Pat Martin

[Workplace Safety, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, corporations and corporate executives should face criminal prosecution when they are found responsible for workplace accidents that kill or harm employees. This principle is at the heart of a unanimous motion by the House of Commons justice committee and is one that Canadians overwhelmingly endorse. The ball is in the government's court.

Canada's New Democrats, members of the United Steelworkers of America and bereaved families in communities from coast to coast are watching very closely to see that our efforts lead to success. We will not let this matter drop.

The campaign for corporate criminal responsibility in Canada is based on the Westray tragedy of May 1992 when 26 people died in Pictou, Nova Scotia. The report on the commission of enquiry into the tragedy by Justice Peter Richard released three years ago said that the attitude of senior Westray managers to their responsibility for workplace safety was “wilful blindness”. Justice Richard identified a terrible flaw in the Canada Criminal Code.

The Liberal government has had three years to consider the recommendations of Justice Richard. Working Canadians want this legislation now.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member from Pickering for a very interesting speech. It is clear that he is very knowledgeable on the subject.

I think he will agree with me on one thing. The thing that really irritates Canadians and really gets their goat and makes them angry about the rising cost of fuel prices is the seemingly arbitrary fluctuation in prices which they just cannot understand. For instance on a long weekend as he mentioned the price will spike up and down. Day to day they really do not know what the price of that important commodity is going to be.

Would the hon. member agree with the concept raised by our party that there should be a national regulatory body that would oversee the pricing of gasoline? The oil companies would come to that body and argue that they should have an increase, perhaps twice a year, like that which is done in Prince Edward Island which has actually served that province very well. Twice a year the oil companies come to a panel saying that they deserve an increase. The rates are set and locked for that fixed period of time.

Would that not be some comfort to consumers? Would he see the value in the creation of such a regulatory body?

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, September 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Trois-Rivières for an excellent speech. I can certainly be proud to associate myself with most of his comments, but there is one thing I would like to hear him speak further on.

The results from most surveys of small and medium size businesses show that 45% of them say that if it were not for the lack of venture capital they could expand their businesses and create more jobs. In other words, the banks are not providing the venture capital that Canadian businesses need to expand.

The hon. member spoke to us about the Desjardins and Caisses populaires as being one institution that may fill those needs.

Labour leaders with vision, like the great Louis Laberge in the province of Quebec, founded the solidarity fund in that province. In our province we have what we call the Crocus Fund which is a labour sponsored investment fund using union money to reinvest in the community.

Could the hon. member tell the House a bit more about men with vision like Louis Laberge who had the foresight to put in place labour sponsored investment funds that I believe fill the need so well for venture capital? Could the member explain that process in his province a little bit more?

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, September 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Community Reinvestment Act is an American idea that works very well in large American cities. Banks are obligated to reinvest a certain amount of their profits into community enterprises or small businesses or start-up businesses that otherwise might not have qualified for a loan under a more traditional setting and certainly would not have qualified for a loan in Canada.

Sometimes they are funding non-profits or giving bank loans to groups that otherwise would not qualify. In some small way at least the banks are repaying for the privilege they enjoy as a chartered bank in this country. We are disappointed there is no reference to it in Bill C-38.

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, September 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that we would react very negatively to any intrusion of that nature. The possibility of losing our economic sovereignty is only one step away from losing our sovereignty, period. I know the people of Manitoba and Canadians generally do not want to see the takeover of their institutions by foreign enterprise and foreign agencies. The 10% rule was put there specifically to stop the Chase Manhattan Bank from taking over the Toronto Dominion Bank in the 1960s. It was put there for the very specific reason of trying to shield one of our Canadian institutions from an unfriendly corporate raid by American interests.

I can honestly say to the member for Trois-Rivières that we would react very negatively if we were faced with similar circumstances as he outlined in the province of Quebec and the Banque Nationale.

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, September 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate on Bill C-38.

Not everything we do in the House is really of enormous gripping interest to every Canadian. I know that comes as a surprise, but this bill is being followed very closely by Canadians. Most Canadians have a strong opinion on the state of the Canadian banking sector and the financial institutions that Bill C-38 seeks to regulate.

In fact most Canadians feel very strongly about Canadian banks. Most Canadians think that Canadian banks are greedy and bloated institutions that are not really serving the best interests of Canadians. That is why they anxiously awaited this legislation.

They waited patiently while the MacKay task force studied this country's financial institutions in great detail for over two years. That report was finally presented to the Minister of Finance. He chose to implement many of the recommendations which have now found themselves into Bill C-38.

Things that the MacKay task force dealt with covered many of the concerns that Canadians have. Many Canadians came forward and made representations to the task force. Even through their members of parliament they have come forward to complain bitterly about the inadequacies in the Canadian banking sector. They have complained bitterly about the closing of local banks, whether they are in the inner city of Winnipeg, which I represent, where services are being arbitrarily shut down, or in rural Canada. We heard the Tory member speak passionately about how frustrating it is for the people in rural Nova Scotia who see their local branches being shut down, things they came to expect from our chartered banks.

We have to remember that the chartered banks enjoy a privileged status. This is not any old business. This is not a Home Hardware that can decide to build a new store in one place and shut down another one somewhere else. That is completely its business; it is a completely private institution. The chartered banks are privileged in the sense that we guarantee them a certain amount of business and a certain amount of profit. In return they owe us a certain amount of service. That was the deal. That was the tacit agreement between the Government of Canada and the chartered banks. That is why they are chartered. But they have broken their promise time and time again.

In an era of unprecedented record windfall profits, what do they do? They shut down the local branches so that seniors and inner city people in my riding at least do not have access. In the inner city of Winnipeg over 20 branches from all of the five chartered banks were shut down. Branches were shut down arbitrarily.

The banks increased service fees. With record profits one might think they might be able to lighten up on the service fees perhaps. They have eliminated jobs. Every time a branch closes, jobs are usually eliminated. They have installed ATMs rather than personalized service, which many seniors are frustrated by, and then they have the audacity to charge customers every time they use the ATMs. The banks are saving a fortune in salaries by putting in those machines and then they have the unmitigated gall to charge a fee every time they are used.

These are real frustrations that Canadians have brought to the attention of members of parliament. They had hoped they would have been addressed in a document like this bill.

A number of shareholders are getting very active. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you have ever been to a shareholders meeting of a major chartered bank, but I have. I crashed two of them last year. I say I crashed them. I borrowed some proxy votes and I visited them in the company of a wonderful man from Quebec, Mr. Yves Michaud, who is a champion of shareholder rights and of Canadians' rights in this regard. I think he is a Canadian hero and should get the Order of Canada for what he does. He goes to every one of those shareholder meetings of the chartered banks and he moves motions and amendments to try to democratize the corporate structure there and to force the banks to be more accountable to the needs of Canadians. It is kind of fun.

There were 1,200 people in the room all looking at their shoes. One would think it would be a democratic process where anybody could stand and move a motion or an amendment. Only nine motions were moved. All nine were moved by Mr. Michaud and seconded by me. That was it for the whole program of the day, believe it or not. In a room of 1,200 people one would think there would be more interest in how the banks are run but they were all as quiet as mice pretending nothing was wrong with their financial institutions.

One of the motions we moved was to limit the executive salary of the CEO to 20 times that of an ordinary teller. Frankly, that is still a whack of dough. The average CEO in Japan makes 13 times that of an average worker. The average CEO of a Canadian chartered bank makes 220 times that of an average worker. It is unbelievable. That motion failed. It did not succeed.

Another motion almost succeeded. We wanted gender parity on the board of directors. The result of that vote was 49.6 to 50.4, numbers we might recognize as they are exactly the same numbers as in the last Quebec referendum by some happy coincidence. That one failed just by a little.

Another motion we moved was to limit the number of boards that a director can sit on. George Cohon, the CEO of McDonald's, sits on 54 boards of directors, including the chartered banks. They meet 10 times a year. How can someone possibly attend some 550 board meetings and make intelligent rulings about how the organizations should be run? I do not think it can be done. That is why there is a paucity of ideas and accountability at the top level of the banks. Those guys just sit on the boards and they vote each other raises. I am sure of that.

We moved a motion to limit the number of boards of directors a person is allowed to sit on to no more than 10. That one did not succeed either.

It was an exciting exercise in trying to democratize the corporations. As governments lose power and lose their ability to manage the economy and the corporations take over more and more, the only way we are going to have any democratic say is if we democratize corporations. Frankly these corporations run above and beyond the dictates of truly elected parliaments like this one.

Most Canadians think that Canadian banks are not good corporate citizens. They are disappointed in the performance of Canadian banks. They do not give a hoot about mbanx. They want them to pay mtaxes. That would be better than having mbanx. How about some mtaxes from the Bank of Montreal?

One thing I will say is that John Cleghorn was a much better sport than Matthew Barrett. Matthew Barrett was really nasty about these amendments, especially the one about limiting his salary. Cleghorn at least got a chuckle out of it.

Canadians think that chartered banks do nothing but take and take and take and never give anything back in return. That is the image. It is the old Snidely Whiplash image with the top hat and handlebar moustache taking the mortgaged family farm at the first sign of danger. That is the image.

The banks have a big job on their hands in terms of public relations. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to convince Canadians that they are of warm, fuzzy, caring institutions that are fun to do business with. They are anything but. It is almost as absurd to watch the Liberals trying to paint themselves as the party of the centre left and the champions of health care. It is almost that absurd and that big of a stretch that Canadian banks flounder around trying to pretend that they care.

Ask any small business in Canada how much the banks care in terms of providing venture capital. They will not lend someone money unless it can be proven it is not needed. Even when they do, at the slightest hint of any trouble in the business, they just demand the loan. They call the loan, pull it right out from under it and another small business collapses.

We were hoping that Bill C-38 would have something like chapter 11 in the United States. I hate to look to the United States for ideas; it bothers me. However the United States at least has this sanctuary that a business can hide out in when the banks are trying to blow down its house. Chapter 11 is an interim stage before bankruptcy. The business calls its chapter 11 status and the banks cannot touch it, at least temporarily. We would have welcomed that.

A good example of how unbelievably and unabashedly greedy the banks have become is student loans. One of the obligations that was passed on to the banks in exchange for the exclusive privilege to do all the credit card transactions and the billions of dollars they get from that was to handle the student loans program. They handled it for a couple of years and they were not making enough money so they tried to dump it and get out of it.

Our party believes there should not be student loans because there should be free tuition. Nobody should be paying tuition to go to university, but that is another issue. If I were in charge of a $12 billion surplus, the first thing I would declare would be absolutely free tuition for every Canadian student. We can afford it. It would cost $3 billion a year. It would be a great idea. We would not be putting our students at the mercy of ruthless, greedy and bloated bankers who take advantage of them. I do not think that is in anybody's best interests.

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, September 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if it was appropriate to have questions and comments on the debate of the member for Yukon.

[Petitions, September 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, many thousands of Canadians have come to me asking me to present a petition which calls upon the government to do something to prevent the terrible gouging in fuel costs.

Specifically they request immediate action to do away with the charging of GST on home heating fuel. Most of the signatories are from British Columbia, but I am sure that most Canadians share their concern over this issue.

[Cultural Industry, June 9th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to enter the debate and to speak in favour of Motion No. 259 as put forward by the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys. I know the hon. member spent a great deal of time speaking to arts and cultural groups across the country. In fact it was at their request that the member put the idea forward for debate in the House of Commons.

Motion No. 259 has the endorsation of 30 arts and cultural groups across the country such as the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Writer's Union of Canada, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, and the Canada Council for the Arts, just to name a few of the many groups that have come forward asking parliament to recognize in a meaningful way through our tax system the contribution arts and cultural communities make not only to the Canadian cultural fabric but to the Canadian economy.

Motion No. 259 seeks to amend the tax system to introduce tax fairness for our working creators. It would encourage an income tax reduction that would be similar to that already offered in the province of Quebec for working artists. Once again the province of Quebec seems to be leading the way in this type of issue. At least it has recognized the value of the cultural industry in that province and has made meaningful changes to that effect.

Motion No. 259 would benefit those artists and creators who earn very little income. We are only aware of the artists who have reached celebrity status. Granted, there are some musicians and artists who become famous and earn a good deal of money, but the incomes of most creators are over 50% below the national average.

Just by way of an example, the Writer's Union of Canada states that the average annual income of writers is less than $12,000 a year. According to Statistics Canada visual artists earned on average $12,633 in 1995. The Crafts Association of British Columbia states that 50% of its members reported earnings of less than $5,000 per year from their craft and 31% reported earnings of between $5,000 and $20,000 a year. That is the reality of most people working in the arts and cultural communities. Whether one is a writer, a visual artist, a filmmaker, a musician or a dancer, that is the reality.

If we want people to be in those positions and if we value the cultural institutions by which Canada identifies itself and in which Canada takes great pride, we need to support those individuals in a meaningful way.

Motion No. 259 recommends that up to $30,000 of income be exempt. This would change the basic personal exemption to up to $30,000 of income earned from the activity for which the person is registered, not of their total overall earnings. If they are earning supplementary income from another type of work obviously they would be subject to the same tax as everyone else. This is the actual copyrighted work that they are producing as an aspect of the art in which they are involved. I think it is very realistic. Other countries have undertaken it and we have some evidence to draw from as to what it would actually cost or what the pick-up would be were this offered to the artistic community.

One of the most famous examples is Ireland. Ireland, as everyone knows, is well known for its arts, culture, music, great writers and great poets. People in its cultural sector are valued, treasured, appreciated and accurately reflected in the income tax system. I have some examples of how the Irish system works, but it would be safe to say that we could look to this model.

The motion put forward by the member from Kamloops is vague for a purpose. The member genuinely wanted to stimulate this debate. He did not want to say what we should be doing or how it must be done. He wanted us to speak in the House openly and freely about whether or not we value our creators in the cultural sector.

People working in the arts and cultural sectors make up 8% of our total labour force. It is actually larger than forestry, mining and agriculture combined. I do not believe we recognize them and the contribution they make not just to our quality of life, which is important, but to our economy.

It would be a very small cost factor. I believe there is no ceiling in Ireland on its tax break for income earned from artistic endeavours, as we are recommending. Even there where they have many people involved in the arts and cultural sector and with no ceiling it only costs about $12 million Canadian per year. Frankly that is not a great deal of money when we consider the contribution it makes to the economy of Ireland. Perhaps we could view the impact of the program being recommended by the member from Kamloops in a comparable light. That would be the approximate price tag we would be contemplating.

We believe that our arts and cultural community has been underrecognized. We expect artists to be there when we want to be entertained. We assume they will always be there because for the love of their craft they are willing to starve and live in some garret, the stereotype of the starving artist. That is not necessary. If we value the product we should be demonstrating that realistically with a tax exemption.

Other industries receive exemptions because we value them. There are capital gains exemptions for businesses and so on. People in other occupations enjoy that type of tax credit. It is a recognition of the way we value them in our community, but we do not do the same with artists, musicians, dancers and so on.

Some artists face real costs to carry on their craft. Musicians these days, whether violinists or pianists, may have $100,000 invested in their instruments. They are paid abysmally because I do not think there is a symphony orchestra that is adequately funded. After studying all their lives and investing an absolute fortune in a quality instrument they are virtually paid peanuts.

The motion put forward by the member from Kamloops in some way takes some steps toward recognizing the hardship faced by those who create in our arts and cultural sector. We value them. The NDP caucus is quite interested in this motion. I was very pleased to be able to speak to it today. We are disappointed that the first member who spoke from the Liberal side dismissed the idea without a great deal of thought or getting into it in any detail.

The only way we could investigate this fully is to deal with it at the finance committee. If the motion were allowed to pass at second reading we could do that. I point out that parliament has dealt with the issue in the past. In 1982 we all remember the Applebaum-Hébert commission on Canadian cultural life. It pointed out that the largest subsidy to the cultural life in Canada came not from governments, corporations or other patrons, but from the artists themselves through their unpaid and underpaid labour. As early as 1982 we were seized of this issue.

In 1999 the heritage committee's report stated:

From the Committee's standpoint, investing in the arts is no less important than investing in the social sciences humanities, the purer sciences or medicines. The Committee is also aware of the long term commitment made to the researchers and scholars by other federal government agencies and looks for a similar level of commitment to Canadian artists.

As recently as 1999 the heritage committee recommended this in its report, so I was very surprised and disappointed when the first speaker on this motion today simply said that it was not meant to be. Maybe she has not researched the recent comments of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I have pointed out how much I admire the hon. member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys for bringing the motion forward. It is an important debate. Other countries do it. The province of Quebec does it. I believe that the Government of Canada should show support for those involved in the arts and cultural industries.

[Petitions, June 9th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I rise to present a petition. These many thousands of Canadians who have come to me feel strongly that the government must take every step possible to save our Canadian public health care system and to stop the two tier American style system which is threatening to move into Canada and to privatize this treasured institution, our not for profit public health care system.

The petitioners believe that the federal government should immediately bring health care funding back up to 25% rather than the 13.5% that is currently given to the provinces as the federal government's share. They feel passionately that we must do everything we can to save our health care system.