Phil McColeman

[Finance, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the evidence continues to pile up that the finance minister has a serious problem when it comes to transparency. Page 7 of his own February economic update details how his Liberal spending spree was already well under way last year. Again in March he burned through billions in one month and has driven us into a deficit.

Why does the finance minister refuse to take responsibility for his own deficits?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I think those points have been made through questioning and through my speech. However, the reality is that if we take the empirical data of all of this, taxes were at their lowest rate for Canadians over the last 50 years. Most average Canadian families had gained in excess of $7,000 more in their pockets.

Actually, one member who spoke here from the opposite side today got into politics because of social housing. I got into politics because I was disgusted with the fact that politicians thought it was their money and they could do what they wanted with it. I got into politics because it is not politicians' money. It is the taxpayers' money. It is the money of hard-working people who are honest and pay their taxes. What motivated me, as a businessman, to run, was the government that took our money, gave it to their friends for—

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am caught off guard here. I was not aware of the question.

Let me just underscore what I said in my speech and the way I have responded every time the deficit question comes up.

A person who has a business that has a balance sheet would watch income coming in and watch the spending. Therefore, it is absolutely unconscionable to me what has happened with the Minister of Finance. He has taken a surplus of $7.5 billion and turned it into what he claims is a deficit that the Conservatives left him. It is because of his spending, putting it into that fiscal year and then claiming that is the case.

It is unfathomable to me that they think Canadians buy this argument. They understand that they get a paycheque and they have expenses. If they want to pile themselves into debt, they can choose to do that at any time. That is what our Minister of Finance has done. He has piled us into debt at the last possible moment to claim that the Conservatives left him a deficit. However, we did not choose that spending. We left a surplus.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, talking about humorous, this member obviously does not understand that money coming in in excess of spending is a surplus. We balanced the budget, every month of this past fiscal year, except for one month, March.

What did the finance minister decide to do? He clawed back all of the Liberal spending, over $13 million, into that month so that he could stand up and say that the Liberals were left with a deficit. In October, Conservatives left government with a surplus, right up until the end of February. Now the Liberals want to say that?

Second, the fact is that we went into deficit spending because the global economy was crashing. Every advanced country in this world signed on to spending. In fact, that party wanted us to spend twice as much. They were asking us to spend twice as much as we spent. We brought it back to balance.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to participate in the debate on Bill C-15. It is an important debate, because the bill implements a budget that does long-term harm to our country. It sets Canada down a path of reckless spending, over $100 billion in debt, and higher taxes, and leaves a massive burden for future generations.

First, let me address some of the specific items in the bill that are not particularly well thought through. Despite the Liberals' clear promise to small businesses on the campaign trail, this budget hikes taxes on small business owners. That means that hard-working small businesses, the driving force of Canada's economy, are being forced to cough up a staggering $2.2 billion to help pay for the budget spending spree of the Minister of Finance.

I did forget at the start of my speech to inform the House I would be sharing my time with the member for Beauce, so I'm doing that now.

Bill C-15 will further damage the economy because it levels some Canadians with an overall income tax rate of over 50%. Experts across the board predict that this will cause some of our country's most talented people to look elsewhere to pursue their ideas and their businesses.

That is not all. The bill targets charities and ends children's fitness and arts tax credits, but even with all of these ill-considered tax hikes, budget 2016 still leaves Canada with a $30-billion debt. That cuts to the heart of the broader problem of Bill C-15.

Bill C-15 implements a reckless budget for this country. It is completely non-transparent and is built on a set of misleading and questionable numbers. The Minister of Finance arrived in Ottawa telling Canadians that the books were in worse shape than he had anticipated. He outlined a set of fiscal assumptions that have since been completely debunked, and he used them as the foundation for his budget. He ignored the evidence from his own finance department and from the PBO that both said the budget was in surplus. He repeatedly told members of this House that he inherited a deficit, and he built his budget on that assumption. However, we now know he has inherited a surplus of $7.5 billion.

We also know that he jammed as much new Liberal spending as possible into the last month of the past fiscal year to get rid of that surplus. He has not been transparent about his efforts to spend his way out of surplus, and he has been completely non-transparent about the state of Canada's finances. Then he went against the independent advice of private sector economists and against the advice of his own department and unilaterally downgraded Canada's growth forecast.

He build his budget on economic assumptions made without any explanation. Here again, the Minister of Finance was called out by the PBO for his lack of transparency. Then the Minister of Finance had to be forced to reveal his five-year budget figures by the PBO, which he was trying to keep hidden from the public. If that is not enough, the 2016 budget is filled with wild assumptions of job creation, all of which have been repudiated by the PBO and other experts.

Fiscal prudence matters. Managing taxpayers' dollars responsibly matters. Being transparent about managing public money matters, but this Minister of Finance continues to play games with the budget, hide the numbers, and damage his own credibility.

The Liberals received a mandate from Canadians to go into deficit, but it was a very specific mandate. Canadians were promised that the Liberals would discipline themselves by sticking to three core fiscal anchors: deficits of no more than $10 billion, an annual falling debt-to-GDP ratio, and a balanced budget by 2019. These were all articulated in writing and posted for all Canadians to see in the mandate letter the Prime Minister gave to the Minister of Finance. The 2016 federal budget betrays every one of these promises.

Somewhere along the line, the finance minister decided that rather than exercising discipline and delivering what he had promised to Canadians, it would be a lot easier to interpret the election results as a mandate to borrow and spend as much money as he wants, for as long as he wants, on whatever he wants.

Let me be very clear, Canadians did not give the finance minister a blank cheque to go on such a spending spree.

Budget 2016 will saddle Canadians with $100 billion in new debt, which will have to be paid back through higher taxes. Budget 2016 plans for massive deficits and borrowing indefinitely into the future, with no plan whatsoever to return to balance. The budget barely mentions business. It will not create jobs and it throws away Canada's competitive advantage.

I also come from a riding that has a substantial agricultural component to it. It is about 65% urban, 35% rural. There is not one mention in the budget about enhancements to any of the communities in the small rural centres, and no talk about agriculture at all. These are the people who are heart-blood of many ridings, many communities. They are the ones who, daily, toil so that we can have the benefits of living the bountiful life we do from their agricultural pursuits and their risk-taking.

I can speak as a small business entrepreneur, having owned my own company over 25 years. One of the most important things for governments to do for small businesses is to make sure that they do not have the highest tax rates imposed upon citizens who are creating jobs, like small business owners.

I happened to be in the building industry, an industry that is the bellwether of the Canadian economy. We are talking about businesses that employ more than 800,000 workers in this country. This budget does absolutely nothing to improve and enhance the livelihoods of those small builders in my community who are building maybe five, six, or seven houses. All it is doing is adding to their red tape costs and the costs of their taxes and employee remittances.

These are the people who drive our economy. This budget and this budget implementation bill do nothing to help them out.

I urge all members of the House to vote against this reckless Liberal spending spree.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech and some of the misleading statements made. I am from a community that has the largest first nation in Canada. We built it a $42 million water treatment plant during my term in office over the last four years. In my community we built well over $300,000 worth of new infrastructure such as the Wayne Gretzky Sports Complex, which is a $63 million project. We rebuilt Applegate Co-op housing at Toll Gate Road. We rebuilt social housing right across the community and on Six Nations. We built the Six Nations a new police station because of crumbling infrastructure.

The member is telling Canadians today that we did not make any of those investments. How does he square that to the House of Commons?

[Finance, May 4th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the credibility of the Minister of Finance took another big hit this week when he admitted that he does not care about this whole balanced budget thing. Let us flash back to what he said on his very first day in this House:

We intend on getting to a balanced budget during the term of our mandate.

Five months later, he is laughing it off.

Why does he not understand that Canadians deserve a finance minister who takes the job of managing their money seriously?

[Criminal Code, May 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I will more or less underscore what I just said. I realize we are in this position, where many of us would rather not be.

However, we do have options. There is the notwithstanding clause. That is an option. Whether this Parliament wants to go that route or not will be determined. There are other options, such as to not pass the bill, and in the meantime work on something else. Those are options. I am not personally advocating that.

I am personally advocating the reality that we are here, and we must address the issue, so let us address it in the most restrictive fashion we can so that it is an exception in our society when someone is able to have doctor-assisted suicide or euthanasia. Let us protect society as we have always done. This is about the sanctity of everyone's life.

[Criminal Code, May 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, of course, we are all aware of the reality we are faced with today by the Supreme Court putting a deadline on it. It is totally unacceptable in my view, yet here we are.

If members take anything from my comments tonight, they should take that the government needs, and we as parliamentarians need, to craft this law to be as protective as it can be for all Canadians right across the board. That is what the Supreme Court actually said, that it should protect Canadians, the most vulnerable especially.

I am here advocating tonight that my fellow parliamentarians take that seriously, and to put in place amendments to this bill, if that is what it takes, and to take the time to get it right, so there is not one life, one disabled individual, one person who falls between the cracks.

That is why we eliminated capital punishment in this country, for the sake of one person being wrongly executed. I am asking for the same courtesy from my fellow parliamentarians.

[Criminal Code, May 3rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as I approached this speech tonight, I have said to many in my community and my family that this would be the most important speech I ever deliver as a member of the House. I have been here eight years and hope to represent my constituents into the future.

I am going to speak about the most vulnerable, about meaningful safeguards, and about addressing the slippery slope that is Bill C-14.

First, here is full disclosure. I am the parent of a 29-year-old intellectually disabled son. I held the hand of my mother as she exited this world in pain. I watched a very close friend pass away over two years, in pain from a horrible disease.

Earlier in this debate, the member for Durham used words that resonated with me, that we all seek “compassion on both sides of this issue”, and that is essential.

I am going to refer to some messages that have been written and sent. I should also disclose that I, too, have held public meetings. In fact, this issue was brought up during the election campaign, and I stated my position very clearly and concisely to the voters on this particular issue.

I would like to start with a quote from the member for Calgary Nose Hill who said in her opening statement that this is about “the sanctity of human life”, “defining the morality of our country”.

I would like to read the words of someone who is greatly respected. His name is Jean Vanier, and he wrote an article, along with Hollee Card, in The Globe and Mail on March 1. He heads up an organization called L’Arche, and he said:

We in L’Arche have had the privilege of accompanying many on life’s journey, not only in times of health and strength, but in times of fragility and weakness as well. Through this experience we have learned many things.

Most importantly, we have learned that it is the most fragile among us who are the closest to their humanity, to their suffering, and to their need to be loved. It is they who show the rest of us the way to live in truth and in love.

He goes on to say:

This is why we have a special obligation to ensure that the care available to each of us throughout our lives, but especially in our final stages of life, affirms both our dignity and humanity. Otherwise, we diminish our range of experience to include only our independence. We diminish the love we can share, and the vulnerability we can show to one another.

Such a spartan culture ultimately devalues life. In its place we must recommit to honouring and accepting ourselves and others by finding ways to accept our frailties, and the full course of life.

Members can see that Bill C-14 undermines the precarious position of people with disabilities in Canada.

Other interesting comments that were shared with all parliamentarians came from an individual named Hugh Scher, a solicitor and lawyer, who for 25 years has advocated on these issues. By the way, he points out at the very front end of his letter to us that he was not invited to talk at the committee, yet he has advised every party in the House on these issues.

Let us talk about the safeguards he points out.

Judicial or Tribunal oversight to ensure compliance with legislated requirements and to identify vulnerability before the fact is an essential requirement for effective oversight in respect of any regime of assisted suicide;

He goes on to say:

The requirement of judicial or tribunal oversight and of vulnerability assessment and identification before the fact by way of prior review are an essential requirement of any regime of assisted suicide and must be implemented by Parliament in the event that there is to be any prospect of safe implementation of an assisted suicide regime. Failure to implement such measures will leave vulnerable Canadians at significant risk without any means of enforcement or protection from abuse;

By the way, Bill C-14 does not have those protective measures of judicial oversight in it.

Some say the bill does not go far enough. Let us take the example of Belgium and how it has evolved over the years. Thirty-two per cent of cases carried out in Belgium are without any request or prior consent of the individual. Even though the law requires it, it is ignored and it is not prosecuted. The numbers since that bill was introduced until today are staggering. What happens is that society changes. Society changes and this becomes the norm. People start accepting the fact that this is the way it is.

One of the issues with Bill C-14 is the fact that, in the preamble, there is a statement to allow for further study for mature minors and persons with mental illness. To me, I interpret that as code. That code is saying that those who want wide-open, available euthanasia, death on request, are not to worry, that it is coming. That is the code. If we look at the report of this particular special committee and what it brought back to Parliament, stating what these people would love to have, we see the code that it will be coming. It is written right in the preamble of the bill.

Some have said that it is the incremental expansion over the course of time in ways not yet contemplated. Over time, citizens become more used to it. Over time, the law would encourage and encompass people with more ailments and younger patients. There is a dangerously contagious effect of assisted-suicide laws that has been observed in the Benelux countries and in the jurisdictions that have had this law on the books for a long time. This is about the sanctity of human life, defining the morality of our country, as the member for Calgary Nose Hill so accurately said.

Let us talk just a minute about the conscience rights of health professionals in institutions. These are not in the bill. We would have to amend this bill to have these rights in there. At my public meetings, we had many doctors who expressed their view that this was absolutely essential for them to carry on in practice really and they would look to alternative jurisdictions to not have to abide by this. That is also for health care professionals in general.

Moving on to palliative care, I and the people of my riding are very fortunate to have the finest palliative care in the country. One of the individuals who spoke at the public meeting said she has watched many people at end of life resolve issues among their friends and family, who would never have had the chance. These are people who have passed along in the best possible environment.

My comment is that the Supreme Court has forced us to this position. If we are to have a law, we must have a law that is as airtight as possible. We must protect the most vulnerable. If one person dies because of a badly scripted law in this country, it will all be on us.

I appreciate the time to speak tonight.