Pat Martin

[Housing, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, many cities across Canada are facing a critical shortage of clean affordable housing. Vacancy rates are 1% or lower and the private sector is not coming forward to meet those needs. Too many Canadian families have to choose between paying their rent and feeding their children.

Tomorrow people who desperately need affordable housing will be demonstrating at the Liberal Party convention in Hull. They will be calling for federal action on housing. Will the government be listening? Will the government admit that its withdrawal from social housing has pushed far too many families into poverty, into debt and into substandard housing?

[Employment, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it sometimes feels like there is a choice between having a job and having a life. Overwork and long hours are epidemic in Canada. In the first four months of 1997 almost two million workers put in overtime, most of it unpaid, while one-third of working Canadians say they are constantly under stress.

At the same time unemployment remains staggeringly high when compared with other countries. There are serious social issues and human costs associated in a society divided between the chronically overworked and the chronically unemployed.

I believe that a reduction and redistribution of work time deserves to be the new public policy priority. A substantial reduction of work time, such as a standard 32 hour work week, deserves to be the target early in the new millennium.

It is time for governments to take up this challenge. If we can achieve a better distribution of work time and leisure, stories about an improving economic situation might start to ring true for the vast numbers of Canadians who are unemployed, underemployed or overworked.

[Un Convention On The Rights Of The Child, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, today is the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

1989 was also the year that the House of Commons voted unanimously to pass a motion by NDP leader Ed Broadbent to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000.

These are noble concepts, but how have we fared when it comes to putting words into action? In 1989, 14% of Canadian children lived in poverty. In 1999, that figure is 21%, an increase of 50%.

Internationally, Canada still refuses to sign ILO Convention No. 138, prohibiting labour by children under 14 years of age. It refuses to ban the importation of goods made by child labour. It refuses to push for rigid labour standards in international trade agreements.

In summary, we are not doing that well in living up to the spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It seems that if we starve one child we can be thrown into jail for child abuse, but if we deprive 1.5 million kids of the basic needs to survive, the government calls it balancing the budget and it might even get a person elected as prime minister.

[Farm Implements Industry, November 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, there is another issue. The federal government gave Versatile $45.5 million in R and D money to develop the very lines of tractors that we are now about to lose, such as the TV-140 bi-directional tractor, one of the best in the world.

As Manitobans scramble to find a new buyer for the Versatile plant, perhaps the minister responsible for western economic diversification can tell us if the federal government is prepared to offer similar grants and loans to new companies in order to attract industrial development that would compensate for the loss of the Versatile technology and for the loss of these 700 jobs in Winnipeg.

[Farm Implements Industry, November 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Versatile Tractor in Winnipeg is the last tractor manufacturer in Canada. Now that Ford New Holland and Case are merging, the U.S. authorities have ordered them to divest themselves of the tractor lines at Versatile, leaving virtually nothing at the Winnipeg plant. This will cost us 700 good jobs and it will drive a stake through the heart of the farm implements industry in Canada.

My question is for the Minister of Industry. What was the role of our federal government in the U.S. anti-trust hearings and the final deal? What steps did it take to represent our interests, to protect our jobs and to protect our important farm implements industry in Canada?

[Division No. 54, November 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I watched with interest during the spring of 1999 as Bill C-68 began to unfold in the House and speaker after speaker dealt with it at great length. I can tell the House that much of the debate at that time made me angry. I spent a lot of time listening to this debate and I was very upset about what I was hearing from many of the different parties. Frankly, I did not like either the tone or the content of much of the debate.

I can now say that anger has been replaced with an overwhelming sense of sadness. I do not know which is better. I feel in a very profound way that we would not be having the kind of debate we are having today if we had a better grasp and a better comprehension of what we really need to do in the area of the criminal justice system as it relates to young people.

I am not a lawyer and I will be making my remarks in a less technical way than some speakers. I am speaking more as a parent and as an inner city resident of a large Canadian city where this is an issue of great interest because we have problems with youth gangs, street gangs, issues of vandalism and violence. I get many calls to my office regarding safe streets and the problems of the youth justice system.

I would like to remind members of the House that ultimately this is a bill about children. We have to somehow keep that as our primary focus in all of the remarks we make. That should really set the tone for much of this debate. We have to keep in our minds that we are dealing with kids.

When I see provisions in Bill C-3 which contemplate 25 year sentences for children as young as 14, I am very concerned. It makes me think that the members of this House who are advocating this have given up on the idea of rehabilitation and that incarceration of young offenders is dealing more with retribution than with any hope of rehabilitation. I remind people that the concept of an eye for an eye keeps going until the whole community is blinded.

I would also like to remind the House that it is only within this century that we have even recognized the sanctity of childhood in civil society. I am making reference to the fact that it was only in this century that we even banned child labour.

Up until the early years of this century children went into the mines with a fuse between their teeth because they were small enough to crawl between the crevices and the cracks. We saw no problem with exploiting children in that way. They were simply little people. Thankfully, we have gone past that. We won those debates and those arguments, at least in this country. Although, I would point out that it does not seem to bother Canadians much in other countries. The Canadian government has yet to sign ILO convention 138, which deals with banning child labour, and it has yet to sign ILO convention 87, which deals with the worst forms of exploitative child labour. We would like to see some movement in that regard, if we are serious about the sanctity of childhood, not just for our own privileged kids, but for kids all around the world.

It remains for Bill C-3 to try to do something to answer the question of how we treat children who run afoul of the Canadian justice system. I have heard many ideas in the House. We all know the bizarre spectre of one well known member who wanted to go to Singapore to study how to beat children more effectively, or what size rod we should use to whack kids with.

This debate has gone from the ridiculous to the sublime. It has gone through the whole range, the whole spectrum, in an attempt to criminalize children and deal with kids who run afoul of the criminal justice system as criminals. That will have predictable consequences. We will be the architects of our own issues when we treat children in that way.

New Democrats are tough on crime, contrary to popular opinion. We are also tough on the causes of crime. That is where we prefer to spend our energies. That is where we believe we get the best value for our invested dollar, dealing with the root causes of crime. We all know that the jury is in on the issue that chronic long term poverty is one of the key factors in the rising level of crime in our communities.

Why we continue to tolerate chronic long term poverty in the richest and most powerful civilization in the world is beyond me. Child poverty is a national embarrassment. Even the government is starting to get the message. It has had 10 years in this House of Commons. I am very proud that in 1989 it was the leader of the New Democratic Party, Mr. Ed Broadbent, who moved the motion to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000 and it was adopted unanimously. It is very rare to see unanimous endorsation for a private member's motion in the House of Commons but in 1989 people felt compelled and they felt strongly enough about the issue that it was a unanimous vote.

In 1989, 14% of Canadian children were living in poverty. By the same measurement in 1999, 10 years later, and within months of the year 2000 which was to be the deadline, the national rate of child poverty is 27%. Instead of eradicating child poverty and all its predictable consequences, we have seen it virtually double. In my riding of Winnipeg Centre, an inner city riding in the city of Winnipeg, the neighbourhood of Point Douglas is a provincial boundary and the rate of child poverty there is 57.7%, almost 60%.

Until we address the fundamental root causes of crime which I argue is poor kids living in poor families, poverty, we are not going to be able to design any legislation that is going to truly meet our needs.

I recognize that Bill C-3 has many qualities to it. Many of these points were reached by consultation with the community and activists in the field.

I have already drawn attention to one clause which I have serious reservations about. A child as young as 14 years old could receive a 25 year sentence for first degree murder instead of the current maximum of 10 years for young offenders sentenced in youth court. I find that offensive and I have a great deal of difficulty with it.

There is an interesting clause which I noticed. Parents or guardians could face a jail sentence in serious cases of up to two years if they fail to supervise their children who are released from custody. This is an increase from the current maximum penalty of six months in jail or a $2,000 fine. Normally when a child is charged with a crime under the current Young Offenders Act a parent or guardian signs an agreement with the court to supervise the child and to enforce certain conditions until the charges are heard.

There are other changes recommended under Bill C-3. The justice system will begin tracking young offenders for years after they have been released from jail and force them to take part in a probation type initiative that will consist of a period of tight supervision and extensive halfway programs. The current practice allows young offenders to walk away with no strings attached or probationary restrictions. Clearly Canadians have spoken that they want that tightened up. That provision is in Bill C-3 and it may give some satisfaction in that regard.

The proposed legislation needs to be a balancing act focusing on getting tough with violent repeat offenders and shifting more emphasis toward community based programs for youth and families. The bill is really a reworking of the Young Offenders Act without significantly changing it in a meaningful manner and will likely fail to substantially change the current system of youth justice or alleviate the public's legitimate concerns about youth crime. The NDP has some serious reservations and concerns and I will outline some of them.

We have concerns that new provisions for the publication of the names of offenders will be more readily available. They can release names of young offenders. Those provisions already exist and we do not believe that needs to be expanded in any way.

The life sentence of 25 years I have already dealt with. It really abandons the concept of rehabilitation if we are sentencing a 14 year old child to 25 years in prison. This is retribution. This is revenge. This is not rehabilitation.

On increasing penalties for parents and guardians, again I think this is something which most Canadians have strong feelings about. It puts an undue burden on the very low income families where much of the youth crime and violence actually occurs. Because of the connection which I have already pointed out of poverty being the main cause of crime and poor kids living in poor families, it is going to probably be a low income family that is being given this increased penalty. That kind of punitive measure on a single parent family for instance victimizes the family that much further and drives them deeper into poverty.

The bill will place a substantially increased financial and administrative burden on the provinces. We believe a great deal of what is in Bill C-3 increases the workload of the provinces to a very large degree without any compensation or corresponding funding.

Mr. Speaker, I see that I am out of time. How time does fly.

[West Coast Ports, November 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party I want to say how very pleased we are that through the hard work and dedication of the principals involved the two parties have seen fit to end the lockout. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union of Canada and the B.C. Marine Employers Association have seen fit to end this lockout in a sensible way.

I want to particularly compliment the Minister of Labour, her staff and her mediators for their extra effort and hard work. I know there were some all night bargaining sessions. It is rare to find that kind of dedication and commitment. It really helped to bring this issue to a speedy resolution.

The progress today helps us preclude the bizarre spectre of having to order people back to work in the case of a lockout. We have to remember that this is a lockout, not a strike. Frankly, the employers had the ability to save all those millions of dollars that they lost if they just took the padlocks off the gates. At least we do not have to go down the road of the bizarre, perverse situation of ordering locked out workers back to work. We are very relieved on this side.

Congratulations to all concerned. I understand that by 4.30 p.m. product will be moving through the docks of Vancouver and we can all go to bed at a normal hour tonight.

[Canada Post Corporation Act, November 5th, 1999]

moved that Bill C-238, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (mail contractors), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have the bill come forward. I felt very fortunate when my name was drawn in the lottery and then very grateful when the standing committee chose to make the bill votable.

I believe it is an issue of broad public interest and something that is long overdue. I will argue, and I hope that I can prove to the House, that we have an opportunity to correct a longstanding injustice. We have an opportunity to right a longstanding wrong.

My bill, Bill C-238, is probably one of the shortest. It is certainly the shortest that I have ever seen. I think it might be the smallest bill on record. It is one line exactly. It calls for one simple thing, to repeal subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act.

Subsection 13(5) is a very small subsection that bars rural route mail contractors from the right to collective bargaining. They do not have the right to form a union. They do not have the right to join a union. They do not have the right to bargain collectively.

I know that support for giving these people these rights is spreading broadly. I know that the hon. member from Kamloops strongly supports the concept because in his rural setting there are rural route mail couriers who have probably sought him out to lobby and to explain the problems they run into.

Why is this particular group of workers barred from collective bargaining? The Canada Labour Code, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, international conventions and covenants all guarantee the right to free collective bargaining for employees. The reason is that subsection 13(5) makes the argument that these are not to be considered employees. They are to be considered independent contractors.

Faced with that problem, this group of workers went to the Canada Labour Relations Board and asked, “Are we employees or are we independent contractors?” They brought that question to the only avenue of recourse that they really could bring it to. The Canada Labour Relations Board ruled unanimously that these are not independent contractors and that their relationship with Canada Post is that of an employer and employee. At best, it is a wholly dependent contractor. Under the Canada Labour Code, a dependent contractor is, in fact, an employee.

One would wonder, then, what the problem is. This group of workers went and got the ruling they were seeking. The problem is that the government went to the Federal Court of Appeal and had the CLRB ruling overturned, not on the basis of merits. Frankly, the federal court did agree that these people are in fact employees. It came to the same conclusions that the labour board came to. It was strictly on jurisdiction. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the Canada Labour Relations Board does not have the jurisdiction to overrule a section in the Canada Post Corporation Act. That is something that only parliament can do and that is the reason we are here today, at the request of the many rural route mail couriers who feel strongly about this issue.

Who are they? There are roughly 5,000 rural route mail couriers. They are the people who deliver mail anywhere other than in an urban setting. They drive over the country roads delivering mail to farms, homes and businesses all over rural Canada. They get their work by tendering and contracting the work. The contract is given to them and they keep it for a period of five years. They then have to renew it after that period of time.

The difference is that if they are truly independent contractors there are a number of tests that they go through and look at to say what the difference is between an independent contractor and a dependent contractor or an employee. I would like to go through some of the things that the Canada Labour Relations Board looked at in making its ruling.

First, the concept of economic independence is one of the key issues. Are they being directed and controlled by someone else, or do they truly have control of their own job and workplace? In this case, the Canada Labour Relations Board found that they were economically dependent and not independent.

As far as the control over the day to day operations of their job, the Canada Post Corporation still dictates exactly how these workers must do their job, how they have to sort the mail, what route they have to take and when they have to drive it. It dictates virtually every aspect of the person's working day. If they were truly independent contractors they could make up their own mind as to how and when they would get the job done, as long as the job did get done.

When the Federal Court of Appeal reversed the decision, it left the rural route mail couriers with no option but to seek recourse in the House of Commons today. I am very proud to take the issue forward as a private member's bill. I believe, as I began in my comments, this is a historic injustice and it is fundamentally wrong.

This is the only group of workers in the country who are specifically barred from collective bargaining strictly for financial reasons. There are other groups that are not allowed to form a union. CSIS is not allowed to form a union for obvious reasons of national security. Even the Parliament Hill staff are not allowed to form a union, although I disagree with that. At least we could make some argument that there are reasons why we would not want some issues showing up on the bargaining table. In the case of rural route mail couriers, they are really delivering mail. It is not an issue of any kind of risk to our national security.

Not allowing the rural route mail couriers to have collective bargaining rights is a denial of their basic rights, the rights that all working Canadians enjoy. I firmly believe it is a violation of the principles conveyed and promoted in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is certainly a violation of our international commitments to the ILO convention regarding the freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize. It is in violation of the international covenant on civil and political rights. It is a violation of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. These are all international covenants that Canada willingly enters into.

I have been to the ILO with the Minister of Labour and have heard wonderful, grand, eloquent speeches that the Minister of Labour has given at the ILO, saying that this country supports the right to free collective bargaining so that workers can elevate their standards of wages and working conditions. I believe him. I do not accuse the Liberal government of being anti-union in any way.

I am looking at an anomaly in subsection 13(5). When subsection 13(5) was put in, it was just at the time when the Canada Post Corporation Act was created in 1981. It was a time when the Canada Post Corporation was showing a huge deficit. There was a real money crunch. The lawyers involved obviously realized that when the employees went from being under the Public Service Staff Relations Act to being under the Canada Labour Code when the corporation was created and that the Canada Labour Code recognizes dependent contractors as employees, that they would have a problem with the rural route mail couriers. So they deliberately and specifically contemplated this with subsection 13(5). So that no application to have these workers considered employees could succeed, they would be specifically barred.

It was strictly financial. I have quotes from Andre Ouellet, the postmaster general at the time, admitting the same. He said that it would be cost factor if these employees were allowed to bargain collectively.

The tendering process, if it ever did serve the couriers well, certainly does not serve them well now. Never before have they needed to have the right to elevate their conditions somewhat. I will give an example.

One example that I am aware of concerns a courier named Mavis Wiebe who has been a rural route mail courier just outside of Surrey, B.C. since 1978. It is Rural Route Number 8 in Cloverdale. When she started she had 326 calls to make and she was paid $1,000 a month to do her 26 kilometre route. Some 21 years later, Mavis Wiebe's route is now 1,000 points of call and she is now paid $1,900 per month. Out of this, she has to pay for her car, gas, repairs and insurance. She gets no benefits whatsoever, like a normal employee does. There is no UIC, no CPP and no workers' compensation. She has no sick days. If she gets sick she has to hire somebody to take her place. Ironically, the minister responsible for Canada Post uses this as an example of why these people really are independent entrepreneurs. He says that they hire people. Well they only hire people if they are sick and they have an obligation and a duty to do their route. It is a fact that they do not have sick days.

Mavis Wiebe puts her operating costs at $1,000 a month, leaving her with $900 a month for days that can go as long as 12 to 14 hours during the busy season. She takes home an average of $6.84 an hour. If I was an independent contractor, I would not structure my lifestyle to make $6.84 an hour.

She has an interesting quote. She says “My granddaughter at 14 just started working at McDonald's and she earns $7.15 an hour, the minimum wage in B.C. She said to me, `Nana are you nuts? I make more than you do”'. There is clearly something fundamentally wrong here when a woman who has been doing this job faithfully for 21 years finds herself in a position where she is making less than minimum wage.

Further on in the article, many of the rural route couriers talk about the tendering process and how it has been bastardized. It is not a fair tendering system. When it is time to renew their contract they are often told that there is a lot of competition and that they had better bring their numbers down or they will not likely get their contract. That is interfering with the fair tendering process, yet there is case after case of this happening. Rather than having their salaries go up with the cost of living, they are actually being manoeuvred down and are getting less money now in many cases than they did from previous contracts.

I am very aware of the whole concept of independent contractors. I worked in the building industry where this has been a problem for quite some time. Contractors, who used to keep maybe 20 drywallers on their staff, would say to them “I am paying you guys $20 an hour. I will give you $25 an hour and you just be your own man. You are your own independent contractor now. You still have to be at work at 8 and go home at 4.30. You still have to take your lunch at noon. I am still going to provide everything else to do your job but for the purposes of the law, I am going to call you an independent contractor”. We could go into a place with 20 drywallers working in a big area and each one of them would consider themselves to be independent business. They have no workers' compensation, no UIC and no CPP. It is really trying to avoid payroll burden and payroll costs. It is a net gain to the employer.

That is the game that the Canada Post Corporation has been playing since 1981. I think it is wrong. It is wrong in the building industry and it is wrong in the mail delivery business.

The supervision aspect alone is enough to win the argument in terms of whether these individuals are dependent or independent, but we do not have to do that.

I would urge all members who plan on speaking to the bill or even when they get the opportunity to vote, to please read the labour board ruling, decision 626 from April 29, 1987. It is a very easy document to read. Canada Post Corporation is the applicant and various unions are the respondents. It is a very clear-cut decision. This is actually an area of labour law that has been very well studied. There is a lot of good jurisprudence that very clearly sets out the tests as to whether someone is independent or dependent.

For the sake of the 5,000 rural route mail couriers in Canada, I would urge all members to please have a good look at these rulings and see for themselves if it is not fair.

I would remind members that this is really a rural-urban issue. These people are being disadvantaged because they live in rural Canada. A disproportionate number of them are women. Some of them are working off the farm trying to get some supplementary income for their family. The going rate for a mail delivery person living within the city limits of Winnipeg or Toronto is $17 or $18 an hour, plus benefits. Because these rural route couriers live outside the perimeter highway they are at $6.86, lower than minimum wage with absolutely no benefits.

How do we defend that in this day and age? There is no justification whatsoever, certainly not for financial reasons. If we were going to conduct ourselves in that manner then why would we not put kids back in the mines? They would be cheaper than putting miners down there. We have to pay miners $25 an hour. Maybe we could get some 12 year old to crawl through the cracks with a fuse between his teeth like they did in the old days. That is obviously taking examples to a ridiculous end.

Money is not justification for denying people basic civil rights. Organizing a union or bargaining collectively is a basic right in this country. It is the only way we have managed to elevate our standards for working people over the last many years. Everyone agrees, our government agrees and states publicly that it is in favour of free collective bargaining. Here is the opportunity. This is our chance to demonstrate that we really do care about the freedom of workers to join and to form unions.

One of the reservations I have and the only reason I can give as to why this matter was not resolved years ago is the terrible hostility between the government and the union representing postal workers. We should not let this group of workers suffer just because of management's inability to get along with its own workforce. That is clearly a poisonous environment.

Nothing in my bill would automatically tie the rural route mail couriers to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Who is to say they will join that union? Who is to say they will join a union at all? They would just have the right to bargain collectively and they would have recourse to the Canada Labour Code like all other Canadian workers enjoy.

This issue has gained broad public interest and broad public support. There was a one hour special on one of the TV news magazine programs. There have been numerous articles in newspapers and magazines.

This group of rural route couriers has been very active politically. I would think that virtually everybody in this House has received some communication from the RRMCs trying to explain the basic fairness of their issue. It has been a long lobbying effort, 10 years long. These people have waited long enough to exercise the same rights that all other working people enjoy.

I would hope that there is broad support from other members in the House. I have canvassed most of the opposition parties and they seem interested in extending this kind of right. There is nothing more noble that we can do as parliamentarians than to extend rights and to expand the rights of Canadians so that we all enjoy and benefit equally from the protections in this case of the Canada Labour Code for employees.

[Municipal Grants Act, November 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to enter into the debate on Bill C-10.

I know from the investigation I have done that this bill comes to us as a result of two years of exhaustive consultations with various parties, most significantly the Federation of Canadian Municipalities which is the organization that represents municipal governments. There were many compelling issues which it had to address. From what I can understand the consultation process went very smoothly and people were well satisfied.

That satisfaction ended rather quickly when the FCM felt quite strongly that this bill was introduced too quickly. The FCM was not given the time to review the contents of Bill C-10 and have further consultation with its members. In other words, we are dealing with this bill now without having given the FCM the opportunity to do a broad consultation with its membership to look at the actual document.

We would hope that after the FCM has had the time to open this document and look at the various clauses that it would meet many of the issues which were identified in the consultation process. I understand that there are many compelling issues because this bill deals with property taxes and we all know how critical property taxes are to municipalities. Taxes are really their only source of revenue. The way property taxes are levied on federal government properties and the way municipalities can collect those taxes is obviously of key and paramount importance to anyone involved in municipal governments.

Property tax is the basis for the major source of revenue for municipal governments. It is the tax base that provides for the provision of municipal services and amenities. It is the capital against which municipal government itself can borrow for various undertakings. Control over property tax and the authority to set taxes from year to year is the only thing which gives municipal councils the ability to function and to flourish and to do their job.

Obviously the FCM took a very keen interest in this issue when the Municipal Grants Act came up for amendment and the consultation period began. It is a mystery as to why we would jeopardize such a co-operative undertaking as the consultation period by bringing the bill forward now without giving the Federation of Canadian Municipalities time to consult one more time. We should have given it time to ask: Is the document the way we want it? Have all the bases been touched? Is the bill going to give satisfaction to the many concerns we have regarding municipal taxation et cetera?

The Municipal Grants Act and various other acts establishing crown corporations provide for federal payments in lieu of taxes. They are called PILTs, payments in lieu of taxes. They are based on local property tax rates and the assessed values of federal properties. That is pretty straightforward. I did not have too much trouble following up to that point. It does get rather complex though. We are dealing with a very complex set of issues when dealing with the assessment of property taxes on properties owned by the federal government.

Most people do not realize that the federal government only began paying property taxes to municipalities in 1950. Until 1950 the federal government did not pay property taxes to municipalities for the properties it owned. It was only after very aggressive lobbying and representation by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities that it undertook and finally succeeded in having the federal government pay its fair share for the properties which it owned within the municipal regions around the country.

The purpose in making PILTs is to ensure that the federal government meets its financial obligations to those municipal governments where federal properties are located. In this way the principles of fairness and equity can be upheld.

That is the goal. That is the objective. In my conversations with the FCM that is all it really wanted, to have the principles of fairness and equity upheld. I am hoping to demonstrate how the federal government breached that noble aspiration. It really failed to be fair and reasonable. The principles of fairness and equity were not upheld in 1992.

In 1992 the federal government paid $426 million on departmental properties to the municipalities, a fair whack of dough by anyone's account. In addition, federal Crown corporations responsible to the treasury board paid another $175 million.

It seemed all would be well with the land and people would be generally satisfied to receive payments to offset their own costs in running their municipalities. However, in the last month of 1992, the federal government imposed a two year freeze on property tax payments. This is a luxury the federal government has. Arbitrarily, out of the blue, the federal government simply said to the municipalities that it did not want to pay any more property taxes because it was in sort of a budget crisis or a deficit situation. As one way to reduce its deficit it said that it would not pay its taxes to them.

Now there is a concept. I wonder how long we would get away with making a statement like that to the federal government. If my personal household finances were in disarray, which in fact they are, I cannot say to the federal government that I will not pay my taxes for two years until I catch up on my other obligations. It would not work.

We can see why the municipalities were very concerned that the federal government had the control, power and authority to arbitrarily and unilaterally announce that it would not pay property taxes any more. When the Municipal Grants Act came up for review there was a great deal of attention paid from across the country.

There was no prior consultation with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities or with any municipal governments, many of which already had their budgets prewritten for 1993. They had already planned on a certain amount of money coming in during 1992 that they were to spend in 1993 when their intergovernmental partner arbitrarily announced it would not give them the money. Understandably it caused some furor across the country.

This freeze came just weeks after the Federation of Canadian Municipalities finished participating in a two year evaluation of the municipal grants program by the department of public works. It had just gone through a long, drawn out consultation with the municipalities. Again, much in the same way it happened here, the federal government arbitrarily stopped the consultations and did something that was entirely negative.

The two year evaluation at that time concluded that federal property tax payments represented the government's fair share of local costs as property owner. The freeze was arbitrary. No concern over levels of property tax payments was expressed in the evaluation.

An important principle behind the federal payment of property taxes is that municipal governments and local ratepayers should not be at a disadvantage by having federal properties on land that could otherwise be taxed by a private sector owner at a better rate.

In other words, it should not be a liability to have federal government buildings within municipalities, but in fact it is if they have to forgo revenue. If they cannot charge the federal government tax at the same mill rate they would be able to charge a private sector company on that land, surely the municipalities are at a real disadvantage.

We must structure the Municipal Grants Act in a way that people do not view having the government department as a liability, especially one which takes up a large area. That is land which could otherwise be taxed at a reasonable rate of return and the municipality could prosper and function.

All properties should be taxed equally regardless of ownership. That is the principle we want to see reflected in Bill C-10. There is some concern within the Canadian Federation of Municipalities that may not be the case. It really has not had time to review Bill C-10 because it just showed up on its doorstep a few days ago and we are debating it in the House of Commons already. There is a great deal of concern out there.

As the largest property owner and taxing authority in the country, the Government of Canada set a dangerous example when it declared a freeze on property tax payments to some 2,200 municipal governments with federal properties in their municipalities.

I know the federal government owns 50,000 buildings across Canada. Actually I have heard a figure as high as 68,000 buildings across Canada. That is an awful lot of property on which it should be paying taxes at a normal mill rate to municipalities. They should celebrate when a government department wants to move to their area. They should not have to be suspect and worried about a net loss by hosting the federal government in their communities.

The FCM, Public Works Canada and the Treasury Board Secretariat formed a joint technical committee on PILTs in the spring of 1993 to look at options for long term improvements in arrangements for federal payment of property taxes and to consider the implementation of the freeze.

Through its political and technical representations, FCM succeeded in having the federal government interpret the freeze on departmental properties such that it met all increases in PILTs during the first year of the freeze. There was some satisfaction. Some very in-depth negotiations went on and some very capable people on the part of the FCM came forward to represent, thankfully, the people who live in the municipalities.

We have to remember that municipal governments are really the level of government most close to us. They take care of our immediate needs in terms of road repair, garbage collection, fire departments and cats stuck in a tree. They are the ones who will help.

It is very important that they are adequately funded because people often question what gets done with the taxes they send to the federal government. Often the federal government is dealing with things that are at a level three steps removed from the ordinary Canadian. It is very important what happens to the PILTs. What the FCM does with its PILTs is very important to Canadians.

The FCM made federal property tax payments a major issue in its call to action during the 1993 election campaign. I dare say it played a big role in the 1993 election campaign.

We all know what happened in 1993. The government of the day was humiliated. It was absolutely dismantled. It went from a couple of hundred seats down to two. It was partly this campaign from municipalities, people who had direct contact with their people, that probably led to that. They were so dissatisfied, in fact so horrified by the arbitrary freeze of their property tax payments, that they were angry at the government of the day in such a way that I believe they did help shape the results of that 1993 election campaign.

As a result of the strong municipal support for FCM's 1993 election campaign on PILTs, the newly elected government committed that all increases on PILTs, on departmental properties, would be met for the second and final year of the freeze. They were getting some satisfaction from the newly elected government after the 1993 election.

They are disappointed now, though, that the newly elected government that took power after 1993 is acting in the same kind of arbitrary way. It is not dealing with the monetary issue, but it is arbitrarily ceasing the very productive consultation process and showing up with the document we call Bill C-10 without giving the FCM a real opportunity to screen it, to test it and to make sure the language is such that it will meet the needs and very real concerns we see in the position paper.

We all know that acts do not get opened for amendment every day. It is very difficult. Once we have an act open for amendment, that is the opportunity to amend any section of the act. We are not limited to the one or two specific reasons the government opened it up. We might want the opportunity to make an amendment to a completely different section. We want to make sure to get it right because we do not get chances every day to amend legislation.

I strongly voice my concern too. Why did the government stop listening? When things were going so well and it looked like some co-operative settlement might be arrived at on what to do with the Municipal Grants Act, why did it then begin to act with such a heavy hand and arbitrary way?

As a result of the strong municipal support for the FCM's campaign, again the newly elected government committed that all increases on PILTs would be met for the second and final year of the freeze. The freeze on crown corporations was lifted outright for the second year. Moreover, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and the President of the Treasury Board agreed in 1995 to negotiations with the FCM on longstanding municipal concerns respecting laws and regulations governing PILTs.

I will summarize what we have seen as the real concern through our research on this issue. The real concern is that there should be rules in place in the Municipal Grants Act to ensure that neither party can arbitrarily alter the terms and conditions of the relationship by simply backing out, as we saw in 1992. We also want to make sure the assessment on government buildings is no different from the assessment on private sector buildings.

The predictable consequence of that is that no municipality would want a government department to set up shop in its area because it would be forgoing revenue. Why on earth would a municipality want all that space occupied by a freeloader, one might say? I do not think any responsible municipal government would encourage that.

The rules governing federal payments of property taxes have long been an issue in relations between federal and municipal governments. There is a long history that goes back to 1950 when the federal government did not pay any taxes at all on its buildings. It was only after quite a brouhaha that the FCM got satisfaction and the federal government started paying any taxes whatsoever.

Under the Municipal Grants Act the government is able to set its own assessed values on properties and pay lower property taxes. That is a key point that we would like to see addressed in Bill C-10. The government should not be able to arbitrarily say what it will pay per year for occupying a couple of acres of land. That is a big brother type approach that is outdated and obsolete. It does not speak well of the type of intergovernmental relations we would want to see.

Currently federal reviews of property values frequently lead to the retroactive reduction of PILTs, causing severe financial disruption to municipal governments. I use the example of 1992 where 2,200 municipalities already had their budgets set for 1993 only to lose their main source of revenue, the federal government tax transfer or the payment of property taxes from the federal government to the municipalities. We cannot have that.

The only recourse of the municipalities is to the municipal grants review committee comprised of appointees of the minister. If they have a grievance about the way property tax values were assessed, their only avenue of recourse is to a group of the minister's own appointees. That is not in the interest of basic fairness or natural justice either. I cannot see how that is fair. I know that is one of the issues that is addressed in Bill C-10. They want an appeals board or an advisory committee that will be structured in a more fair and democratic way.

One thing I will certainly say about the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is that it is nothing if not democratic. It has great consultation with its people. It does not move forward on an issue until it has done broad consultation across the country. It truly builds consensus on issues before it makes an announcement. Hence its frustration that it is not able to have that level of consultation about Bill C-10.

After heavy and long drawn out negotiations in 1995 there was a consensus report of the joint technical committee on PILTs to which I referred. Many of the issues I started my remarks with stem from that report, such as the critical importance of having a guaranteed stream of taxation revenue that they do not have to worry about being arbitrarily interrupted by one party and the fact that property taxes should be set at the same level for government buildings as they are for private sector buildings to avoid the bizarre spectre of losing revenue by having a government department set up shop in a community.

With those few reservations and criticisms our party is reviewing Bill C-10 with the guidance and direction of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. If it is satisfied with the bill we will do what we can to help get it through to give the federation the security it wants on at least the issues addressed in Bill C-10.

[Employment, November 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the fall of unemployment to 7.5% is good news as far as it goes, but our rate of unemployment remains staggeringly high when compared to earlier decades.

In the 1950s 4% unemployment marked the depths of the recession. Today 7.5% is also staggeringly high when compared to other countries, such as Austria, the Netherlands, the United States and Norway. All of these countries have reduced their unemployment to less than 5%.

Let us not kid ourselves. Everyone here knows the 7.5% figure is not accurate. It does not count those who find themselves on the welfare rolls. Incredibly, it does not even count aboriginal people on reserves where unemployment could be 95%.

Whether the real figure is 7% or 17%, the question remains, why do we continue to tolerate chronic long term unemployment? What ever happened to the goal of full employment for this country? Are there still people out there who are perverse enough to think that if unemployment drops too low it will spike the rate of inflation?