Paul Szabo

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I have taken the time to listen to the debate, to hear what members were saying that were substantive to the motion before us. Ostensibly, the motion basically calls for a delay in rolling back the 2011 rate to the 2010 rate.

When the government introduced its five year program for tax cuts for large corporations, the circumstances in Canada were very good. The government inherited a large surplus from the previous Liberal government, $13 billion plus, something to work with. It did not take very long until we entered into a recession before the global crisis. The Conservatives squandered the $13 billion and put us in deficit. Where are we today? Today, we are looking at a deficit of $56 billion.

Canadians understand that. It started with a bit of money in the bank on an annual basis and, all of a sudden, we are in a situation where not only are we looking at a $56 billion debt but we have accumulated another $200 billion of national debt.

The circumstances have changed. The new government squandered the surplus and undertook a bunch of activities which tended to indicate to most observers that it was part of the problem and not the solution. Think of the litany of things that happened, whether it be squandering money on the G8-G20 photo ops or $1 million for screens. When members give speeches, they have to have expensive screens. I could go through the list.

The reality is that the world and Canada changed when the global crisis occurred. The government was in a hole before it occurred and since then it says it is going to move forward with everything it decided to do notwithstanding the significant changes in the economic climate in Canada. Is that fiscally responsible? Is it the right thing to do?

Earlier in a question I cited a quote I like very much, which is that the measure of success is not an economic measure but, rather, a measure of the health and well-being of the people. To calculate the success of a country, one has to look at what is happening with the people.

There is no disagreement in this place. A lot of people lost their jobs. We have an aging society and know the demographic. Think of how many people are over 55 years of age, and who will find it very difficult to get back into full-time employment at the same level of income they once enjoyed. It is going to be very difficult for many people. We have all seen them in our offices and received the letters asking us to please help them as people do not want to hire older folks. The level of personal debt is $1.50 for every $1 of income earned. It is a terrible burden and families are hurting.

We have a situation where the government can say the circumstances have now changed and it needs to assess what is in the best interests of the people. If it is going to assess the best interests of the people, it has to ask them what the government can do to help.

My mom is in a seniors home with pre-Alzheimer's. She is never going back to her own home and I know how long it is going to take to deal with this. It could be tomorrow or many years from now.

I forgot to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie.

I could spend a lot of time talking about that, but the idea is for a reassessment. The government put the rates down from 28% to 21% and over the next couple of years it is going to go down to 15%. We know about economic lags and that there has been enough stimulus with a broad range of programs, not just tax cuts so far but other stimuli, to create jobs, promote economic growth, and all the things that people argue tax cuts do.

We have done that but anything that happens today will not affect 2011 or maybe even 2012. We will not see the payback. The one thing we do know is that we can include the tax revenue in there but we will need to include all the other expenses. We are losing right off the bat in this catch-up. We are hoping, so it is a matter of hope.

Governments have the responsibility to make those decisions and we respect their authority to make those decisions. However, the one thing we should not respect is a government that refuses to provide the information necessary to Canadians, to parliamentarians and to the facts underlining the decisions it makes to take certain actions, such as the income tax cuts.

The finance committee, of which I am a member, asked for the five years of corporate profits leading up to 2015. That is the period over which we can make that assessment. We need to have that information before we have the tax cut plan in place. We already had the information up to the history, so if we get the rest of the story, we can see the information based upon which the government made the decision to cut corporate tax rates for the full five years.

The world changed, though, and those numbers may have changed. The projections change. Even the finance minister has often said that if we go past two years we are really guessing. However, governments still need to make decisions.

What happened when the finance committee asked for the five year projections. The government came back and said that it could not given them because it was a cabinet confidence. Yesterday we told the House that we could not get the information and that we needed to have it. This is actually a breech of the privileges of the House, that being our powers to call for persons, papers or records.

The government has not responded yet. I think it will spend a lot of time thinking about how to respond because it is not the first time it has ignored persons, papers or records and our rights. It happened in the ethics committee with regard to the access to information abuses of the government that were admitted to. In fact, people have been fired and are under investigation. The then House leader wrote that the power to call for persons, papers or records had never been exercised to give a parliamentary majority access to such records and the internal communication of a parliamentary minority, which basically says that the three opposition parties are abusing their privileges by asking the government or ordering the government to produce papers.

I asked for an opinion from the law clerk and I will read it into the record because it is important in terms of the integrity and accountability of the government. When I asked for the law clerk's position on this, he said, “Whenever a House committee adopts a resolution to require the production of documents, the resolution is always adopted by a vote of the majority of the members present. Thus, it has always been the case that the parliamentary majority can, by resolution, demand access to records of the government or a minister. Secondly, resolution of the production of documents by a government or a minister is not made against the minority present at the vote on the resolution, but rather is directed at the government or the minister, as the case may be”.

He basically said that he could see no evidence of the assertion of the House leader that this in fact was a matter of cabinet confidence. It is nonsense.

If the government is not prepared to provide parliamentarians or the Parliamentary Budget Officer with all the information he needs to advise Parliament on these things, how can we make informed decisions? The government has, by its silence and its refusal to provide the data backing up the corporate tax cuts, basically said that it will not do it, that opposition parties cannot be trusted, so tough on them. That is obscene.

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2011]

The member says I should apologize, Madam Speaker. This is exactly why we cannot expect--

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I want to say how sorry I am that you have had to admonish so many members today for their interruptions and for their comments against each other. It really is a bad reflection on all of us and it is unfortunate.

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, there is the issue of whether tax cuts will deliver any additional jobs at this point, considering the economic lags. There is another issue on the table and I will ask the member his views on it.

The member agrees that the measure of success of a country is not an economic measure, but rather a measure of the health and well-being of the people. The assessment today is that people are hurting. Health care costs are up, personal debt is up, et cetera. Maybe the timing of the tax cuts is the critical issue, not that tax cuts might be good or bad in certain circumstances. Right now we know one thing, and that is people are hurting.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments. He always adds to the debate, unlike the Conservatives, but that is another day.

The member mentioned that at committee the Liberals voted against NDP's proposed amendments for the tax sharing agreements and possibly the double taxation.

I rushed out to try to get the minutes of the meetings to see what the amendments were. For the record, I am advised that the amendments were unsatisfactory in their form to establish the requirements necessary. If we look at the act, even with regard to the side agreements on labour and on environment, they are quite comprehensive in terms of their content.

The only reason someone would vote against something the NDP wanted is if the solution was inoperative. I offer that for the hon. member in that there is still this concern. None of those agreements have ever appeared in any of the free trade agreements, so we do not even have a model on how they would be incorporated into a bill.

However, I can assure the member that we do support the establishment of double taxation agreements as well as tax information sharing agreements to deal with tax evasion.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me an opportunity to explain to members that tax havens are not illegal. Tax haven means that there is a tax regime or a jurisdiction where the tax rates are lower in that jurisdiction than they are in Canada. A company would establish operations in that other country and be able to do some of its business out of there and pay a lower rate of tax than in Canada.

The problem is not the tax haven. The problem is not reporting that income in Canada. We should understand that tax havens are not illegal and they are not bad. They help a lot of good companies to be better and bigger than they otherwise could be in a higher tax jurisdiction.

Tax avoidance is also not illegal. Tax avoidance is in fact necessary because people are entitled to pay the least amount of tax that they legally owe but not more. Tax evasion, however, is illegal, and that is when people do not pay any tax, do not report any income and decide to take care of themselves first. That is what we are going after. The OECD is concerned that there are far too many opportunities for companies to establish themselves in tax haven jurisdictions and to evade taxes. That is the problem and that is why it should be on the agenda of the government but it has not been and it has not explained why.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my comments yesterday and this morning, the issues with regard to tax havens, tax avoidance, information sharing agreements, et cetera, are not part of this bill and have not been part of any bilateral trade bill that Canada has entered into. On occasion there have been side agreements or other matters.

My point is that the government needs to recognize that these are important opportunities as we enter into trade relationships with other countries and that we must also address other mutual points of interest, such as tax evasion.

In answer to the member's question, trade is important for us to consider. I would have liked to have heard more from the government as to its justification and its affirmations about the benefits that will come out of this one. However, the government has not spoken. I do know, however, that the trade deal as it stands now is in itself and in isolation some benefit for Canada, particularly to the agricultural sector and possibly the engineering, construction and consulting areas.

I will be supporting the trade bill but I want to ensure that all hon. members realize that there are these other issues that should be on the table at the same time as we negotiate these deals and that we should consider more multilateral deals rather than dealing with the bilaterals because it is so important in many of these same regions of Panama.

I will be supporting the bill but I do share the member's concerns.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to complete my comments on Bill C-46, the free trade bill between Canada and Panama.

Just generally, I have had some concerns about bilateral trade deals that we have entered into. I have spoken in the past on the Colombia free trade deal. Issues at the time had to do with human rights abuses, displacing people in the cause of improving corporate opportunities, corruption of government and the judiciary, a whole host of issues that had very little to do with the benefits of bilateral trade.

In the case of Panama in Bill C-46, we do not have the same kinds of elements but we do have one that is extremely important to demonstrate that we cannot just look at trade and the benefits of trade in isolation. Our trade exchange with Panama now is very insignificant in the scheme of things, but the expansion of the Panama Canal brings some hope and promise for increased traffic through the canal and opportunities for businesses, particularly for Canada in the construction, engineering and consulting firms. Agriculture may also have some benefits.

The other area is taxation. The finance committee is now looking at tax havens and their use as instruments for tax evasion. This is a very serious problem. It is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. With regard to Panama, the committee heard by teleconference from a witness from the OECD, Mr. Owens, who confirmed to the committee that Panama was rated as in the grey scale. That is pretty well the worst concern one could have in terms of harbouring tax evaders and the secrecy that allows them to do it.

On Thursday, Mr. Donald Johnston, who was a former minister of finance for Canada in the early 1980s and a former secretary-general of the OECD, re-affirmed and confirmed Mr. Owens comments that Panama was one of the biggest problem areas in terms of promoting or at least facilitating evasion of taxes.

The current bill does not specifically incorporate any provisions to address the tax evasion problem, which is a very expensive problem for Canada. However, there are double taxation agreements in place with other countries to ensure that a Canadian, for instance, will not be taxed in one jurisdiction and also in Canada.

The other and probably equally important issue is the tax information sharing agreements. These agreements are the instruments that would allow us to obtain more information about those who have set up situations that would probably allow them to evade taxes in Canada. That is not part of this agreement. The point of my speech so far has been that, as we enter into trade agreements, we should exhaust every opportunity to establish a good faith relationship with that country so we can deal with some of our mutual problems.

I am concerned that government members have not been speaking to this bill, which is at report stage, because if a member of the government stands to speak to it they will be subject to questions by all other hon. members. They do not want that. They do not want to be held accountable and that concerns me and it should concern all Canadians.

Trade is an important issue but democracy is a more important issue.

[Federal Spending Power Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to offer some commentary on Bill C-507, An Act to amend the Financial Administration Act (federal spending power).

It is a very straightforward bill. It basically states:

...no payment shall be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund in respect of expenditures relating to any of the subjects listed in section 92 and subsection 92A(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867 that are under provincial jurisdiction.

That is unless the province gives the authority to do so. It basically says that the federal government should stay out of provincial jurisdictions and just give them the money and everything will be fine.

The bill requires the royal recommendation in the first place and, therefore, will not be coming to a vote. However, it does give members an opportunity to put on the record some of the thoughts that they have with regard to the importance of healthy federal-provincial relationships in Canada. There are split jurisdictions but there are some things we must work on together because there is no point in having 10 of something, or 12 if we include the territories, when it is possible to have it all come under one umbrella with a sharing of the cost. It is like economic efficiencies.

I will give an example of such an efficiency which might demonstrate why I feel that the bill is not appropriate. It has to do with the fact that Canada is the only industrialized country in the world that does not have a national public cord blood bank. I am sure most members of Parliament have read stories about how after a baby is born the blood can be removed from the cord and the placenta. It is about a cup of blood that is so enriched with stem cells and pluripotent cells that it can be of enormous benefit to the child that it belongs to should he or she develop health problems. This can be stored. Interestingly enough, though, that is a private system. There are private businesses. I know one of our colleagues is spending $100 a month to store the cord blood for his recently born child.

Other countries have found that, because of the costs involved, this is not a health service available to Canadians as a whole. However, having a public bank would allow people to store cord blood and then, through a registry system similar to the way we match blood types, commence matching for anything requiring compatibility to lessen the risk of rejection. This all has to do with stem cell research and therapy.

The fact that we are the only industrialized country that does not have one causes me to question why we would not do such a thing. We do have the Canadian Blood Services Agency which, in 2007, consulted with the provinces, research groups, transplant physicians and operators of public cord blood banks, and it concluded that Canada needed to establish a national public cord blood bank and that the time to begin was now. However, we have not done it and the reason we have not done it is because we are feuding about money.

I was at a breakfast this morning sponsored by the member for Etobicoke North who is very knowledgeable in this area. She told me that I needed to go to the breakfast because I needed to hear something. We are talking about $60 million to establish a national public cord blood bank. It would be of benefit to all Canadians and in fact would be linked into an international network. I have strayed too far away from the bill in terms of time so I will leave it at that.

This is a perfect example of federal and provincial co-operation. Even though health care delivery is a provincial responsibility, the bill says if we want to have a national bank, go ahead, but the provinces do not want it. The provinces want to be able to opt out and get compensation. With that kind of relationship between the provinces, the territories and the Government of Canada, good things do not and cannot happen.

That is a specific example of why the provinces want to have a national public cord blood bank, but they want to haggle over the cost, and that is why they are so far behind. They are probably about five years behind other countries around the world, because of haggling on the financial side. It is shameful. It is wrong and it should be changed. If I had my way, if I were the minister of finance, I would put $60 million in the budget to start a national public cord blood bank. That is the way it should be done because it is for the health and well-being of all Canadians.

We cannot vote on the bill because it requires a royal recommendation, but I have some other thoughts.

The federal-provincial fiscal arrangements in which the federal government exercises spending power in the areas of jurisdiction afforded to the provinces actually dates back to Confederation when the provinces were provided with grants from the federal government to compensate them for the loss of certain fiscal powers. Today these arrangements form an important and positive nexus in federal-provincial relations that help to shape the economic and social environment of the country. The most visible means by which the federal government exercises this power is through transfer payments, including the Canada health transfer and the Canada social transfer. However, various third party federal trust and federally funded institutions, including the Canadian Foundation for Innovation also act as vehicles for exercising federal spending powers in the provinces.

Some parties consider the manner of federal spending as a forcible encroachment by Ottawa on the provincial jurisdiction, which the bill does without consultations or consent. That has fuelled the desire for increased autonomy, especially in the case of the province of Quebec and, more recently, the province of Alberta. When things are good provincially, we fight for our province.

There comes a point at which there is no rational reason to argue it is me first before the country. That goes not only for provinces, it goes for our people. We are all better off when Canada is strong, when Canada is humming along. Unfortunately, the current government has had some difficulty managing a simple bank book. It did not understand that black was good and red was bad. We have too much red in the books, but if we get more red on the other side of the House, we will fix it and bring it back to the black.

The proposed change the Bloc is seeking in the bill is absent of any explicit authorization from the provincial government and is the main issue within the bill.

The Liberal Party opposes this motion for the same reasons that we opposed the Bloc opposition day motion on October 21, 2010. It was quite extensive, but again, incorporated the same elements of argument in this bill, and members may want to consult the Debates of October 21, 2010, to get more background and details as to the arguments made by the various parties.

Having said that, the bill is not votable. However, should it have been votable, the Liberals would vote against it and we oppose the principle of the bill.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to provide some commentary on Bill C-46, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Panama, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Panama and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Panama.

This afternoon we are debating the four report stage motions which were moved by a member from the NDP. These four motions are all motions to delete certain clauses in the bill.

The first motion is to eliminate clause 7, which outlines the purpose of the bill. I think the bill probably would still operate even if we did not have the narrative about what the purpose is because it is almost self-evident.

The second motion is to eliminate the clause which designates that the minister is the representative of Canada. That is almost self-evident as well, although it is probably good to have it in there.

The third motion is to eliminate clause 12, which lays out the minister's authorized activities in his role.

The last one is to eliminate the final clause, which is the coming into force clause, i.e., when this bill would become law.

The member for Windsor—Tecumseh had indicated that, in substance, putting all these together probably makes the bill somewhat sloppy or inoperative and basically would kill the bill.

Now we know exactly why we are spending all this time on this. It is probably why the Speaker has given so much latitude to members who are speaking because there is not very much we can say. These are constructive motions basically to scrap the bill. Some people would rather talk about the bill, which is really not what we are debating.

It is interesting that there has been so much irrelevance relative to what we are supposed to do, but probably some of the more interesting commentary that we have had with regard to bilateral free trade agreements in general. There have been a lot of very good issues that have come up. Some relate to double taxation issues, or tax-sharing information, or multilateral versus bilateral agreements, and some of those benefits and whether or not we should be doing trade at all with countries that do not respect human rights, with countries that do not respect the collective bargaining process.

We talked about the fact that in this particular case the trade activity between the two countries is very small. It is $90 million one way and $30 million the other. It is inconsequential. Yet, there have been eloquent speeches about what a great thing this is for agriculture and so forth. That is nonsense, quite frankly. There is not a great deal of trade.

However, what there is, is a future. There is the expansion of the Panama Canal which is going to be finished, I think, in 2012. It is going to open up new opportunities.

The most important aspect that has been raised is that there is a problem in Panama. It has been identified critically by the OECD, and it has to do with tax evasion through tax havens. Tax havens are fine. Tax avoidance is fine. Tax evasion is illegal.

We need good faith with our trading partners. They may not be part of a particular trade instrument that we have, such as a bill like this one, but they should be part of the conversation. I think that members have basically said we need to have this conversation about how we are going to conduct ourselves in terms of having ethical trade with other countries around the world. We need that conversation. I hope that it will start as a consequence of the input of hon. members today and that we understand that even in Canada there are people who do bad things. There are people who are money launderers, who break the laws, all the things we accuse these other countries of. Let us not be holier than thou. We have problems ourselves. We have to clean them up.

Mr. Speaker, I will finish this speech at the next sitting.