Peter Stoffer

[Excise Tax Act, April 30th, 2007]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-436, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (no GST on funeral arrangements).

Mr. Speaker, when the government talks about a $21 billion surplus over two years, it forgets to tell us that that money came from people who have to go through the aspect of burying a loved one or having somebody cremated. I cannot figure out why the Conservatives, in the eighties, put this tax on crematorium and funeral services. It is unacceptable.

This bill would remove all federal taxes from funeral and crematorium services.

It is tough enough when a loved one passes away. It is tough enough to have to pay taxes on top of that, which gets to the old adage that there are two things in life we cannot avoid: death and taxes. I do not think we should tax death. It is as simple as that.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Excise Tax Act, April 30th, 2007]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-435, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (no GST on the sale of home heating fuels).

Mr. Speaker, again this is a reintroduction of a bill that I have had for now seven years. I firmly believe that there should be no taxes paid by people who heat their homes or their dwellings with any kind of natural gas, oil, electricity, or whatever they need.

Heating one's home is an essential aspect of the Canadian way of life and I do not believe the government should be profiting from people heating their homes.

Now, with the price of fuels, natural gas and electricity, it is time to give taxpayers of this country a real break, just like the NDP did in Nova Scotia. It pushed to have the tax removed provincially. Now we ask that it be done federally as well across the country.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Income Tax Act, April 30th, 2007]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-434, An Act to amend the Income tax Act (in-home care of relatives).

Mr. Speaker, the basic summary states that this enactment would:

--amend the Income Tax Act to allow a taxpayer with a live-in relative who is 65 years of age or older, or who has a mental or physical infirmity, to receive a personal tax credit equivalent to the subsidy normally provided by the Government of Canada to a long-term care facility with respect to such a relative.

The purpose of this bill is to allow people who have infirmities later in life to stay in their own homes longer and it states that people who care for these individuals should receive a tax break equivalent to the break that would be received if they were put in a nursing home or other institution. We ask for speedy passage of the bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Petitions, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present six petitions on behalf of the residents of Sackville—Eastern Shore, plus the other residents residing in that great province of Nova Scotia.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to repay the over $1 billion that was mistakenly taken from them when Statistics Canada made the error on the consumer price index in 2002, costing these seniors well over $1 billion. May I remind the government that the meter is running.

I would also like to bring to the attention of the government on behalf of these petitioners that it should remember what a senior did to Brian Mulroney in the 1980s. These same seniors can do it to this government in 2007.

[Seniors' Day Act, April 20th, 2007]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-432, An Act respecting a Seniors’ Day.

Mr. Speaker, it is not often that I get to rise to thank my mother for this great idea. She is in beautiful Richmond, British Columbia. At the tender age of 84, I thought it would be nice, on behalf of her and all seniors, to have a special day in recognition of their contribution to Canadian society.

This bill would give recognition on the first Sunday in February in perpetuity to all seniors, especially those seniors who served in our Canadian Forces and those who looked after our veterans.

We think this bill could pass very quickly. We would seek unanimous consent to quickly pass what I think is one of the finest pieces of legislation in the House of Commons.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, April 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to let my hon. colleague know that I am a firm believer in fixed election dates, but when I hear the Conservatives or the Liberals talk about the Senate I cannot help but take it with a jaundiced view, to put it in the politest way.

I remind my hon. colleague of the first thing the Conservative government did when it came into office. It appointed one of its Conservative fundraisers from Quebec who said he did not have time to run in an election because he was too busy. That was okay, said the government, and he was appointed as minister and put into the cabinet. When I hear the government talk about Senate changes, I cannot help but take it with a big grain of salt.

My answer for him is quite clear. Instead of tinkering around with the Senate, why does the government not do what most Canadians would like to see done? That is the abolition of the Senate, which we in the NDP have advocated for a long time. I know we need the consensus of the provinces for that, but why does the government not do something really dramatic and bold in this country? Why not stand up and tell Canadians once and for all that we are going to have fixed election dates and bring in proportional representation, but that first we will start off with the abolition of the Senate?

I say that with the greatest respect for all my friends and colleagues in the Senate. The reality is that we do not need it. The provinces do not have senates. They do very well with a single chamber. I believe we can do the same for this country.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the broken promises of the government. I will start off with the broken promise of not using patronage. The first thing the Conservatives did was bring one of their Conservative bagmen into the public works ministry as the minister and made him a senator. Then they accepted a floor crosser, something they said they would not have done before. Then they broke their promise on the income trusts. Then they broke their promise on the Atlantic offshore accords.

The promise that offends me the most is this. If the Conservatives are going to deliberately mislead the widow of a veteran, this is something that should never be allowed in the House of Commons. When the Prime Minister was in opposition, he wrote a letter dated June 28, 2005, to Joyce Carter of St. Peter's, Cape Breton. He promised her that if the Conservatives formed a government, they would immediately invoke the VIP service for all widows and widowers of all veterans, regardless of application or time of death. The Conservatives even went so far as to put that in their policy platform at their last convention.

The member from Kamloops said, “You are talking to the converted, Mrs. Carter. We will do this immediately upon forming government”.

The Conservatives have had two budgets, $21 billion in surpluses and nothing to extend the VIP services for widows and widowers of veterans.

I just spoke to Elizabeth Hamilton of North Bay, Ontario, who herself is very angry at the Conservatives for breaking their promise to that widow.

If the Conservatives can break a promise and deliberately mislead a widow of our beloved veterans, what makes Canadians think that breaking the income trust and everything else is part of the program? This is what the Conservatives do. They become the vicars of vaseline. They have no time in the House of Commons. The sooner they call the election the better it will be because then we can get rid of them once and for all.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, not to belabour the point very much, but the member represents Saint John city, a great city in New Brunswick. He also knows very well what happened to the Saint John shipyard. Under the Liberal watch, that shipyard went down and it gave the Irving company $55 million of ACOA money to help shut it down.

A shipbuilding policy sat on his minister of industry's desk since 2001 and it was never acted upon. The current government has also failed to act upon it, which is a pox upon both those houses.

However, I want to give him a bit of a break. What was not in the budget was the issue of VIP services for widows of veterans.

We have a letter from the Prime Minister, signed by him when he was opposition, which said that the Conservatives would immediately extend VIP services for all widows and widowers of veterans regardless of time of death or application. He wrote that on June 20, 2005. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs from Kamloops, when she was in opposition, said the exact same thing, that when they formed government they would immediately extend that program for all widows and widowers. We have asked since January 2006 when it would it happen.

My hon. colleague from New Brunswick has an awful lot of those widows of veterans living in his riding. Why does he think the government not only ignored a motion passed in the House, but with $14 billion worth of surplus why could it not come up with $280 million to help all widows of all veterans?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from the Bloc has been resonating the myth of the fiscal imbalance. It was ironic that Quebec received a tremendous amount of cash in the last budget and the Premier of Quebec right away offered tax cuts for people, not a program for investments in social, education, health, infrastructure or to help anybody. It was strictly to give tax cuts in order to buy votes.

What we have in Canada is a social and development imbalance, not a fiscal imbalance. Some of the things the hon. member talked about such as the reinstatement of the RCMP stations and a shipbuilding policy to help out the people of Levy, Quebec would be very important. However, those things are not done on tax cuts. Those things are done on investments.

Would he comment as to why his premier received this tremendous amount of cash and offered tax cuts during a provincial election?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, March 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the meetings the member talks about are our shipbuilding and marine conference meetings and we are hopeful they will go ahead.

The reality is that the member is correct. The Conservatives' $100 a day so-called day care plan is blowing up in their faces, because I am getting calls from people who are asking, “Since when did this become taxable?” Now they are having to claim that as income. The government did not create one day care space. Businesses were supposed to create all these day care spaces. It did not happen.

As for first nations people, the neglect of this budget--