Pat Martin

[Technology Partnerships Canada, February 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if these are supposed to be investments rather than loans, then I presume we now have an equity position in all these companies. Maybe we have shares in all these companies as the Government of Canada.

The whole loans and grants system in the country is out of control. Nine of the last ten TPC grants went to Liberal ridings. The Liberals shovel money to their corporate buddies who dutifully shovel it back into the coffers of the Liberal Party.

What tangible benefits can the industry minister tell us these TPC loans have produced? How does he explain that only 2% of these billions of dollars of loans have ever been repaid?

[Technology Partnerships Canada, February 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at some of the largest beneficiaries in the technology partnerships Canada loans: SNC-Lavalin, $8.7 million in loans, $131,000 donated to the Liberal Party; Spar Aerospace, $4.8 million in loans, $134,000 to the Liberal Party; Bombardier, $87 million in loans, $411,000 donated to the Liberal Party. These lucky companies are contributing to the Liberal Party at a higher rate than they are paying back their loans.

How does the industry minister explain the connection between TPC loans and these huge contributions? What active steps is he taking to ensure these loans are repaid?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. He raises a very important point and I do understand these issues he raises.

Starting with the last point, I would say that withholding the guaranteed income supplement from senior citizens who are eligible for it is one of the most cynical things I have seen the government do. It has deliberately withheld money from senior citizens who are eligible for this supplement. It has chosen not to give it to them. Even after the government was aware of who they were and where they lived and aware that they were eligible and did qualify, the government chose not to give that money to them. I feel there is some hope and optimism that we will resolve that issue within the coming year, thanks partly to the advocacy that the hon. member has shown in this issue.

As far as EI goes, a $40 billion surplus that was supposed to go to income maintenance and training has gone to things like tax cuts for the wealthy. The government is taking money from the poor to give to the rich. It is a reverse Robin Hood. It is fundamentally wrong.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Calgary Southeast for the question. First, I would agree that maybe the thinking toward the corporate sector is maturing. Those of us who have often been critical of the corporate sector recognize that there are three legs to the economy. There is the corporate private sector, the public sector and the volunteer sector. We do not think the corporate sector should go away. We just think it should run by a set of rules that meets the needs of people, et cetera, as well.

The hon. member raises an excellent point about small business. That is why the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is one of the best advocates and the most outspoken group on this issue of corporate welfare bums, because small business is not a beneficiary of this kind of patronage program. There is no comparable program to assist the struggling mom and pop store in my community to grow its business, whereas the larger companies, and the member made a very good point, could get a better loan rate at the banks than the Government of Canada could, for heaven's sake, because they are such healthy established companies. When a company has all it needs, it seems to be able to get more on the basis of a phone call, but when a company is struggling and really could create jobs there is no comparable program for it.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that intervention. I will agree that I find HRDC dysfunctional to the point of being out of control. It is simply too big.

I remember when the government pulled HRDC together into this super portfolio, under Lloyd Axworthy at the time. People wondered then if that amount of activity could be managed under one portfolio. The answer, now that we have the experience, is simply no, it cannot. It should be split up. It should be divided into manageable chunks and administered in a way that actually meets the needs of Canadians so that people can get some actual service.

In terms of the many grants I was speaking about, all of them were from Industry Canada. This is a program under Industry Canada, but there are many other grant programs which I presume have comparable records in terms of the ratio of money paid back.

The former Minister of Industry was known as a real master of these grants. He knew that he could tap into this fund without any question, without any real qualifications, without any yardstick to measure progress, as I said before. There were no outcomes required, whereas I would think that when we are giving money away we would like to be able to say “I'm going to lend you $1 million for this company if you create 20 jobs in the community”. There should be some kind of predictable outcome. Two years later we could go back to see if there were or were not 20 jobs created. That is the way in which we would be able to measure progress. There are none of those checks and balances in these programs.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Here is one example that might interest the hon. member. In 1996 to 2002, Bombardier received $87 million of these particular loans and its donation to the Liberal Party in the same period of time was $411,713. Even more startling is that out of all the loans only 2% of that money has been paid back. Out of $1.7 billion in loans, less than $20 million has been paid back. These are not loans, they are gifts. There is no yardstick to measure progress by. There is no obligation for companies to create a certain number of jobs. There is no obligation for companies to expand and grow their companies. It is simply that they are given the money and then at election time they are asked for their cheques.

Pratt & Whitney Canada is not a small company. I do not really know why it needed $301 million worth of technology partnership loans. It would have done this research anyway because it is a healthy, vibrant company that wants to grow and succeed. During the same period of time it sent $131,373 to the Liberal Party. That is a big chunk of change. That is more than the Royal Bank gave. This is a whopping contribution.

SNC-Lavalin, one of the largest and best engineering firms in the world and one we are proud to have in the country, received a technology partnership loan. I do not understand why a company like that would get a loan since it is not a high tech company. However after receiving an $8.7 million loan it kicked back $129,656. That is the highest ratio so far that we have come across. This is staggering .

Everyone can understand why we are apprehensive when we see another $2 billion strategic infrastructure fund being set up under the control and direction of the Deputy Prime Minister, not some arm's length, impartial and objective board that would review these grants and send the money around the country. It will be on the basis of a phone call to the Deputy Prime Minister. No one can tell me that those choices do not get political. It is only natural. We are very critical of this program.

The real contrast that brought this to my attention yesterday was a bunch of students demonstrating on Parliament Hill about high tuition fees. In fact demonstrations were being held in every major city right across the country. The students were arguing that they were being crippled by the high cost of education and that they wanted something to be done about tuition fees. What struck me as I was doing this research was that the payback of student loans by university students was about 94%. The other 6% get hounded mercilessly by the federal government. They are pursued and dogged right around the country. Their wages are garnished. They are harassed and harangued for relatively small amounts of money. Here we have a much larger distribution of money, so-called loans, with a payback rate of 2%.

Those companies are the corporate welfare bums of this decade. We need to start using that language again because it is absolutely scandalous. I would rather advocate on behalf of those students who are doing their best to pay back their loans and put an end to this.

If there is anything about the current budget that we are critical of it is that it has failed to do anything about the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Whenever we raise this, and the NDP is always harping on it, people want to know where the money will come from. They do not want their taxes raised so that more money can be spent. The government does not need to raise taxes. It needs to stop throwing our money away. If it would stop giving our money to the corporate welfare bums we would have a little bit of money for some social spending. We would be able to invest in people for a change. What irritates the NDP is the blatant evidence of waste and mismanagement of that type.

I come from the riding of Winnipeg Centre and, as I have told the House before, it is a very low income, inner city riding. I would like to point out some new statistics that illustrate some of the shortcomings of the budget: 49% of all families in my riding and 52% of all the children in my riding live below the poverty line. Could the government tell me what there is in the budget that I can tell the people of Winnipeg Centre will improve their day to day lives in any way, shape or form? I cannot find anything. For some reason there has been a conscious choice not to bother with this pressing issue. The bottom 20% of the electorate is ignored.

Either the government has given up trying and do something about this alarming incidence of poverty because the job is too tough or, in a very cynical way, it has disregarded this part of the electorate because they do not vote.

Everybody knows that low income people at the bottom 20% of the socio-economic ladder do not come out and vote. Therefore I suppose they do not deserve the attention of a government that is more preoccupied with power than meeting the basic needs of a great number of Canadians.

When I look at the budget and the implementation bill, Bill C-49, I do not see anything in it that I can bring back to my riding and tell people that things will be a little bit better next year. I guess the $500 million for Africa is kind of nice, but that will not elevate the standard of living conditions for the people in the riding of Winnipeg Centre.

We thought we were going to make some breakthroughs. The aboriginal people in my community listened to the Speech from the Throne and to all the flowery language. This was to be the decade when we would finally address some of the historic grievances the aboriginal people have had about their treatment in our society. There is nothing about that in the budget either. All those things went down to the bottom of the list of priorities. We can find very little solace or comfort in the budget or in Bill C-49.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-49 on behalf of the constituents of the riding of Winnipeg Centre. I would like to add some remarks about the bill respecting an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in parliament on December 10, 2001.

This omnibus bill deals with a number of issues that have been touched on by other speakers. I would like to go over them briefly and then deal with some of the shortcomings and serious omissions that we wish would have been dealt with in the budget.

The first point of great interest to Canadians that we note in Bill C-49 is that it will establish the Canadian air transport security authority, CATSA, to deliver improved security at Canadian airports and on board flights.

The new authority is to have the full power of a crown corporation. I note with interest that it will be run by 11 government appointees, a rather odd arbitrary number, one would think at first glance. It is probably how many old Liberal hacks needed patronage jobs on any given day so they conveniently rounded it out to the odd number of 11.

Our point of view is that the authority would abide by business standards rather than safety standards. CATSA may well turn around and hand off the duty or the responsibility for delivering the security to the airport authorities.

We really do not know. We are being asked to buy a pig in a poke when we hand over the authority to this newly established organization. We really do not have any firm understanding or any real picture of how it will ultimately wind up.

Who will be delivering the service? Will they be public servants? Will they be private sector employees? Will they be better trained? Is there any real obligation? Will any rules be put in place under this new authority to assure Canadians of an improved airport security system?

That is an unknown commodity and we are very critical of that. The government has been unable to paint a picture of what we will be buying, and we are buying.

The hon. member for Calgary Southeast very capably pointed out that we would be paying $24 per round trip on every flight, whether it is from Winnipeg to Toronto, Vancouver Island to Vancouver or any little hop, skip and a jump. That $24 could in fact represent 30%, 40% or 50% of the airfare.

The Minister of Finance is like Rumpelstiltskin in this regard. He is turning straw into gold. He took a negative situation, the need for improved security, and turned it into a revenue generator. By its own admission the government will only spend $2 of that $12 per leg fee on the actual implementation of improved airport security. The other $10 is another cash cow.

The government seems to find very clever ways to generate revenue that no one ever would have dreamed of. We have to give it full points for that. It turned the EI system into a cash cow. It turned the public service pension plan into a cash cow. Now, of all things, it has turned airport security into a revenue generator. We are very critical of this issue.

We are not really sure what will be the status of the working people who currently do the checks at airports. We do not know if they will be federal employees. Currently most of them are represented by the United Steelworkers of America.

It becomes a jurisdictional issue too. If they are to become public federal employees, will they then be represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada or will they maintain their relationship with their former union? What about the terms and conditions of their workplace? Will the collective agreements be modified or interfered with in any way?

These are unknown commodities on which we have not had much direction from the government or any indication of how these issues will be resolved.

The NDP caucus has serious reservations and concerns about this new CATSA. We do not feel that the Canadian public feels any safer as a result of the implementation of this aspect of the budget.

We note with interest that in the U.S. the extra service fee or charge is $2.50 per flight compared to $12 per leg here or $24 for a round trip. How does the government justify that? Where will it spend this extra $2.2 billion?

We have written a blank cheque. It is estimated that throughout the year the fee would generate $2.2 billion. We have no idea how that money will be spent or any guarantee at all that the money will be spent to try to improve the safety issues at airports. We do not know what the federal government has in mind for it. It will just go into general revenue.

The federal government was also very shrewd in making a further revenue grab now because it caught Canadians at a very sensitive and vulnerable time. Immediately after this terrible tragedy is when it polled Canadians. At that time about 80% of them supported the idea.

When asked if they would be willing to pay a bit more on every plane ticket to ensure they were safe or safer, about 80% of Canadians gave approval, I suppose, to implement some sort of a surcharge. However I criticize the government for taking advantage of people's vulnerability after such a terrible tragedy.

If we asked the same question today I think we would get dramatically different results now that Canadians have had time to deal and cope with the tragedy of September 11. Those are our observations on this aspect of the implementation bill.

I would like to touch now on another thing Bill C-49 intends to do. It intends to implement the amendments to the EI act relating to maternity and parental benefits in certain situations.

The NDP aggressively argued for that part of the EI program to be amended. The federal government did listen but it missed the opportunity to implement a comprehensive review of EI to make the program work again. It is again tinkering and fiddling with the edges of EI, throwing a little bone to those who are advocating on behalf of working people. However the great EI robbery continues in that every month that goes by there is a surplus of $700 million in the EI program. Working people and their employers are paying in $700 million a month more than is being paid out. That is absolutely unacceptable. We have raised it time and time again. The government again has chosen to bypass the issue in this particular budget.

We argue and have maintained all along that the EI system has ceased to be an unemployment insurance system because hardly any unemployed people actually qualify for any benefits. If less than 40% of unemployed people are eligible for any benefits, how is it a universal unemployment insurance program?

We have also made the point that a program is mandatory if one has to pay into it even though one has a less than 40% chance of collecting. In our mind and point of view, to deduct something from a person's paycheque for a specific reason and then to use that money for something completely different is an absolute breach of trust.

When money is deducted from the employees' paycheques for the purpose of receiving benefits and some income maintenance in case they become unemployed, they have the reasonable expectation that the money will be there if they need it. They do not want to find out after they become unemployed that they are not eligible for benefits. For the life of me I cannot understand how the government has gotten away with this year after year.

The EI fund has become the government's number one revenue generator. If we look at the $100 billion surplus over five years that the Minister of Finance points to and often brags about, $8 billion per year is coming from the EI fund, for a cumulative total so far of $40 billion in surplus contributions in the EI program. That money was supposed to go for income maintenance for unemployed workers.

The impact in my riding of Winnipeg Centre alone is $20.8 million per year. Just the changes made to EI in 1996 caused a loss of income maintenance and benefits in my riding alone of $20.8 million. Imagine trying to attract a new business to a community that had a payroll of $20.8 million per year and what a difference that would make to an inner city riding like mine. The inverse is also true. When $20.8 million is sucked out of the local economy in my riding the impact absolutely is devastating.

While we support the implementation of the amendments to the EI Act regarding maternity leave and parental benefits, in all good conscience we have to point out that the EI system is still an absolutely dysfunctional, broken instrument and should be dealt with promptly so that it provides the benefits people actually need.

Regarding the income tax amendments announced in the 2001 budget, we support the small business taxation deferral. We think it is a sensible thing.

The second item we cannot understand is allowing apprentice vehicle mechanics to deduct a portion of their cost of new tools. Why were only vehicle mechanics mentioned? I am a journeyman carpenter by trade. An apprentice tries to buy one new tool with each paycheque because one has to slowly acquire a garage full of tools to be able to practise the craft. Why did the government not involve all skilled tradespeople? It is an insult to those of us who have gone through the trades and are not offered this special benefit.

There have been private members' bills in the House--I think it has been raised 10 times over the last decade--calling for a tax deduction for all tradespeople. Why the government stopped short and only gave it to auto mechanics is an absolute mystery to me. While we wish the vehicle mechanics well, and I am sure they will enjoy this small benefit, we really regret that it did not include other working people.

The last thing I would mention regarding Bill C-49, the budget implementation act, 2001, is the $2 billion strategic infrastructure fund. I know all members will want a chance to have a go at this. People have already nicknamed it the strategic Liberal fund because no one is convinced there will be any more fairness in the distribution of these moneys than there has been in any evidence of other corporate welfare that we have seen handed out to Liberal ridings around the country. We are as critical of this as we are critical of, for instance, the technology partnership loans from Industry Canada.

I would like to give an example of why we disapprove of the structure of the infrastructure fund. I think anybody who reads the documents I have here will agree that the other structures were no good either. What I am reading from is a list of the cumulative technology partnership loans from 1996 to 2002 . The other column is donations to the Liberal Party from 1996 to 2002.

The first thing I want to point out is that every one of the following companies are stable, healthy companies that do not really need any kind of loan to keep operating. We are giving corporate welfare to companies like IBM, Bombardier, Spar Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney and Raytheon Canada. These are the companies that are lining up at the trough and getting these handouts.

[Philippines, January 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I know that I speak for all members of parliament when I say that we value the warm and cordial relationship we enjoy with the Philippines as a nation and that we are proud to host the president of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo, in our country this week.

I can also say without any fear of contradiction that we value the substantial contributions made by Filipino people who have chosen to make Canada their home. I need only point to the hon. Minister of Veterans Affairs by way of an example, or my friend and colleague the president of the Philippine Association of Manitoba, Mr. Lito Taruc, who joins us here today.

In recognition of the special relationship between our two countries I urge the Canadian government to give Filipino immigrants the respect they deserve in ways such as recognizing their professional credentials, especially those of domestic workers in the live-in caregiver program.

I further urge the government to ensure that Canadian companies doing business in the Philippines conduct themselves as good corporate citizens and that mining companies like Placer Dome are held accountable for the environmental degradation resulting from its activities on the Boac river.

To my friends in the Filipino community I say mabuhay .

[The Budget, January 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Etobicoke North cited increases in spending in the budget. In the interest of being fair and reasonable we acknowledge there were modest increases in spending. However I would ask him to review with me where some of the excess money came from which could be put toward other programs.

I would point out to the hon. member that the EI fund is showing a surplus of $750 million per month. That is not per year but per month. For every month that goes by employers and employees pay $750 million more into the fund than gets paid out in benefits. As a result my inner city riding of Winnipeg Centre has a shortfall of $20.8 million per year more than it had under the old EI program.

Would the hon. member acknowledge that another source for the money the government had to spend was the fact that the public service pension plan had a surplus of $30 billion until the end of the last parliament? Marcel Masse, and I can use his name now because he is no longer with us, scooped the entire $30 billion surplus.

These are just two sources of the money the government now feels free to introduce into modestly increased spending.

Would the hon. member acknowledge there is something wrong with an EI fund that takes in more than it pays out? Would he not agree it is seriously flawed and should have been dealt with in the budget?

[The Budget, January 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it seems that the hon. member is genuinely concerned about reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions. He seems to be wrestling with ways that this country might meet its obligations under the Kyoto accord.

I am curious as to exactly when this conversion on the road to Damascus took place. The last time I heard the hon. member speak about the Kyoto accord and greenhouse gas emissions he was in complete denial. He was acting as a corporate shill for the oil companies by denying there was any problem whatsoever with greenhouse gas emissions. He in fact exhibited a virtual flat earth sort of an attitude when he said, “what greenhouse problem?”

When exactly did the hon. member come over to the side of those who believe we do have to meet our Kyoto commitments?