Paul Szabo

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely not. As a matter of fact it is the one that I concentrated on the most and asked the most questions on at the briefing. Yes, an environmental assessment can go forward at any time but this gives the authority to the federal government to exempt a project from an environmental assessment. In my view, fiscal expediency does not trump prudence in terms of protecting our environment.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think anybody is against corporate taxes. I think the member is talking about whether they are increased or decreased.

In the 16 years I have been here, finance minister Paul Martin, and even the current member who was a finance minister as well. always talked about taxes in the context of whether tax cuts were affordable. That is the key. All tax cuts are good in terms of corporations if they create jobs and improve the competitive environment. However, right now our rates are competitive and we need fiscal wiggle room to deal with the needs of the people. That is why the leader of the official opposition has said that the corporate tax cuts are not affordable to Canadians when we consider the consequences to the people in the trenches who do not have jobs, who do not have EI benefits any more and whose pensions are at risk.

We have serious issues to address and now is not the time to give corporate tax cuts and wish and hope that somehow we will get money back. The economic lags are such that it would be mismatched anyway, which means it makes no sense.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the member's comments show that he is not prepared to be accountable to Canadians about the facts.

We still have a national debt. When there is a $57 billion surplus in the EI fund, it is not spent on cabinet ministers' limousines. It offsets debt that is required to finance the nation. We have a national debt. It is not spent, gone and lost, otherwise the interest rates on the national debt would go up simply because it was not paid down.

There are many other priorities that have not been taken care of. I would say to the member that an aging society is one of the biggest challenges we have and I encourage him to take an interest in Canadians in need who are in the twilight of their lives.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-9, which is the budget implementation bill. I believe it was tabled last Monday and I had the opportunity to go to the briefing session by departmental officials.

Members will know that this act covers a broad range of changes in the laws of Canada, most of which are related to this year's budget, but a number of items were not matters of budget. In fact, it is fair to say that, to the extent that there are things that were not in the budget, this represents an omnibus bill.

At last count, there were over 30 different acts of Parliament that were impacted by this. It is very difficult to give a coherent speech about Bill C-9, so I thought I would try to concentrate on a couple things that are important to point out to hon. members.

I had taken copious notes. Interestingly enough, a copy of the bill was not available for the briefing and members were at a disadvantage in not being able to ask questions. I noted a matter that has been mentioned a couple of times here dealing with amendments to the Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, which would provide for a higher rate of charge on the export of certain softwood lumber products from the regions of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

This goes back to 2006. It is a tribunal decision and seeks to recover $68.26 million from those provinces. Once the moneys are recovered, then the additional tax will cease.

I saw an inequity there. In the case of Manitoba, the volume of business it did and the proportion of its contribution to the over-collection of the $68.26 million was very small. This is going to be applied to the first dollar and every dollar of softwood exports as we move forward.

The amount of $68 million-plus is going to be collected by whoever is selling when. If Manitoba actually sells nothing until the $68 million is collected, it will not pay any of the 10%, but that is not the way the real world works. The fact of the matter is that these provinces are in the softwood lumber business and they are selling as much as they can of their quality products for export purposes.

The inequity is that a province like Manitoba is being disproportionately penalized by being thrown into this. The tribunal made a mistake and it is not an appealable decision. This is unfortunate. The Government of Canada, in terms of making its representations to the tribunal, let these provinces down. It let them down. It knew the decision was not appealable. It must have known that this was not going to be equitable to, for instance, Manitoba, which in fact was responsible for a very small proportion of the $68 million.

I thought that was certainly worth noting. The government did not get the job done. That is what happened. It did not get the job done. It should have been more vigilant on that particular issue.

The next issue many of my constituents have talked about is the whole scenario of problems and complaints about debit and credit cards. In part 12 of Bill C-9, there are enactments on the payment card networks act, the purpose of which is to regulate national payment card networks and commercial practices for payment card network operators and, among other things, and this deals with debit cards as well as credit cards, it will deal with such things as disclosure, fees charged to obtain a card, for instance, merchant contracts, the cancellation of cards, any new fees, and a couple of other minor things.

One thing it does not include is anything that comes anywhere close to touching interest rates charged on these instruments, credit cards and debit cards. Canadians were asking for that.

The government has made all of these changes, but what it has not done is try to find out how some of these usuarist rates can be dealt with. Far too many people get caught in a credit crunch. Unfortunately they rely on credit cards for basic necessities. When people are on EI benefits and the money does not come in and they cannot pay the credit cards, all of a sudden they pay usuarist rates, which could go as low as 18% but as high as 29%.

This was a significant item. When we enter a recession, when we know we will be in a downturn for at least five years, and some say even eight years, this is the time to deal with it. If the security or the credit worthiness of people is not there, the banks have to take responsibility of identifying that rather than soaking people year after year and then having absolutely no relief whatsoever from their government when people are drawn in by companies. I thought that was very concerning.

I note also, and I think people will see this to be a positive, that part 17 would amend the Bank Act and other related statutes to provide a framework for enabling credit unions to incorporate and continue as banks. This is a good thing. When I was on the finance committee and we dealt with bank mergers and the like, the big point was we needed more competition in the banking sector. Credit unions were offered this opportunity to step up, and it has finally happened. Credit unions will actually start to have a national presence in our country, and that is a positive.

There is another matter that caught to my attention. Part 20 amends the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. There are certain process requirements, comprehensive studies and the like. What I have found is it amends the act to provide in the legislation rather than by regulations that an environmental assessment is not required for certain federally-funded infrastructure projects. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is not applicable.

Since when did protection of the environment of Canada become an option? We have a federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to protect our environment. Federal infrastructure projects have no special status. There can be problems. I am sorry if some projects cannot have an environmental assessment and still get done within a government's time frame.

When we started this program, this whole thing about getting infrastructure projects, the government always talked about shovel ready. To most people that would mean these are projects that are well advanced and ready to go and that could retain existing jobs and create new jobs. What we do not need is “Let's see if we can hunt around for a contractor. Let's see if we can do this thing. Let's get the things approved through our city councils”. That is not shovel ready.

The government has seriously misled Canadians by suggesting that somehow the infrastructure program would be the solution because it would have shovel ready. The only thing that was shovel ready was the words coming out of Conservatives mouths. That was the problem.

It is awful when we consider that the last fiscal year and this fiscal year about $3.5 billion of infrastructure approved funding lapsed. It did not get out. I know why? The government had already made the decisions that put us on a track heading into a recession. In fact, Canada was in a recession even before the global economic troubles occurred. That is why money lapsed, so the deficit the government would show would be lower than it otherwise would be. It is window dressing.

Mark my words, we are going to have the same thing again. This money may have been put on the table for stimulus, but I would be prepared to say right now that a lot of that money will in fact lapse because there are some technical problems.

I have seen so many projects and municipalities come forward and say that they could not do them. I hope the government understands that if these projects have all this work and if they do not go forward, because of some timing or whatever, we have lost the opportunity to have jobs. About a half million Canadians will lose their employment insurance benefits before we know it. This is a recipe for very significant problems for Canada.

It is worth noting the Brian Mulroney governments, which ended in 1993. In the last Mulroney government, the employment insurance fund was operating at a deficit. More claims were made against employment insurance than premiums being collected, to the tune of about $12 billion. The auditor general said that the government had a separate bank account, just like the government wants to set up now in this new EI corporation. All the premiums went in and the benefits came out. It said that over time it would balance it.

Look at our history. Sometimes EI funds do not balance themselves. The government is the only one that will be able to fund it. Therefore, having a separate bank account simply does not cut it, but it serves a purpose. The purpose is that in Bill C-9, the government would eliminate the record keeping on $57 billion of surplus that was collected from employers and employees over time.

I know why it is there. It is there because Canada did not enter a recession in the early 2000s like the United States. We had 10 years. Once the budget was balanced after the Mulroney government passed down a $42 billion deficit, it took until 1997 to balance the books and then we had 10 good years of surplus. We were able to reinvest in our health care system, in our public service, which serves Canadians so well, in the social network and the transfers to the provinces for all the needs of Canadians, especially for those who are unable to help themselves. That is why it is there.

However, in Bill C-9, under part 24, would amend the Employment Insurance Act to establish, in the accounts of Canada, an account known as the employment insurance operating account. The government will close the employment insurance account. It is hard to follow that, but this account, which is a notional account, will be gone. The responsibilities attached to that account will also be wiped out.

Therefore, during the Mulroney years, when the auditor general found out that the government was operating a deficit year after year, the auditor general said that it was a government program and that the operation of a government program must be included in the determination of the surplus or deficit of a government in each of its fiscal years, which it was not. If it was a balance, it would have no impact. If it was operating at a deficit, the government accounts would be misleading Canadians to the tune of $12 billion.

The auditor general ordered the Government of Canada, under Brian Mulroney, to discontinue the use of that account and that the moneys would be accounted for as part of the consolidated revenue fund, in other words, as part of the determination of the government's annual surplus or deficit.

Even though the physical dollars were not in a separate bank account, the government kept track of money in and money out. When we had a situation where we had 10 years of not going into recession, in each of those years there was a reduction in the employment insurance premiums. The rules associated with the employment insurance account were that if there was a surplus, the government had to keep two years on hand, which was about $24 billion on hand to take care of a recession. That was the reserve. However, anything over that the government had two choices. One was to reduce premiums until it got back down to the $24 billion reserve level or introduce new programs so the cost of providing benefits would go up and that would also help the notional surplus to go down.

I raise this because this makes sense to me. The government has now set up an account, where it has put $2 billion into a management group. Starting from January 1, 2009, I believe, all premium dollars are to be dedicated to this new account, all benefits coming out of it. While we are in a recession, there are more payouts than there are premiums coming in. It is operating at a deficit now.

However, the Auditor General told me, when I asked her directly, notwithstanding the government is attempting, again, to hide the true impacts of this recession on Canada and Canadians, that the deficit included in this new employment insurance account would be included in the determination of a surplus or a deficit for the Government of Canada, on an annual basis. Therefore, it will not able to hide it.

However, what the government cannot say, and even the finance minister said it today, is that it was somehow the Liberals because they built up this surplus. The accumulation of a surplus meant that we could not reduce the premiums or introduce new employment insurance benefits fast enough because we had the highest employment rates in 30 years, or the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years, however one wants to look at it. When we have that, we cannot adjust that quickly. Therefore, it did go up $57 billion of additional funds more than was necessary to fund that program if it were on a stand-alone basis operated by some third party. That is the fact. However, with Bill C-9, the government has said that it will not be responsible for the $57 billion. It is just going to keep it.

The government says that the Liberals stole it. If the Auditor General says we have to include it in our consolidated revenue fund, it is pretty straightforward that we will not take the surplus and leave it sit in some bank account. We will pay down debt and reduce the debt charges.

However, the EI account was also, in addition to keeping the premiums surplus there, crediting interest on an annual basis. Much of that $57 billion is interest earned on the $57 billion.

The government cannot say that anybody else is responsible for taking away from employees and employers the accumulated equity they had in the EI plan. Bill C-9 would take away that responsibility. It would take away the responsibility to give back that money by reduced premiums or improved EI benefits. The government has misled Canadians on that basis.

I want to talk about the idea of crime about which the previous speaker spoke.

I feel so strongly that Canadians should be taken care of. I once heard a line something to the effect that the measure of success of a country is not so much an economic measure as it is a measure of the health and well-being of its people.

We are in a period now where many Canadians are in jeopardy. They are going to make mistakes. As I said in a earlier question, our experience in Canada is that when the unemployment rate goes up, the crime rate goes up. Violent crime tracks it almost identically. Property crime goes even beyond that.

Therefore, it is easy to make the argument that if we do not take care of the economy with jobs and innovation and take care of the people's needs, if we say, “Let's balance the books first and then we'll take care of the problems later,” we are saying it is okay that crime goes up. Yet the government says, no, we have to be tough on crime.

If the government wants to be tough on crime, it had better be effective on the economy and jobs and innovation. Those are the kinds of things we have to do. Everything in our economy and in our social circumstance in Canada is inextricably linked. We just cannot do one thing at the expense of another. We have to address the full needs of Canadians at all times. Accordingly the government has not done the job.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her passion. I know that she is very concerned about what is happening on the crime issue. I disagree with the member who asked the question.

I have an article from December 2008, which shows very clearly that crime rates are inextricably linked to economic performance. It means that if we look at the unemployment rate and track it, violent crime goes up almost as much, but property crime is even more of an increase than the increase in unemployment.

What it says to me is that when people get desperate, when EI benefits run out, when they do not know how to pay the next bill, sometimes they make mistakes.

Much of the legislation that the Conservative government has brought forward shows the Conservatives want to punish everybody, throw them all in jail and throw away the key. In fact, we should be managing the economy better, then there will be less crime. That is a perfect crime prevention example.

I want to thank the member for raising it. I will give her an opportunity to comment.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her interventions, particularly on First Nations University.

The budget does not really address jobs, veterans, families, climate change, culture, clean energy and first nations to name a few. The list goes on and on.

The member will also know that the government had promised to create 190,000 new jobs, but now it is some 135,000. At the bottom of the recession, we are looking at over 300,000 people having lost their jobs since October 2008.

I would ask the member whether or not she believes that the government in fact put us into a recession even before the global economic recession, and put itself in a position where it cannot address the priorities of this nation.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, March 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I did attend the briefing yesterday.

I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary a question. We have virtually an omnibus bill, which has many items that are not in the budget. One of the things we did not see any language on or hear about last night was the new imposition of the 31.5% tax on income trusts.

Could the parliamentary secretary explain to the House and all Canadians what changes have been made to the Income Tax Act to give effect to that tax and when did they happen?

[Committees of the House, March 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

In accordance with its order of reference of Wednesday, March 3, 2010, the committee has considered vote 40 under Justice in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011, and reports the same, less the amounts in the interim supply.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, a newspaper article out of Colombia on March 4 had the headline “Colombia to investigate 100 judges for corruption”. It states:

Colombian Inspector General...announced Thursday that corruption has infiltrated the government's judicial branch, with over 100 Colombian judges to be investigated for corrupt practices.

For me, that has raised the question of not just whether there are human rights abuses because some people there are murdering labour leaders and others, but whether the system has been very slow to respond. This report is from this month, indicating corruption within the judiciary exists. The prospect of any improvements cannot happen unless the government and the judiciary themselves are shown to be onside and working in the right direction.

Would the member agree that this is not only a matter of whether people are committing homicides against labour unionists, but whether the government has demonstrated that it cares?

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, one of my constituents expressed the sentiments of a number of the people who have written to me when he stated, “There is no evidence suggesting that Canadian investments in Colombia will contribute to improving human rights”. This assumption, this hope, this belief seems to be permeating the discussion about whether there is any evidence that the existence of a trade agreement necessarily would have some improvements in terms of the human rights situation.

I share the member's concern about the amendment that is being proposed from the standpoint that I am not quite sure whether a report of both governments to their own parliaments on the trade deal's impact on human rights will be substantive or significant enough to sway the history and the facts of what the current situation is in Colombia, or would exist.

The marginal effects of a trade deal may have some impact, but the real question, to me, and I wonder if the member would comment, seems to be what is the current and ongoing position of human rights abuses in Colombia.