Pat Martin

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the NDP caucus, I am pleased to join in the debate on the fall 2007 economic statement, or Bill C-28 as it is called.

I know the public and our colleagues in the House have not heard much of the NDPs opinion on the bill. Therefore, I am glad to enlighten them somewhat as to our objections with it and why we do not support the government in its economic statement, especially as it pertains to its ideological zeal or orthodoxy that all of Canada's social, economic and infrastructure ills can be solved by even deeper corporate tax cuts.

We have to challenge that very premise. We have to challenge the very theme or motif that seems to make the government tick. The Conservatives have been raised on the orthodoxy that all the country needs is lower corporate tax cuts. In that ideology, the Conservatives are in competition with the Liberals, who also believe it. They are playing some reckless game of chicken with our budgets and with the tax dollars of Canadians.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 11th, 2007]

That's why you were put there.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to some of the points that my colleague from Outremont raised. I want to thank him for pointing out Statistics Canada's research on the five income quintiles and how they have actually fared, from a chart that I have, from 1989 to 2005.

I think I will ask him to expand on the point that he was making. Our taxation policies are the most effective tools that we have for the redistribution of wealth in the country, so that we can in fact all share in the bounty of this great nation, and as profits grow and productivity grows therefore workers' wages and our standards of living grow.

What other tasks should we have here as members of Parliament, as elected representatives, but to make sure that we elevate the standards of living and working conditions for the people who we represent? Perhaps through a fair taxation policy we can do that.

My colleague raised the issue of the five quintiles. I think people would be shocked to learn that, between 1989 and 2005, by these neo-conservative, right-wing policies implemented by perhaps the most wasteful government in Canadian history that squandered $190 billion worth of fiscal capacity, giving half of it away to their corporate buddies, the lowest quintile of earnings of $12,200 dropped by 11% in that period of time.

Their standard of living in the lowest quintile dropped 11% by virtue of the neo-conservative, right-wing policies of the Liberal government and then by the neo-conservative policies of the Conservative government. They squandered an opportunity to raise all votes. They raised all yachts. They forgot the rest of us.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief in thanking my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster for the question. It is morally and ethically reprehensible to prioritize gratuitous gifts to one's buddies at the expense of much needed social spending.

The only difference I can see between the way the Liberals did it and the way the Conservatives do it is the quid pro quo. The Liberals used to shovel money to their corporate buddies in exchange for massive campaign donations and political donations. The Conservatives, at the request of the NDP, have banned corporate donations now, so that the Conservatives do not really have to shovel money to Bay Street any more. The government will not get anything back for it anyway. It is purely ideological. Maybe that is the ethical--

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's comments are a graphic illustration of how out of touch the Conservatives are with low income Canadians. I am not sure if that party can consult at all. As soon as the government announced its 1% GST cut, my phone started ringing off the hook with calls from the low income people whom I represent.

I should point out that 47% of all families in my riding and 52% of all children in my riding live below the poverty line. When the government tells those people that there is a cut to the GST, they think it is a cut to their GST rebate cheque. They receive a rebate cheque on a regular basis from the government. They do not pay GST.

My colleague's targeted tax cut in terms of a GST break is of no use to the genuinely poor in this country. They do not pay GST. They get a GST rebate. If anything, they will get less money back from the GST rebate when the tax is reduced.

If the government were serious about targeted tax cuts and serious about ameliorating some of the social deficit, it would take some of the $190 billion that the government has squandered by shovelling it over to its corporate buddies and put some of that money toward the infrastructure deficit in our streets so that the public could enjoy public amenities like they used to.

The government should do something about social housing. The Mulroney government eliminated all of the social housing programs in 1993, except for one, and the first thing the Liberal government did when it took over in 1993 was to kill that too. I know because I was the president of a housing co-op that was waiting for an allocation of units so we could put the shovel in the ground and start building. The first thing the Liberal government did was kill the very last remaining social housing program. Canada has had a social housing deficit accumulating year after year ever since.

The government has squandered our future by giving all that money away to companies that do not need it. It is irresponsible. It is wasteful. It is negligent.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on the report stage amendment to Bill C-28 put forward by my colleague from Ottawa Centre, the one and only amendment. It calls upon the government and the House of Commons at this stage of debate to delete clause 181 of Bill C-28.

For those who have been following the debate over the last days in the House of Commons, clause 181 contemplates even deeper corporate tax cuts as an aspect of the economic statement.

The public should be aware that for the last decade or so, there has been a mantra, a theme, a motif, throughout the Liberal government for 13 years and now the Conservative government, that the cure to all Canada's evils is corporate tax cuts. If it is child poverty, we need corporate tax cuts. If we have potholes in our streets, we need corporate tax cuts. If we give more money to the Canadian business community, that will somehow translate into relief for health care ills, infrastructure and virtually everything of which we can think.

Those of us in the NDP have challenged that orthodoxy. We understand we need a competitive tax regime, but we believe we already have that. In fact, those of us who were asked to tighten our belts for the last 10 or 15 years through record surplus budgets have decided it is time to invest some of our hard-earned cash elsewhere. Some taxpayer dollars can go elsewhere other than its final state of repose in the deep pockets of a banker or somebody in the oil and gas industry.

We believe the deep corporate tax cuts contemplated in Bill C-28 would undermine the fiscal capacity of the government to address the many other legitimate priorities our country has. Simply put, it would take $190 billion of fiscal capacity away from the government and future governments, because God willing, the government may not last that long and perhaps another government will take its place. With a corporate tax structure, which would then be the lowest of developed nations, not in the middle of the pack, not in a competitive, on par basis, but the lowest, we believe we would lose the ability to address the many other pressing social deficits that have been created by years and years of what can only be described as an ideological crusade to eliminate taxes on business.

My father used to tell me that not long ago the tax system was structured in such a way that business tax would be about 50% of government's revenue and individual personal income tax would be approximately the other 50%. Systematically, incrementally, bit by bit, slowly over the last 20 or 30 years, that has changed dramatically. I do not know what it comes down to with these current, most recent changes, but the proportion was roughly 85% individual personal tax and 15% total revenue from corporate tax. That will be dramatically reduced even further. I can only surmise, given the relentless pressure to reduce and reduce, the ultimate goal would be corporations and businesses would pay no tax and all the tax burden would be shifted onto us.

In their race to the bottom, there has been a competition between the Liberals and the current Conservative government. The Conservative government said that it would reduce the corporate tax from 21.5% or 22% down to 18.5%. The immediate reaction from the leader of the official opposition was the Liberals would have gone even further. While that was pretty good, they could do better.

The Minister of Finance took him up on his challenge. If the Conservatives had carte blanche to cut in half and slash corporate taxes, they would take them up on that game of chicken and reduce it to 16.5% in 2011 and to 15% by 2012. That is way below the average of comparable developed nations. It is as if this in and of itself would be the answer to all the shortcomings and the social deficit and the spending that we all recognize is necessary.

There is a theory that “a rising tide lifts all boats”. When the economy is cooking, we all benefit. We have changed that cliché to “a rising tide raises all yachts”. It fails to lift a lot of the boats of the people I know and the boats of the people I represent.

I thank my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore for pointing this out. The only social spending that has occurred in the last 15 years, 13 years of Liberal rule and two years now of Conservative, has been when the NDP managed, through its balance of power, to stop contemplated corporate tax cuts put forward by the Liberal government of the day. We used our influence, traded our support, to the minority Liberal government in exchange for significant social spending in Bill C-48. We managed to interrupt another completely unnecessary and secretive gift to Bay Street.

The Liberals did not run on that. They certainly did not give Canadians a chance to have any say on whether another $4.8 billion would be dutifully shuffled to their friends in corporate Canada. Fortunately, we intervened and that resulted in $4.8 billion worth of social spending.

The Canadian public deserves to be made aware of this. Some of the social spending now announced by the Conservative government is money that was booked and earmarked two years ago in Bill C-48. The NDP used its balance of power in a minority government to trigger some much needed social spending in social housing, post-secondary education, transit and foreign aid, some of the shortfalls.

We were asked to tighten our belts for 10 surplus budgets in a row. The Liberals told us that the social spending we called for would come but they had to first take care of some necessary priorities, such as paying down the debt and massive corporate tax cuts to their buddies on Bay Street. It seems they always come first.

Without the NDP to provide a balance of power in a minority situation, the government will always come first. When a right wing corporate organization elects a right wing corporate government to serve its interests, it is not surprising then that budgets are crafted in such a way to benefit those right wing corporate interests and the rest of us are forgotten.

I represent the riding of Winnipeg Centre, which off and on, depending on what details are used by Statistics Canada, is the poorest riding in Canada. When the Liberals ruled the day and told us that we had to tighten our belts, they cut and hacked and slashed every social program by which we define ourselves as Canadians. Marginalized groups, low income groups, like in the riding I represent, suffered the most. Let me give one example.

When the Liberals cut back eligibility for UIC, or EI as it is called today, those cutbacks in my riding alone amounted to $20.8 million worth of income revenue. There was a similar amount in my colleague's riding of Winnipeg North and even more in some of the ridings in Atlantic Canada. This $20.8 million worth of income that came from the federal government into my low income community pushed more people off EI and on to welfare. That was like taking the payroll of a company with 2,000 employees out of my riding. It ripped federal government revenue out of the heart of my riding and put it into more tax cuts for corporations.

We have just about had it with this ideology. We will oppose, at every opportunity, these further gratuitous wheelbarrows full of money to corporate Canada. Every time the Conservatives are in charge of the budget, they give the money away. They squander their money.

The Conservatives are the most reckless, foolhardy, wasteful party in Canadian history, the way they shovel money to Bay Street with no expected return. It is like Jack and the Beanstalk, where Jack trades--

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore for walking us through some of the clear problems the NDP has with the current strategy of corporate tax cuts being the cure for everything, from toothaches to dyspepsia to whatever we can think of.

One of the things that my colleague from Sackville raises is a great deal of these corporate tax cuts would go to the oil and gas industry, which already enjoys record profits and do not really need any motivation to do any more development in the tar sands. Some say it is already overdeveloping the tar sands to the expense of our water reserves, et cetera.

Would the hon. member confirm if what I have read is true? The increase in royalties that the province of Alberta recently applied to the oil and gas industry is 100% tax deductible at the federal end? In other words, it is getting a tax deduction for paying a royalty to gouge and use up all our valuable energy resources.

[Canada Elections Act, December 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I note, from the comments of my Bloc colleague, that there seems to be a consensus growing, among the opposition parties at least, that we do not accept this idea that the default position should be to the federal party if in fact candidates default or fail to pay back their loans in the accepted period of time.

We all come from the same premise that a loan that is not paid back is deemed a donation and this was a loophole that should have been plugged.

The point I want to make is that sometimes in a riding where candidates have very little opportunity, they may see in their mind that they have a possibility of winning and spend far too much money in that campaign. In a campaign that may have warranted a $10,000 token amount, some candidates may borrow the full $80,000 and run a full campaign even though they have no hope of winning and in fact fail.

I am wondering if a change could be made to the amendment proposed where if the federal parties were to have the right to veto situations like this, would it then be acceptable for the party to be the co-signer or the guarantor of the loan for candidates. Or, does the member's party feel that it is a complete non-starter as an issue?

[Canada Elections Act, December 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, when the Liberal government did in fact put limits on donations, it left one huge, gaping loophole, which was the loans issue. Businesses and unions could no longer donate to any extent, but they could lend a candidate hundreds of thousands of dollars. They could lend them a million dollars. If the candidate never paid it back 18 months later, it would be deemed a donation. What good is that?

This loophole was screaming out to be plugged, and the bill plugs it.

[Canada Elections Act, December 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises an interesting point, one that the people at the committee have dealt with somewhat. I do not know if an amendment is under way to address that specifically, but I do acknowledge the possibility of a lending institution being reluctant to delve into something where it may be accused of playing favourites or giving advantage to one party over another.

The goal of the bill is to take it out of private hands so individuals or businesses cannot loan in a way that exceeds the donation limits that currently exist in the Financing Act, and also to get away from the idea that somebody's personal connections may be an advantage to he or she.

I accept the valid point that a member of the community, who has a better relationship with the bank, may have an advantage over a perfect stranger who has never had to seek out this kind of loan.

With the bill, we are only saying that it should be financial institutions, credit unions, trust companies, banks, whatever may be able to keep an accurate record of the repayment schedule and to take away the advantage that one may have of getting loans through personal connections, et cetera.

To answer my colleague's questions, I acknowledge it as a legitimate concern. I know of no amendment to that effect being contemplated. I think it is something that would have to be monitored in practice.