Peggy Nash

[Ethics, May 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, again, no answer.

Yesterday, on CBC's Power & Politics, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment said:

The prime minister himself [came out and] expressed deep regret for appointing Mike Duffy.

However, he has not said so publicly.

Would the government confirm that this is the view of the Prime Minister?

[Ethics, May 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, on May 17, after learning of the $90,000 payment to Mike Duffy, the Prime Minister spokesperson said:

The prime minister has full confidence in Mr. Wright and Mr. Wright is staying on.

Why did the Prime Minister change his mind?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the record in the House. I think the hon. member opposite may have misspoken when she talked about consultation.

We heard from witnesses at the industry committee, government officials, in fact. There was no consultation on the changes to the Investment Canada Act. We heard from crown corporations that there was no consultation around changes to their labour relations. We heard from credit unions that there was no consultation. They said very clearly at the committee that no one had talked to them about very significant changes that will be affecting credit unions across the country.

I think what happens, sadly, is that a few members opposite get into phone booths with people who talk and think like them, but they do not get out and listen to the rest of Canadians or do proper consultation.

I would like the member to correct the record.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 31st, 2013]

moved:

Motion No. 16

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 125.

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 133.

Motion No. 18

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 134.

Motion No. 19

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 135.

Motion No. 20

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 136.

Motion No. 24

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 137.

Motion No. 26

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 143.

Motion No. 27

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 144.

Motion No. 29

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 147.

Motion No. 30

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 148.

Motion No. 31

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 149.

Motion No. 32

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 150.

Motion No. 33

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 151.

Motion No. 34

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 152.

Motion No. 35

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 153.

Motion No. 36

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 154.

Motion No. 37

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 162.

Motion No. 38

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 167.

Motion No. 39

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 168.

Motion No. 40

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 169.

Motion No. 41

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 170.

Motion No. 42

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 171.

Motion No. 43

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 172.

Motion No. 47

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 200.

Motion No. 48

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 201.

Motion No. 49

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 202.

Motion No. 50

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 203.

Motion No. 51

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 204.

Motion No. 52

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 205.

Motion No. 53

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 206.

Motion No. 54

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 207.

Motion No. 55

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 208.

Motion No. 56

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 209.

Motion No. 57

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 210.

Motion No. 58

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 211.

Motion No. 59

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 212.

Motion No. 60

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 213.

Motion No. 61

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 214.

Motion No. 62

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 215.

Motion No. 63

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 216.

Motion No. 64

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 217.

Motion No. 65

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 218.

Motion No. 66

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 219.

Motion No. 67

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 220.

Motion No. 68

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 221.

Motion No. 69

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 222.

Motion No. 70

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 223.

Motion No. 71

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 224.

Motion No. 72

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 225.

Motion No. 73

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 228.

Motion No. 74

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 229.

Motion No. 78

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 230.

Motion No. 79

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 231.

Motion No. 80

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 232.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 31st, 2013]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 1.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 12.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 15.

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 104.

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 105.

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 106.

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 107.

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 108.

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-60 be amended by deleting Clause 109.

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, May 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, after almost 20 years of dealing with the frustrations and tremendous power imbalance, I would call it, between the power of the railways to determine the level of service they will offer and the shippers who are desperate to get their products shipped within Canada, out of the country or perhaps to the U.S., certainly any step forward is better than nothing. I agree with that.

However, let me give one example of a shortfall. We have greater transborder trade and exchange with the U.S. than between any other two countries in the world, yet shipments from Canada to the U.S. are not covered by the legislation. It is another area where there is a shortfall. Does that mean this bill does nothing? No, of course not. It is a step forward, but it is a missed opportunity. It is not even half a loaf. It is a couple of slices of bread when perhaps we could have had the whole loaf. That is the point.

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, May 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, yes, of course, shippers across the country will want some progress. One step forward is better than nothing, especially after almost 20 years.

The hon. member knows full well that there was still tremendous frustration that the bill did not go further. For example, the penalties in the service agreements are very limited, a maximum of $100,000, and they do not compensate the shippers. The penalties go to the federal government. It can be costly to fight this arbitration process. There was concern about how all that would work. The arbitration process only applies in very limited situations and only to future agreements, not to existing ones.

There are still real problems, but, as the member heard me say from the outset, we will support the bill.

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, May 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. I also want to thank my colleague from Trinity—Spadina for her work as our transportation critic, for her tireless work with a community that is invested in seeing improvements to the Transportation Act and for her efforts to improve the bill.

Bill C-52 would amend the Canada Transportation Act. It is a bill that is long overdue.

Rail transportation is the backbone of the Canadian economy. It is in the DNA of our history, and it is something that touches a huge part of our economy. More than 70% of all surface goods in Canada are shipped by rail. We are a vast country and a country that is open to the world. It is very export oriented, and having good transportation networks is absolutely fundamental.

Many of us are familiar with the railway industry. I know that in my family, my grandfather, my husband and my mother all worked in the railway sector. It is part of our country, part of our history and part of our current economy. It touches so many Canadians.

What we have been finding through the study on the bill and leading up to the bill is that 80% of service commitments for agricultural rail customers, which means that they deal with food, feed and farm materials, are not met by the railway companies. There are serious delays, insufficient numbers of rail cars, et cetera. A rail freight service review found that 80% of shippers were not satisfied with the service they received.

What is the root of the problem? One would think that after a couple of centuries, we would be getting our rail service right, but sometimes when governments rush to fix one problem, they create other problems. Sometimes when governments have ideological blinders on, they are wilfully blind to the problems they are creating.

In 1995, the Liberals were in a rush to show that they were jumping on board the privatization bandwagon. They wanted to prove to the world that they could privatize with the best of them. One of the companies they rushed to privatize was CN. They privatized the company, CN. They privatized the tracks. What they forgot to do was put in any safeguards for Canadians, safeguards for shippers and safeguards for our passenger rail service in terms of access to the railway tracks. They basically turned it over to the private sector.

CN is doing very well. It made a profit of $2.7 billion. Bravo. It is doing well. It was just announced this week that the CEO made a salary of $48 million. I am sure he worked hard for every single penny of it.

The trouble is that these ideological decisions create problems. It was the Liberals in 1995 that unleashed this, and frankly, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives after them, for almost 20 years, have done anything to fix the problems until this bill. It is with insufficient measures that they are trying to address the problems.

Let me say up front that this is a bill we will be supporting at report stage and third reading, but it is a weak bill. It is a bill that does not do the job Canadians really need it to do.

The bill would give rail freight customers or shippers the right to service agreements with rail companies. It is shocking that they have not had this before now, especially with the two majors, CN and CP. It also puts in place an arbitration process, led by the Canadian Transportation Agency, in cases of failed negotiations or where there are penalties for violating the results of arbitration.

This is positive. Canadians deserve fair and reliable freight services. This is obvious and logical.

Shippers pay good money, but they need a stronger position vis-à-vis the two main companies that form a duopoly. Together they have a kind of two-party monopoly. Their power is only partially addressed by Bill C-52.

There were recommendations by the shipping community at the committee stage that were sensible, practical and modest, yet the Conservatives ruled them out of hand with no serious consideration.

As the official opposition finance critic, I certainly know this. With every budget bill we have massive omnibus budget bills. We have been dealing with another one this week, Bill C-60, which again, is an amalgamation of all kinds of changes to different laws, many that have nothing to do with finance and budgets. We have seen that they never accept one amendment to any of their budget implementation legislation. Experts in their fields have testified at the finance committee that the government will have problems if it bullies ahead with certain changes, such as getting rid of the inspector general of CSIS. The expert who helped set up CSIS told us that this would cause problems, but it did not matter. The Conservatives are more expert than the experts, and they went ahead and made the changes anyway.

In this case, they heard expert testimony about why certain changes should be made. However, the Conservatives gave them no serious consideration. They rejected the changes out of hand, which is a bit sad, because this House ought to be about discussion, debate, learning, and ultimately, compromise to get the best laws possible for Canadians.

The bill needs further improvement. The NDP will continue to work with businesses and shippers across the country to improve this legislation and to tackle the issue of uncompetitive freight rates and gouging of the shippers. What we heard from businesses across the country was that they are getting poor customer service. They have had disruptions in rail service and unacceptable service costs. We heard about produce rotting, because it could not be shipped. We heard about lost contracts, because there was no guarantee that the goods could be shipped reliably, which made Canadian businesses unreliable suppliers. We heard about missed connections with ships for travel and shipping. This is a daily occurrence for industries across Canada.

Poor rail services are hurting Canadian exporters, damaging our global competitiveness and costing us jobs, which is a little ironic from a government that talks a lot about jobs. However, when the rubber hits the road, it often misses the train. That is what has been happening with this legislation.

There are a number of key amendments we put forward that the shipping community pushed for. They were championed by the NDP and defeated at committee. Without the rejected amendments, this bill remains only a partial success. Nevertheless, it is still worthy of our support. I want to stress that we are dissatisfied with the outcome. It is not what the shippers really wanted to see. Therefore, there is a need for future strengthening of this legislation.

Sadly, I see that my time is just about up. There is so much else to say. Thanks for the attention of this House. I look forward to the questions of my hon. colleagues.

[Girls Government Program, May 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today I was honoured to meet with grade seven and eight girls from schools in my riding: St. Cecilia, Annette Street public school, and High Park Alternative. A delegation from their program called Girls Government Initiative introduces young girls to politics and encourages them to consider politics as a career option.

After more than a decade since being a co-founder of Equal Voice, I regret that only 25% of our parliamentarians are women. Though that number is much higher in the NDP, at 40%, Canada still has a long way to go to truly reflect Canadian diversity here in Parliament.

The girls told me about issues they are determined to change, things like factory farming and mental health stigma. These young people are brimming with passion, creativity and optimism.

Today I want to make a prediction. I predict some of these girls one day will stand in this House, and I say “bravo”.

[Bill C-48, Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, May 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to speak to Canadians this evening on Bill C-48, which is a technical tax bill. We dealt with this bill at the finance committee. Bill C-48 is a very large piece of legislation that contains more than 1,000 pages and presents numerous technical tax changes to the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, the First Nations Goods and Services Tax Act and other legislation.

I said these are technical tax changes. These are changes to the tax code that, in sum, will be revenue positive for Canadians. They generally move to discourage tax avoidance, which is a positive thing. All Canadians should pay their fair share. The vast majority of the changes contained in Bill C-48 are already adopted in practice. Tax practitioners across the country are respecting these changes, which have already been announced by the government. Many have been in practice for several years, because there has not been a technical tax bill like Bill C-48 since 2001. Clearly, we are long overdue in terms of updating our tax legislation.

These changes have already been in place and taking effect for several years. What has not been in place are elements of the direct reporting that is required under Bill C-48, aspects of the compliance contained in this bill. Clearly, this bill is of massive scale. As I said, it consists of more than 1,000 pages of tax legislation, very technical, detailed tax changes. The scale of this bill clearly indicates that not only the current government but the previous government has been asleep at the wheel in terms of updating these changes on a regular basis.

We have heard from tax practitioners across the country who have said it creates confusion and uncertainty generally for Canadians and it is particularly difficult for businesses that are trying to do tax planning when they do not have the certainty of these tax changes taking place in law. Clearly, the government has been falling down on the job by not updating the tax legislation on a regular basis. We do not want this uncertainty, but it has also created a bill of great scale—as I said, 1,000 pages of technical tax changes. Tax specialists went before the finance committee and said there are some changes that are so detailed and arcane that they had difficulty understanding them, yet the finance committee had very limited time to study these changes and once again the government has put time allocation in the House to limit the amount of time to study and debate something so complex.

We want to emphasize the importance of focusing on compliance in this bill in order to ensure the integrity of our tax system. We would argue that we need to close unexpected tax loopholes in a timely manner. This bill would close unexpected loopholes, but it has taken more than a decade to do so. Clearly, the Conservatives are not doing their job as government in making sure Canadians comply with tax legislation.

We want to point out the ever-growing complexity of the tax code and the need for simplification of the tax code that needs to take place. I want to emphasize that the New Democrats on this side of the House believe in cracking down on tax avoidance and tax evasion. We had to fight hard to get the government to complete a study of tax evasion and tax havens that was begun by the previous government. If members can believe it, prior to the election in 2011, there was a study on tax havens that was almost completed. We have had to fight since the election in 2011 to get the government to complete that study.

Conservatives wanted to have more than 10 meetings to look at increasing charitable tax donations. They put a whole range of bills through the Standing Committee on Finance, but surprisingly, they did not want to study tax havens, tax evasion or tax avoidance. The government seems to at least say that it wants to focus on fixing the deficit the government has created, and that we face still, and that it wants to restore the books to balance. One would think that a government in that situation would be scrambling to close tax loopholes and to ensure that every bit of money salted away in tax havens and some islands where tax laws currently are not capturing that revenue could be tracked down.

However, we had to fight, and it was only this spring that we were able to drag the government, kicking and screaming, to a study of tax havens. We had very few meetings, by the way. We had far fewer sessions to study tax havens than we should have had. It is a disgrace. When we look at what is happening in the United Kingdom, in the U.S., large corporations have not been paying their fair share of taxes. Major companies, such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google, have been found in other countries to not be paying their fair share of taxes.

The government suddenly wants to scuttle away and not study these issues of corporate taxation. I say that the Conservatives are falling down on the job, but no fear, this side of the House will do a much better job after 2015.

The bill we are presented with and that we are debating this evening is more than 1,000 pages. It is definitely an omnibus bill. New Democrats have complained vigorously about the omnibus budget bills the government has put before the House and put before our finance company. They are Trojan Horse budget bills that have contained everything but the kitchen. We have been debating the inspector general of CSIS, the navigable waters act and first nations legislation. We have been debating all manner of legislation. Clearly the government has wanted to gut in every way possible environmental legislation. It has all come before the finance committee, as opposed to the appropriate committees, for study in the House. We have been vociferous in opposing the omnibus budget bills, which clearly are an affront to democracy and which Canadians have joined with us in opposing.

However, while this bill is an exceptionally large bill, the fact is that it is all on related subject matter. It is a detailed tax bill, and all of the provisions in it make technical tax changes, which clearly are related and are quite properly housed in one bill. However, again, I want to emphasize that the government has fallen down on the job by being asleep at the switch for over a decade and not presenting these technical tax changes in a more timely fashion.

Clearly, there was still tremendous work to do to create the system whereby these technical tax changes were put in place in a timely manner. I am sure that Canadians, who I am sure are listening, whose attention is gripped before the television, are understandably concerned about tax legislation, because Canadians work hard. We heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board complain about having to be here at this hour of the evening, whereas Canadians are working hard across the country in manufacturing, the service sector, retail and all kinds of sectors across this country. They are hard at work, and they are sending their precious dollars to Ottawa in the form of taxes, and they want to be sure that all Canadians are paying their fair share of taxes.

Let me explain what happens to those Canadians who are watching this evening.

When changes are announced in budgets and other pieces of legislation, the Department of Finance issues what are called “comfort letters”. These letters give comfort to businesses and individuals that these changes are being brought into practice and are to be complied with even though the actual legislation has not yet been changed. The vast majority of these changes subsequently are adopted, and then the technical changes are later made as amendments to tax legislation and adopted as tax law.

As I said, the last technical tax bill was adopted in 2001, so Canadians quite rightly are concerned about the uncertainty that this delay has caused.

When the Conservative government was in power in 2009, the Auditor General raised concerns that there were at least 400 outstanding technical amendments that had not yet been put into legislation. Some 200 or so of these changes are contained in Bill C-48. Bravo; it is maybe a decade late, but bravo. Here they are.

The comfort letter process generally works well, but the Auditor General expressed in 2009, in the report that I previously referred to, that tax practitioners “expressed a need for the legislative changes that the comfort letters identified to be enacted.”

While the vast majority of these changes have already been announced in press releases, Department of Finance comfort letters and budgets over the last 11 years since the last technical bill was passed, the bill also contains a few previously unannounced measures, which we also support. I will not go into them because, as I have said, they are extremely detailed.

We have consulted with tax specialists and lawyers, who have indicated that the measures in Bill C-48 are overwhelmingly positive. They generally support these measures, and New Democrats on this side of the House support these as necessary technical tax changes.

However, I want to emphasize our concerns about the generally slow pace with which the government is legislating the technical changes found in the Department of Finance comfort letters. This is what we emphasized at the finance committee and what we have been emphasizing in the House of Commons, and it is what members opposite do not seem to understand and do not want to hear.

I want to emphasize the size of the bill. The bill contains more than 1,000 pages of very dense technical tax changes. It really indicates the long, slow, lapse of time between Bill C-48 and the last technical tax bill. This process definitely needs improvement, but the government clearly has presented no plan and refuses to answer the question of how it is going to improve this process.

We heard some testimony before the finance committee that Britain, for example, has a law that if technical tax amendments that are announced are not brought into law within one year, those amendments are null and void and have to be reintroduced. We heard others say that there may be a different way to deal with this need for timeliness in introducing technical tax changes.

What we felt was important was perhaps to change the Standing Orders for the House so that the finance committee would be required every year to hear a report from the Department of Finance on how many outstanding technical tax changes there were that had not yet been put into law. That seems like a very common sense proposal that would remind the finance committee, the Department of Finance and the Minister of Finance that they better do some housekeeping and get these technical tax changes into law on an annual basis.

We did have quite a bit of debate about whether we wanted to have a drop dead date whereby these changes had to be made. That is still an open question because we really did not have enough time to debate that measure fully.

I see my time is almost up. I am sorry about that. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening and to have the chance to debate this important issue on behalf of all Canadians.

Again, we support the changes that are being made, we disagree with being forced to limit the amount of time on debate of these important measures and we do, again, urge the government to put a measure or procedure in place that requires these changes to be made on a timely basis every year on behalf of all Canadians.