Paul Szabo

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I was here to hear the member's speech, and I know that he has some concerns about the human rights aspects. In fact, at one point in his speech he said that our trade agreements should have one common element; that is, that there is this respect for human rights.

The dimensions of trade with Colombia are not major. However, I think that the issue is, at what point in time does the criteria of human rights kick in and supercede the benefits of a trade agreement?

Second, I would be interested in the member's comments with regard to whether or not entering into a trade agreement would be premature, given the reconsiderations by countries such as the U.S. and the U.K.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the last time this bill was before us, the issue of an independent human rights assessment already had been dealt with at committee. In fact, the committee had reported back to the House that such an assessment should be done prior to proceeding with this bill. I understand that even Amnesty International had been reluctant to come forward to conduct such an independent assessment.

Does the member believe such an assessment would be valuable? Does he believe it would change the understanding of the House with regard to current human rights conditions in Colombia?

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am reading from the G8 health report from Italy. Under maternal health, it does confirm that due to complications associated with childbearing, a women dies every minute, and the chance of dying during childbearing and delivery complications amounts to 1 in 16 in developing countries compared with 1 in 2,800 in developed countries.

It has been suggested in some of the speeches that 30% of this problem could be dealt with by family planning. It states here that a woman dies every minute. What percentage of all of those maternal deaths could be prevented by contraception or abortion?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his passionate speech about the priorities for Quebec, which is why he is here, to represent the people of his riding.

I know how important certain industries are, the forestry for one but also aerospace. The government cut $148 million from Canada's research councils in the last budget and now it is trying to take credit for investing only $32 million back. This tells me something about the government's character.

It is also cancelling the ecoEnergy program for renewable power and has refused to let the Canada Space Agency spend $160 million approved in spending over the past two years but it wants to take credit for putting $23 million back in.

If we add these things up, all of a sudden it says that maybe the government is not being straight and is not being honest about what it is prepared to do.

The other example is that the government's undertaking under climate change is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not by 20% by 2020 as it had promised, but now it is down to 17% by 2020 at a time when greenhouse gas emissions are going up. I hope the member has some comments.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. The government simply cannot be trusted to do what it says.

Let us consider the situation with Afghan detainee documents. It is interesting. The Conservatives attacked Richard Colvin but why would they attack him? Is that something somebody would say if they were trying to hide something? When the parliamentarians raised concern, they were accused of being unpatriotic. Does that mean we have to ignore our international obligations in order to be patriotic? It does not make sense. When the documents were requested by Parliament, the government hired a former judge to do a study. Is this not a case of justice delayed is justice denied?

Then last week, the Conservatives tried to rationalize that the Geneva conventions did not apply because we were not at war in Afghanistan. Is that in fact not admitting that torture may have happened therefore putting our military at risk?

I cannot believe that Canadians do not see through all this. This is as case of, “We can say whatever I want. We are the government and all we have to do is talk about our economic action plan”. However, when we look at the details there is no question in my mind that honesty and integrity are not part of the vocabulary of the Conservative government.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, if the member wants to know, the bill he is talking about is not votable and will never be coming before the House. I do not know why he is asking a question about it.

Let me go on with the list: abandoning its promise of a public appointments commissioner after its watchdog, Mr. Gwyn Morgan was rejected by Parliament; firing Canadian Wheat Board president Adrian Measner to undermine its independence; trying to amend Canada's Constitution by putting term limits on Senate appointments; launching a lawsuit to hush up the Cadman affair; refusing to disclose time, date and location of cabinet meetings; and requiring members of the media to be on a pre-approved list before they can even ask questions.

That is not accountability. That is a government that is totally unaccountable.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 22nd, 2010]

The member wants to argue. There is an existing deal which has some ratcheting up, but it did not anticipate this recession. If the member wants to argue that it did, then why did the government say it would balance the budget? It cannot have it both ways. Either the recession was anticipated or it was not.

If we want to look at trust issues, Parliament was shut down twice to get out of hot water. Nuclear whistleblower, Linda Keen, was fired. The government refused to contract the RCMP public complaints commissioner after he was critical of the government. It shut down the Military Police Complaints Commission. It used a dirty tricks manual to make the Parliament dysfunctional. It withheld information from the elections commissioner. It broke its own fixed election date law. It refused to provide adequate funding to an independent parliamentary budget officer. It refused to provide unredacted documents to the Afghan detainee committee. It boycotted the Afghanistan committee by refusing to show up. It attacked public servant Richard Colvin for doing his public duty. It broke its election promises to never to run a deficit, to only appoint select senators, to never raise taxes and to increase the accountability of government, all of which was not done. The government tried to eliminate political party financing in 2008. We had prorogation and all kinds of things. It scrapped the court challenges program. I have a further list.

When we think about it, a throne speech has to be based on a foundation of accountability, trust and integrity. It is supposed to give hope to Canadians. I do not understand how Canadians can get hope from this throne speech and the budget that followed it when the government still does not know how to tell the truth.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 22nd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the throne speech is a document which lays out in broad strokes the government's plan for the coming session.

Most people would take it in the context of what the government has done and whether it can be trusted to follow through on what it said it would. It is a matter of character. It is a matter of honesty and integrity. When we talk about what the government is presenting for the future, we need to ask questions about its honesty and integrity.

Page 5 of the throne speech says, “Balancing the nation's books will not come at the expense of pensioners...or by raising taxes on hard-working Canadians”. Canadians are encouraged to hear that, except when they look at the details.

For example, employment insurance premiums are going up 9%. Over the five year period in the budget that was presented, that represents an increase of about $13 billion, which will come out of taxpayer pockets. That will cost an additional 200,000 jobs because of the fact that employers will have to pay 1.4% times that premium. It will turn out to be something like $21 billion in total. Jobs are going to be lost.

The government's own numbers indicate that the unemployment rate will go up from 8.2% to 8.5%. Yet the previous questioner said that the government had created a lot of jobs. We lost 300,000 jobs and we will lose another 200,000. If we have recovered 135,000 that is fine, but a lot of jobs will not come back. That is why we should be investing in a knowledge-based economy and in green technologies, et cetera.

The government promised that it would deliver a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Where is it now? By 2020, greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by 17%. All of that with the stroke of a pen. At the same time, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada are rising. Can we trust the government? I guess the facts speak for themselves.

The government said that it would not raise taxes. In the first year of the budget, income trusts will attract a 31.5% punitive tax, which is a major tax. At the time the tax was announced, $35 billion of the value of the investments that mostly seniors had was wiped out.

Income trusts are vehicles for people who do not have pension plans. They are instruments that allow people to have a regular cash flow just like a pension plan. This is very significant.

No where in the throne speech or in the budget will we find any information about income trusts. We will not find out how much revenue the government expects to collect from people. The government does not want to admit, in a detailed line item, how much in additional revenue will come from taxing income trust holders.

Twenty-five per cent of income trust holders have converted to another ownership, and most of it is offshore ownership. This is costing the government $1.5 billion a year in lost revenue. When we look at the projections for the five year deficit rollout, $1.5 billion each and every year in additional revenue would go a long way, a very significant way.

Come January 1, 75% of those income trust holders will have to decide whether to change their fashion as well. This goes to the point about whether we are looking for fairness and equity from the government in terms of seniors. This goes again to a question of credibility and trust.

Then the income trust holders came out with the Marshall savings plan. They would be allowed to transfer their cash flow out of their RRSPs into this Marshall savings plan account. I cannot go into all of the details, but it is on the web under Marshall savings plan. It is projected that there could be an addition $6 billion annually contributed to the coffers of the government if the government would seek a plan of fairness and equity whereby they could retain their income trust and pay their taxes on an “as-you-go” basis.

This was not even considered. It was totally dismissed. I know a number of members in this place pleaded with the finance minister to look carefully at the Marshall savings plan.

The air travellers security charge is another increase. How does that square with the government statement that it would not raise taxes on hard-working Canadians? It does not. It goes to credibility.

In looking at this, I think about things such as for a two-earner family, EI premiums will go up $1,264. We have to consider that ordinary Canadians are getting hit significantly. Why would the government say that it will not balance the books on the backs of hard-working Canadians? It is just not true. It is not being honest. Even the government's own numbers show it is not, but it has not said it. It forgot all about the income trust problem.

The last time we had a recession, other things happened. The crime rate went up, and it tracked the unemployment rate very significantly. It was almost bang-on in terms of violent crime as well as property crime. Similarly, the demands on the health care system increased substantially as well as on social services.

The reason that happens is because we are faced with a situation where about 500,000 Canadians will have their EI benefits lapse. They will start to wonder where they will get the money to pay the bills and how they will survive. They will not have EI benefits and there are no jobs for them. It creates health problems. The stress induces health problems. It induces the need for social services and for welfare.

When we consider the increasing crime rate, which requires more policing, the health care system and the social services system, all those areas are delivered by the provinces and territories. How much money was in the budget to increase the transfers to the provinces to help Canadians? There was none, no new money.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 22nd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the member quite rightly reminded the House of the record of the government in terms of criminal legislation and the history it had about recycling bills, never following through and delaying. We have not even seen in this session bills come up.

However, she did raise the issue again of gang violence. I know it has been a long-standing problem that Quebec wants to have addressed.

It would be helpful if the member would comment further on the need for the government to put forward effectively legislation to deal with matters like gang violence as well as to get on with a legislative program, which it has heretofore ceased to bring before the House.

[Committees of the House, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third 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 45c under Justice and vote 20c under Parliament in supplementary estimates (C) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010, and reports the same.