Pat Martin

[Income Tax Act, October 18th, 2004]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-218, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (deductibility of expense of tools provided as a requirement of employment).

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of fellow tradesmen across the country, I am introducing the bill to amend the Income Tax Act which would allow for the deduction of the cost of providing tools necessary for their work, if they are required to do so as a condition of employment at their workplace.

I point out that tradesmen who are self-employed already have the right to deduct the tools of their trade but employees anywhere who need to buy certain tools to do their work should be allowed to deduct that as a tax deduction just as a business person is allowed to enjoy that same tax deduction.

I am pleased that the hon. member for Windsor West is seconding the bill to allow the deductibility of the expense of tools when those tools are necessary as a condition of employment for any working person in Canada.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Canada Pension Plan, October 18th, 2004]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-217, an act to amend the Canada Pension Plan (early pension entitlement for police officers and firefighters).

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of police officers and firefighters across the country, the bill seeks to amend the Canada pension plan legislation so that contributions can be made in such a way that it would more accurately reflect the fact that firefighters and policemen often take early retirement at age 50 rather than 55.

Therefore, in this way, in the years between age 50 and 55, they would be able to make contributions at a higher rate during their working years and would not have to pay a penalty to achieve the early retirement age.

We submit the bill on behalf of the many firefighters and police officers who have made representation seeking this simple amendment. We point out that it is not a cost factor to the plan, that the extra time would be made up by extra contributions by the employee and the employer during their working life.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Louis Riel Act, October 18th, 2004]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-216, an act respecting Louis Riel.

Mr. Speaker, coming from the province of Manitoba, I am pleased to introduce this private member's bill regarding Louis Riel.

The bill seeks to reverse the conviction of Louis Riel for high treason and to recognize and commemorate his role in the advancement of Canadian Confederation and the rights and the interests of the Metis people and the people of western Canada, and to call him a father of Confederation.

I am pleased to introduce the bill on behalf of the many Metis people in the province of Manitoba and elsewhere in the country.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[International Interests in Mobile Equipment (aircraft equipment) Act, October 18th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak to Bill C-4 on behalf of the constituents I represent in the riding of Winnipeg Centre. Our critic, the member for Churchill, has done a lot of comprehensive work with respect to the legislation. The NDP can see benefits in Bill C-4 and is broadly in favour of the bill as it currently stands.

The aerospace industry is a critical industry for Winnipeg generally and for Winnipeg Centre specifically. People in my riding are interested in any initiative that may stimulate manufacturing in the aerospace industry and add to the stability of the critically important jobs that people there enjoy.

Members of the NDP have commented frequently on the aerospace industry in the House of Commons. I have spoken about the health and stability of that industry in a number of contexts. I am reminded of one specific issue that came to light in the twilight days of the 37th Parliament. That was the rather alarming use, or one might say misuse or abuse, of a program called technology partnership loans to keep the aerospace industry solvent and healthy in Canada. We see Bill C-4 as an effort to stimulate the aerospace industry and a positive light toward helping to develop markets for the manufactured products of our Canadian industry as opposed to technology partnership loans which we see as a scandal of equal proportion and dimension as the sponsorship scandal, if not more. Billions of dollars were involved in technology partnership loans and not millions of dollars as in the sponsorship scandal.

It is really a misnomer to call technology partnership loans, loans. A loan is not a loan when it is not paid back. It then becomes something else altogether. Of the technology partnership loans, 2% have been paid back, 98% have not been. This includes $480 million to Bombardier and millions of dollars to Pratt & Whitney and other aerospace manufacturing companies.

To get one's mind around this rate of payback, let us look at another loan program operated by the Canadian government, and that is the Canada student loan program. Of all student loads, 96% are paid back, but the government hounds the remaining 4% to their graves. No stone is left unturned to recover every penny loaned to Canadian students for their post-secondary education. The government has threatened to garnish their wages, to kick in their doors and seize their property, for heaven's sake. Yet it knowingly and willingly ignored, at last count, $3 billion of outstanding technology partnership loans, the overwhelming majority of which did not go to struggling start-up companies in need of R and D development so they could market products. They went to the aerospace industry and to IBM.

Why in God's name did the Canadian government give technology partnership loans to IBM? Is it a struggling start-up company? Is it a Canadian company? No. Did it ever pay the money back? No. I am sorry to deviate a bit from the subject of Bill C-4, but it brings to my mind one of the shortcomings in the treatment of our support for the aerospace industry. It warrants drawing that comparison.

The NDP is in favour of the idea of the Cape Town convention and protocol which we understand would reduce the risks and costs of selling aircraft internationally. We support the intention of the protocol, which is to reduce the costs of purchasing aircraft for developing countries. We are sympathetic to the plight of developing countries. We are also sympathetic to the difficulty developing countries have in getting capital or finding lending agencies willing to provide the level of capital necessary to purchase large ticket items like aircraft. They pay ridiculous premiums on the international borrowing marketplace for capital of that nature. We understand the protocol is designed in such away to accommodate.

I have been negligent, Madam Speaker, in pointing out that am splitting my time with the member for Hamilton Centre.

I know the member Hamilton Centre has been following this issue with great interest and care because of the area he represents and the jobs associated with this type of industry sector. He is eager to share his views with the House today as well.

One of things that strikes me is that there is more than one way for us to promote the aerospace industry in the country, be it in Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver or anywhere where we have aerospace industry workers and plants. One is to try to enhance the marketplace as per the Cape Town convention and Bill C-4. Another is to provide stimulus or assistance to that industry so it can retool and stay current with the market demands that have been improved. Another is education and training and ensuring that there is an adequately skilled source of workers coming up through the labour market training system. We should address that in the House of Commons in the context of the health and well-being of aerospace industry.

We have seen a complete abandonment of any commitment to labour market training by the Liberal government. It has devolved that to the provinces in a very haphazard and less than satisfactory way. It has signed nine individual labour market training agreements with nine individual provinces, with no particular national standards and with a patchwork quilt of training.

The aerospace industry is one industry sector that has received very short shrift in any of the interprovincial or intergovernmental training strategies. One of the problems with that is it leaves the industry vulnerable. If we do not have a human resources strategy associated with an industry sector, we will be vulnerable and subject to raid within the industry sector for skilled people, one company raiding skilled people from the other. It does not build any kind of cohesive plan which will give us confidence that the sector will be stable and well served.

I would like to use my remaining moments to compliment and feature one such program in the city of Winnipeg, run by Tec-Voc School, initiated by the acting deputy minister of education, Dwight Botting. It has partnered with the aerospace industry, not at the community college level, not at the post-secondary education level, at the high school level to do an integrated work and learn program to groom young employees for the aerospace program. It is an overwhelming success. We have met an industry need with a sensible approach that keeps kids in school, gives them hope and optimism that they can go into well paying jobs. It also provides the stability and confidence for the manufacturers in the riding, knowing there is a pool of adequately skilled young people coming up through the ranks. The employees training is geared specifically to the manufacturing plants. That match will be a recipe for growth in the industry.

Therefore, there is more than one type of program to help our aerospace industry remain healthy. One is to help it develop international markets by supporting the Cape Town convention and Bill C-4. Another, which is equally important, is a suitably skilled workforce.

This is one thing we can expand on with vision. If the House of Commons chose to, we could give direction to the government to expand the role of the EI program to bring it back to one of its former designated uses and that is labour market training on a national comprehensive scale. The EI fund is showing a surplus of $500 million a month, not per year, but per month.

Income maintenance has always been the primary role for the EI program, but in the designated uses of the of the EI Act, there are also labour market training, apprenticeship, et cetera. We have devolved all that to the provinces without the financial backing to keep those programs solvent.

You are indicating, Madam Speaker, that I am out of time.

[Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, October 14th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, as this is my first opportunity to rise to speak in this 38th Parliament, I would like to take a moment to recognize and pay tribute to the good people of Winnipeg Center who saw fit to send me back to this honourable place. Every day that I take my seat in the House of Commons, I am reminded of what an honour it is to be here and what an honour it is to serve the good people of my riding.

It is also the first speech that I have the honour to make with you in the Chair, Madam Speaker, looking over this House with your wisdom. Let me add my voice to the unanimous chorus of members of Parliament who are very pleased to see you there in that very fitting place. I can only say that I hope your eyesight is as good as your judgment so that you will continue to recognize those of us who are banished to the far reaches of the House of Commons, although I am one who believes there is no such thing as a bad seat in the House of Commons. It does not matter where we are sitting.

I come from a trade union background, and as a union leader of a carpenters' union I have some personal knowledge of the importance of employees to feel comfortable when bringing forward information and being led to believe that they can do the honourable thing safely. It has always been my view, and it is still my view, that good managers welcome whistleblowing.

Good managers want to know of any wrongdoing or maladministration or any efficiencies they may gain in the enterprise they have control over by this information. It is only managers who have something to hide who are reluctant to put in place a truly free and open whistleblowing regime.

The NDP is committed to good whistleblowing legislation. We are committed to working with this bill to make it that piece of legislation. We do not want to jeopardize this bill going down without some measure of success and without improving the status quo. I want to introduce my comments by making that statement because I do have some serious criticisms of the bill.

I was a member of the government operations committee, as was the current President of the Treasury Board as chair of that committee, when we heard the Radwanski affair. There has never been a more graphic illustration to demonstrate the need for whistleblowing legislation than what we went through in that committee. We would never have learned about the Radwanski scandal were it not for courageous public servants willing to come forward to tell us what they knew.

The sad thing about it, and the reason I raise it, is that those very public servants felt it was necessary to bring their own legal counsel with them in order to come before a House of Commons standing committee made up of members of Parliament, made up of their own representatives in Parliament. They could not be assured that they could speak freely without bringing their own legal counsel. That rang the alarm bell for me that something was tragically wrong with the current status quo. Obviously, public servants in this country did not believe that they could speak freely even when it was the right thing to do.

As a result the government operations committee did undertake a great deal of work leading to whistleblowing legislation. First of all there was a subcommittee struck, which I had the honour to co-chair along with my colleague from Laval--Les Îles. We co-chaired a small working group that came back with recommendations to the larger committee as to what this whistleblowing legislation might look like.

What was presented to the committee, however, in the form of Bill C-25, did not resemble the recommendations of that subcommittee working group. In fact, every leading authority on whistleblowing in the country condemned Bill C-25 which came before our committee, and said that it did not meet any of the tests of a quality piece of whistleblowing legislation. Members can excuse us if we are frustrated on this subject because everyone knew what needed to be done, everyone was clear.

The Bloc Québécois had a wonderful private member's bill in 1996 that achieved second reading. It articulated a good, clear regime which would provide that assurance to public servants. In that articulation the Auditor General would have been the office to whom complaints were made.

We heard from 14 witnesses at the committee, as the President of the Treasury Board pointed out. They all condemned Bill C-25. They said Bill C-25 was an act to protect ministers from whistleblowers, not an act to protect whistleblowers.

We need to emphasize clearly to public servants that we will protect them, that we appreciate them and that we will reward them. I am not talking about a monetary reward, but there should be some sense of reward for doing the honourable thing in coming forward with information. However, I point out that in some jurisdictions in the United States, there are cash rewards for whistleblowers. They get 10% of the money saved by the bringing forward of any wrongdoing. I am not recommending that, but I want to emphasize that if we are to create some confidence in the public service, we have to make it abundantly clear that we welcome and value the information of public servants, that we are on their side in this and that we will protect them. The legislation is about protecting public servants, not just putting in place a mechanism through which the information can be filtered.

We are critical of a couple of things in the bill, which we will have the opportunity to amend at committee stage. I compliment the President of the Treasury Board for forwarding the bill to committee prior to second reading and getting the tacit approval in principle from the House. I am optimistic that it will be easier to effect some of these changes if it hits the committee sooner rather than later.

One of the fears we have is that we are not convinced the Public Service Commissioner will be viewed as a neutral third party to whom information can be brought. I may become convinced. I know there is a possibility we can, as a consequential amendment, modify the act that created the Public Service Commission to ensure that it is more arm's length than what the public perception currently may be. We are looking into that idea.

One thing that has to be clarified, if we are to give confidence to public servants, is that currently in the act there is swift punishment contemplated for anybody who makes a frivolous or vexatious complaint or a complaint in bad faith. People can be disciplined severely, as they should be, if they do that. There is also serious discipline contemplated for any manager who is caught in wrongdoing by virtue of a complaint. However, there is no immediate satisfaction for whistleblowers who may feel they are being disciplined for having brought information forward.

Their avenue of recourse, as was pointed out by my colleague from the Conservative Party, is to file a complaint with the Canada Industrial Relations Board or the Public Service Staff Relations Board. As an old union representative, I can tell the House that this can be an 18 month agonizing journey, the result of which is frankly like rolling the dice at the other end because of the arbitrator at the Canadian Industrial Relations Board. Like any court case, we may be perfectly innocent and found guilty or we may be guilty and found innocent. We really do not know, so this is no real satisfaction. How many public servants will risk their jobs, and by virtue of losing their jobs, they lose their homes, their family stability, et cetera, if they are not absolutely guaranteed 100% that if they get persecuted as a result of coming forward with information, the government will back them up. They would not have to roll the dice at the Canada Industrial Relations Board or appear with their legal counsel to argue the case. There would be real protection for whistleblowers. Without that, I would have to advise the public servants whom I know to zip their lips.

The legislation comes on the heels of the firing of the three most prominent whistleblowers in the country. What a glaring contradiction. The government just got rid of three nuisance doctors, whom I call heroes. They should be nominated for the Order of Canada. These people protected Canadians by keeping the bovine growth hormone off the market because they believed it was hazardous. If we cannot protect the three most prominent whistleblowers in the country, what kind of message does that send to the rest of the public service? We have a lot of work to do to build confidence that they will be safe if they come forward.

Imagine the gains, the waste eliminated, the corruption we could reveal and eliminate if whistleblowers felt free to come forward. However, we are not convinced they will as a result of the bill.

[Access to Information Act, October 7th, 2004]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-201, an act to amend the Access to Information Act and to make amendments to other acts.

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to be introducing a bill today entitled an act to amend the Access to Information Act or, as it has come to be known, the Bryden bill, because the bill has been championed for the past 10 years by the former member of Parliament, John Bryden.

The bill seeks to expand the Access to Information Act so that it would include all crown corporations and virtually all the activities of government so as to expand the accountability and transparency of government so that we can shine the light of day on the activities of the government and so that scandals can no longer operate under the shadow of secrecy which I believe has plagued this Parliament since I have been a member of Parliament.

I am very pleased and honoured to introduce this important legislation today.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Health, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, here is some Liberal public health policy. First Liberals tell us it is okay to put toxic trans fats in our food as long as it is properly labelled. Now they are slashing the budget of the national anti-smoking campaign and instead the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is forking out $71 million to tobacco farmers to help promote their product in the third world.

How can this government defend the hypocrisy of cutting funding to the anti-tobacco strategy while suddenly finding $71 million for the tobacco industry to promote itself?

[Supply, May 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey for his thoughtful remarks regarding the need and the value of our publicly funded health care system.

What struck me about my hon. colleague's speech is that, like the Minister of Health, he never once used the term publicly delivered health care system. He focused on the importance of a publicly funded health care system.

If he had read the motion properly, the one we put forward today, he would have seen that we were calling into question the growth of the delivery of health care services by private for profit initiatives. That is where my colleague's comments fall short of the mark.

He made lots of lofty comments, with which I wholeheartedly agree, about the importance, the value and even the economic advantages of our publicly funded health care system in this country. It is a national treasure. However we are drawing attention to the fact that our national treasure is being eroded by the growth of the privately delivered health care system.

I would ask the member if he is aware of the following facts. Most of our evidence regarding for profit health care comes from the United States where there is a mix of publicly funded, private for profit and private not for profit. The evidence or the examination of figures that we have comes from the American model. Is he aware that the for profit hospitals in the United States bill about $8,500 for every discharged patient, while the non-profit hospitals bill about $7,300 for each discharged patient?

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things I would like to point out to my colleague from Kitchener Centre.

First, with all due respect, the alleged optionality of these institutions is completely misleading. I wish I had more time to explain to the hon. member some of the points I made earlier in my speech, but the fact is they are statutory national bodies that would affect the rights and interests of all first nations in Canada, whether or not they are added to the schedule. I will have to stop there because there is no time to elaborate on it, but I would like to emphasize that point to her.

Another point I would like to make is she mentioned that optimistically they hope to free up about $125 million over five years in venture capital or private financing for projects. Does she not find it odd that the budget for these four institutions is $25 million per year? In other words, it will cost $125 million to run these four new institutions for five years, and that is the exact figure they are optimistically hoping to free up from private sources to promote initiatives. To me that adds up to a recipe for failure. I would like her comments on that.

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Churchill has a very legitimate and valid question.

It is confusing to me also that we are now debating the enabling legislation to create these four fiscal institutions when we know that these four fiscal institutions are up and running, hiring staff, staffing offices, racking up travel budgets, and burning up money with reckless abandon as far as I can tell. What in fact are their tasks and duties if they do not even exist yet? One of the duties that they have is to travel the country promoting the bill.

All of us who were involved with the bill have had regular visits from funded lobbyists paid for by the tax commission, or the fiscal institution board or whatever. I am out of time, but I would have liked to explain other things. I am very critical that INAC money is being spent on these institutions before they even technically exist.