Paul Szabo

[Petitions, May 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I wish to present a petition which has been circulating across Canada. The petition has been signed by a number of petitioners from the Calgary, Alberta area.

The petitioners draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for pre-school children is an honourable profession that has not been recognized for its value to our society.

They also state that the Income Tax Act discriminates against families that make the choice to provide care in the home for pre-school children, the disabled, the chronically ill and the aged.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to pursue initiatives to eliminate tax discrimination against families that decide to provide care in the home for pre-school children, the disabled, the chronically ill and the aged.

[Supply, May 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I will comment on a couple of matters.

With respect to the ethics counsellor, the Prime Minister made a clear statement before the House that regardless of

any positions out there the one person in Canada who is responsible for the integrity of the government is the Prime Minister. That is our ethics counsellor and that is the person to whom Canadians should look. We have an ethics counsellor-that was an undertaking in the red book-whom the Prime Minister, as the member knows well, consults.

The member commented on the matter of gun control and the removal of members from the committee. The member will well know that the bill at that time was only at second reading. The purpose of the vote was to move that important bill to committee. There has been much more consultation, much more work, much more deliberation and much more debate. Amendments are forthcoming, as the member also well knows.

When a position comes forth from a government it is important that government policy be supported by its members. That is what was asked but it was not forthcoming. I believe the three members acknowledged that they had not given the process the full opportunity and that it was not really necessary for them to stop debate at that point and make a decision. There was more to be said on behalf of all Canadians.

The essence of the comments of the member concerned the credibility of the government and the credibility of members of Parliament. I read with some concern reports of the Reform Party's immigration critic who travelled to the U.S. capital on taxpayers dollars to attend a rally for presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. He was there and shared a platform with people who were saying that immigrants should be controlled, that immigrants were creating violent crime, reducing the standards of education and murdering their children. Here was a Reform member of Parliament, a critic of the party, sharing a platform before the public. What would the member say about the credibility of MPs when things like that go on?

I raise the example of the hon. member who just spoke. In the House he recommended that members of Parliament should receive $144,000 a year. Now he is back pedalling. If the member is concerned about the credibility of members with regard to their voting record, does he not think that the public expects the actions and the words of members to reflect the views and the interests of all Canadians?

I point out to the member that he has made calculations that would effectively double tax free expense allowances and somehow end up with a figure of $120,000. I understand the mechanics. The member has failed to recognize that if expense reimbursements on a pre tax basis are put in salaries those expenses will also be deductible for tax purposes. Therefore on the tax return the gross salary equivalent which the member has said is $120,000 in fact is only $92,000.

The member's credibility on matters of importance such as tax matters is also in question. The member should try to explain himself in terms of credibility.

[Petitions, May 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I wish to present a petition that has been circulating across Canada.

This particular petition has been signed by a number of petitioners from the Lethbridge, Alberta area. The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for preschool children is an honourable profession which has not been recognized for its value to our society.

They also state that the Income Tax Act discriminates against families that make the choice to provide care in the home to preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill and the aged.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to pursue initiatives to eliminate tax discrimination against families that decide to provide care in the home for preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill and the aged.

[Immigration, May 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Reform Party and particularly its immigration critic again demonstrated that they have succumbed to the radical views of the extreme right in the United States.

The Reform critic finally bared his soul, not in the House, not in Canada, but at a right wing rally on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. He finally showed his true colours by sharing a platform with those who are promoting controls against immigrants, who link immigrants to violent crimes, and who accuse immigrants of murdering our children. In the Reform Party critic's comments he linked immigrants to violent crime, which he said is the number one concern of Canadians and Americans.

The Reform Party's persistent intolerance brings shame not only to this House but to all of Canada. The Reform Party does not speak on behalf of Canada, and Canadians will make sure that they never will.

[Petitions, May 8th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 36. I wish to present a petition signed by a number of petitioners from my riding of Mississauga South.

The petitioners draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for preschool children is an honourable profession which has not been recognized for its value to our society.

They also state the Income Tax Act discriminates against families that make the choice to provide care in the home for preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to pursue initiatives to eliminate tax discrimination against families that do decide to provide care in the home for preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

[Bill C-41, May 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, according to the 1993 violence against women survey by Statistics Canada, 29 per cent of women, or 2.7 million women, who have ever been married or lived in a common law relationship have been physically or sexually assaulted by their partners. Forty-four per cent of the cases involved a weapon and 45 per cent resulted in physical injury.

We are all painfully aware of the seriousness of the problem and the negative consequences not only to those involved but to society as a whole. In fact we may have been so overwhelmed by the tragic statistics and pleas for help over so many years that I fear we may have become desensitized to the severity of the problem.

I call to the attention of the House Motion No. 15 to Bill C-41, which would assist in addressing this most serious problem. I ask all members to seriously consider this motion as our opportunity to send a clear and tough message to spouse abusers.

[Income Tax Act, May 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent quite a bit of time talking about the flat tax approach. In my experience as a chartered accountant, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The member's approach and what he has been proposing to the House time and time again is overly simplistic and unfair. He seems to think that if one takes a tax return and shrinks it down to one piece of paper that somehow helps the situation. The method of reporting is only bookkeeping and paperwork. It does not impact the amount of taxes collected.

The member will know that if Canadians have medical expenses they have to provide an itemization of the expenses for deductibility. If they have charitable donations, and many Canadians have a lot of charitable donations, they have to be itemized. Nowhere on his proposed form is their room for detailing eligible expenses.

The member will know that unincorporated businesses with sole proprietors must have a set of books and must report the detail from those books as to various sources of revenue and legitimate deductions against business income on their personal tax return.

Similarly rental properties, which many Canadians have as investments for the future, must also have a set of books and must report in some detail so that revenue is properly accounted for and eligible rental property expenses are claimed.

I heard a contradiction in the member's speech. In the first part he insinuated that the rich were not paying their fair share. In the conclusion of his statement he argued that the wealthy and the rich were paying their fair share.

The member is quite right in the latter case. The top 10 per cent of taxpayers in Canada make $50,000 a year or more. They pay 37 per cent of all taxes in Canada. What is more important is that they also pay 42 per cent of all charitable donations. If the tax burden on Canadians who are fortunate enough to earn higher incomes is increased, the first thing to suffer will be their level of contributions to charitable donations, which will definitely hurt all Canadians.

The flat tax notion has to be dealt with here and now. If the member thinks that the U.S. has the answers to all Canadian problems, he is absolutely wrong. Let us give one very important example considering that last night in the House the member stood and said that members of Parliament should be paid a salary of $12,000 a month or $144,000 a year, an $80,000 salary increase. He is saying in the House that they will make things better. That is not the way to do it.

Under his flat tax system a member of Parliament who makes $64,400 a year pays income tax at 37 per cent on his average marginal rate. That equates to some $24,000 a year. Under his system of a flat tax with no deductions of 30 per cent, a member of Parliament would only pay $18,000 of taxes or a reduction in taxes of $6,000.

Persons making $25,000 a year pay $6,000 today. Under his system they would pay $7,500 a year, a $1,500 increase to a low income Canadian. Could the member explain why his flat tax actually hurts poor Canadians?

[Petitions, May 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I wish to present a petition from the Calgary, Alberta, area of Canada, which is signed by a number of petitioners.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for pre-school children is an honourable profession, which has not been recognized for its value to our society. They also state that the Income Tax Act discriminates against families who make the choice to provide care in the home to pre-school children, the disabled, the chronically ill and the aged.

The petitioners therefore pray and call upon Parliament to pursue initiatives to eliminate tax discrimination against families who decide to provide care in the home for pre-school children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

[Underground Economy, May 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on May 17 this House will debate a motion which recommends that we develop and pursue new initiatives to deal with the serious problems related to the underground economy. While the size of the underground economy is not certain, most agree that it is significant enough that we should pursue all reasonable steps to break the back of the underground economy.

My question is for the Minister of National Revenue. Given the broad concern that many Canadians have about the preva-

lence of the underground economy, would the minister advise the House of what commitments the government has taken to address the serious problem of the underground economy?

[Girl Guides, May 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, today I had the pleasure of welcoming the 223rd Girl Guides of Mississauga to the House of Commons. I also had the great honour to present heritage badges to 18 of these special young ladies who had fulfilled the requirements, namely about their own heritage and about the natural and cultural heritage of Canada.

On this very special occasion I would like to publicly congratulate the honourees on their wonderful achievements.

I would also like to pay special tribute to the Girl Guides and their volunteer group leaders all across Canada for their very special contribution to their communities and to Canada which, as the Prime Minister has said so often, is a proud, generous, prosperous and tolerant nation, the best country in the world.