

On one side, he is putting two forms of paperwork and filing versus hosing consumers on the other side. How is it possible for them to somehow see this as a grand economic vision for the—

[Petitions, December 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by many dozens of my constituents, primarily in the Prince Rupert, Terrace and Port Simpson area on the north coast.

The petitioners call upon the government to rescind the HST. The petition is quite relevant, as last night in this House we saw the government use every draconian measure available to it to ram the HST through Parliament.

The petitioners say that at a time when families are having a hard time making ends meet it is unfair for the government to impose an extra tax on those consumers, and that the government should find a way to receive revenues from other sources.

These petitioners are in an area of the country that is just starting to show the first faint hopes of coming out of its own recession of many years. The petitioners call upon the government to find a way around the imposition of an HST on them at this point.

They refer to the Prime Minister by name, which I will not do, but they have named the tax in his honour. They feel that this is an unfair and unjust tax at this time.

[Disposition of an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 7th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, first nations have not been consulted on this matter whatsoever, which is a constitutional mandate of this place. It has been designed under a federal legislature, and we have received petitions from the AFN and other first nations groups saying that once again Canada is ignoring its duty to first nations people. Here it goes again; the government pretends to care about first nations when it is going to hit them with another new tax.

[Disposition of an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 7th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, a lot of what we are talking about on this issue is around the idea of enabling legislation. I have come to view the Liberal Party as an enabling party: Liberals spend their time here enabling the Conservative government to run its agenda. The Leader of the Opposition has to consider moving out of the free accommodation he gets, because he no longer functions in any form under any definition of opposition whatsoever. It is left up to the New Democrats to oppose bad ideas.

The member used an important word when he said that theoretically the savings will be passed down from businesses. Families who are struggling to get by as it is cannot rely on a business theory that did not work when the GST was implemented, did not work with Reagan trickle-down economics and will not work with the HST. This stuff does not work. We have proven it time and time again. He can live in that fictional reality, that theoretical reality, if he would like, but the fact of the matter is that poor Canadians are going to be on the hook, middle-class Canadians will be on the hook and the rich cats will get away again.

[Disposition of an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 7th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am no longer an authority on haircuts, so I will leave what that impact will be to other folks.

However, when it comes to families that can no longer afford to make ends meet, they are in my office. I imagine they are in many of our offices every single week, talking about how difficult it has become just to keep the lights on and to pay all the bills, particularly if they have kids. Things have got worse. Now we hear that summer camp programs will be taxed. We hear getting into little league is going to be taxed. They are asking when it will be enough. They can no longer afford to do what the folks in Ottawa think they can do. This tax comes at the worst possible time.

In northwestern British Columbia we are hard hit right now. We are struggling economically. People need a hand up. They need a little bit of help. What do they have instead? They have a government that has closed its ears, closed its mind and heart to the people who need help. Instead it is opening up to the people on Bay Street, who hardly need any handouts from the government, although it is always loath to turn them down for anything.