Pierre-Luc Dusseault

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2, November 26th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for giving me an opportunity to comment briefly on the issue of corporate taxes compared to personal income taxes.

Unfortunately, the trend we have seen that drives government spending up over time, which is what the Liberal government is proposing, is that, year after year, taxes are not collected in a manner that is fair.

There is a pattern that has been emerging for many years now. It started under the Conservatives and continues under the Liberals. It is that personal income taxes are constantly going up. For instance, personal income tax revenues are expected to increase next year from $161 billion to $170 billion. During the same period, between 2017-18 and 2018-19, corporate tax revenues will decrease from $49.5 billion to $45 billion.

Who is left paying for Canada's social programs these days? The financial burden falls less and less on corporations and more and more on individual taxpayers. We must ask ourselves why that is.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2, November 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the Minister of Transport, for his question.

In general, as an opposition member, I focus more on the negative aspects of what the government proposes. I know that the minister understands that reality because he was sitting on this side of the House just a few years ago. However, I am able to see positive aspects too, and I often point them out in committee.

Of course, there are good reasons to improve the capital cost allowance for the purchase of equipment. I hear the same thing from businesses I visit in Sherbrooke. Business owners want more support so that they can invest in their companies. The problem I have with this measure is that it is basically a general gift from the government that leads to a much more advantageous accelerated capital cost allowance, especially for items that qualify for accelerated depreciation. Unfortunately, it would have been better if the government had taken a more targeted approach that focuses on job creation.

That is what our leader Jagmeet Singh and I say all the time. The government really needs to ensure that incentives to invest are more targeted and better focused on job creation and more tangible things that would help it meet its objectives. It is not enough to give a general benefit and hope that it works.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2, November 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-86 today on behalf of the people of Sherbrooke, who elected me to represent them here in the House.

Today, I have to say that this is a big disappointment. I am also speaking in my capacity as deputy finance critic for my party, the NDP. As deputy critic, I am very disappointed in the Liberal government for picking up the Conservative government's nasty habit of introducing unprecedentedly long budget implementation bills. With every bill, it seems the government hopes to beat the record set by the previous budget implementation bill. The Liberals seem to be competing with the Conservatives to see who can draft the longest bill. This 850-page bill breaks the records for both number of pages and number of clauses in a budget implementation bill.

I feel like I am repeating myself, because last Friday, I spoke about Canada Post and the fact that I was surprised by the Liberals' actions in view of what they said when they sat in this corner of the House. I am also surprised to see the Liberals introducing omnibus bills. When they were the third party, they openly criticized the length of omnibus bills at every opportunity, both here in the House and in committee when we were called on to do an in-depth study of bills.

Today, I am surprised to see the Liberals once again doing the exact opposite of what they said when they sat in this corner of the House and introducing an 850-page omnibus bill. Liberal members who were here at that time and who are still here today seem to have completely forgotten about their displeasure with this type of government action. Today, they seem quite at ease with a process that allows a bill like Bill C-86 to be rushed through. When the bill was introduced in the House, the Standing Committee on Finance was asked to begin studying it even before it passed second reading. When the committee is asked to study the 850-page Bill C-86 in advance, the result of a vote in the House is a foregone conclusion. We were asked to complete our study in two or three weeks.

First we had to read the bill, to see what was in it. How can we do our jobs properly as parliamentarians if we do not have time to read the content of the bill? Then we had to call witnesses to also come and give their input on the bill. They faced the same challenge. I know from experience that many witnesses are caught off guard by such massive bills, and they were called to appear with just a few days of notice, perhaps a week or a week and a half, when they were being asked to comment on a bill as huge as this one. On that note, I have to say how surprised I am to see the Liberals using the same tactics to expedite the process in the House, not giving parliamentarians enough time to study bills properly.

We have clearly seen this in some situations in the past. Some bills have contained errors that had to be corrected later on. Those errors could have been avoided if the proper process had been followed in the first place. In the case of Bill C-86, I feel compelled to point out the Liberals' inconsistency, since they used to criticize omnibus bills, but they are doing exactly the same thing today.

Fortunately, there is some good news for Canadians in this bill. We have to acknowledge that and give credit where credit is due. There are a few good measures in this bill, but sadly, they do not go far enough. That is what we heard from witnesses during the committee's study. Take pay equity, for example. That is something we have been calling for for years, and the Liberals have been promising it for years, if not decades. For once, they seem inclined to actually do something in response to many questions and plenty of pressure from the opposition. Unfortunately, the witnesses said that the implementation would be too slow and that the bill still has some shortcomings. I call it a bill because it should be a stand-alone bill on pay equity, but it was embedded in an 850-page bill.

The experts pointed out some flaws that needed to be fixed, but the Liberals, obviously, flat out rejected their suggestions. It is our job, as members of the committee, to propose amendments when experts come share their views and make recommendations. In this case, our amendments reflected exactly what they asked for. However, as usual, the Liberals think they are always right and will not accept any criticism. They rejected all of the amendments and did not think it was necessary to listen to experts. They left the bill as is, unfortunately.

I want to talk about some of the important measures that are missing from this bill. The government failed to meet a number of our expectations. Our party sent letters to the Minister of Finance to share our observations on the economy and on what could be done to help the majority of Canadians, not just company executives.

The government did not include a single measure related to tax fairness or pension theft, a topic I have heard a lot about in Sherbrooke. I held a town hall on this very issue. People were unanimous in their outrage for companies that run off with their workers' savings, like Sears, which stole its employees' pensions.

Not only are the Liberals not doing anything about pension theft in this bill, they are actually making the problem worse by listening to some of the companies' suggestions and further protecting companies that declare bankruptcy. Not only do they not want to fix this problem in this budget implementation bill, but they are going to make it worse.

The Liberal government is clearly disconnected from reality, or at least from reality in Sherbrooke. The recent budget statement, which follows on the budget implementation bill, makes that all too clear, since it reflects almost every demand that corporate lobbyists have made to the Liberal government. The government came through for them, including by offering tax breaks.

For example, it decided to give businesses $14 billion over the next few years through an accelerated capital cost allowance. This measure was not even properly targeted, since companies will not be able to use it to create jobs or buy the equipment they need for everyday operations. For example, for a plant, purchasing a machine is a good investment. Unfortunately, the bulk of the accelerated allowance deduction will instead help buy things like planes and limousines. Companies will be able to write off that type of purchase.

The government should have seen this coming and ensured that this measure targeted things that companies really need for their daily operations, instead of luxury items that CEOs need to get from Toronto to Dubai. The government is clearly disconnected from Canadians.

What is more, the government is proposing to lower the marginal effective tax rate from 17% to 13.8%, even though corporate profit margins have increased over the past few years and individual tax rates keep going up year after year. In other words, as corporate tax rates go down, individual tax rates go up. This shows yet again that the Liberal government is disconnected from reality.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Operations Legislation, November 23rd, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

Unfortunately, yes, the government is sending mixed messages. The Liberals say they care about the middle class, but Canada Post workers are part of the middle class, and this is a direct attack on them.

The Liberals are launching a direct attack on 45,000 middle-class workers. We are already seeing a race to the bottom. Employees' working conditions are being driven down because the government is caving in to large corporations, to corporate Canada. It is caving in to pressure from companies like Amazon and eBay. They are being told they are right, that employees make too much money and that cuts are needed because profits are too low.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Operations Legislation, November 23rd, 2018]

Madam Speaker, there is an important distinction to be made between forcing workers back to work and a government that sees when Canadians are in danger. A few of my colleagues have made that distinction.

When we talk about essential services, we mean police and firefighters. Everyone agrees that those are essential services, because their absence puts Canadians at risk. In this case, we are talking about the economic impact. Of course this strike is having an impact; no one is denying that. However, the only means that employees have to express their point of view and demonstrate their own value to a company is to go on strike to show the company that it is nothing without its employees. No more employees means no more profits. Without its employees, a business falls apart.

Unfortunately, the government wants to take away the only means that workers have to demonstrate their value to the company.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Operations Legislation, November 23rd, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I do not know what universe my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis is living in. I imagine he lives in a world where everything is sunshine and roses.

In the real world, the employer has no interest in sitting down and negotiating. The employer was just handed incredible bargaining power on a silver platter. It has no interest in negotiating since there is no longer a balance of power. There will be only one mediator-arbitrator. The employer can simply ignore the mediator and the negotiations.

What will change if the employer keeps saying no to all the demands? The government will still be here to protect it and say that the parties are unable to come to an agreement. Obviously, the government will blame the employees, claiming that they are unable to compromise, when it is the employer that is acting in bad faith. There is nothing stopping the employer from continuing to act in bad faith, since the government will always be there to protect it and to trample on the workers' rights.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Operations Legislation, November 23rd, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my distinguished colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

I am very sad to rise in the House today to speak to Motion No. 25, which we are currently debating. This motion sits in the broader context of back-to-work legislation for Canada Post employees that will be introduced and debated a little later today, from what the government is telling us. That is why Motion No. 25 was moved and is being debated today.

It is sad because I honestly never expected this. I do not want to spend too much time repeating what they said, but some of my colleagues who were here in 2011 remember the Harper Conservatives and their special back-to-work legislation. Our NDP colleagues criticized it profusely and passionately, but so did our Liberal colleagues, who were on this side of the House at the time. I remember very well their position in that debate, and so I am very surprised and sad today. I honestly never expected the Liberals to do the same thing.

Back in 2011, I would not have thought it possible that the Liberals, who were in this corner at the time and were standing up for workers, would do exactly the same thing as the Conservatives seven and a half years later. I would never have believed that could happen, but the Liberals have shown us their true colours, and reality is staring us in the face. We now see that they too are comfortable tabling back-to-work legislation that infringes on a fundamental right in Canada, a right that is protected and recognized by our courts, a constitutional right: the right to strike.

Throughout our history, there have been some incredible battles to claim the right to strike, the right to protest by not reporting for work in order to exert pressure on the employer during negotiations. Workers also have a constitutional right to freely negotiate their working conditions with the employer without interference from a third party.

That is the core of today's debate, even though we are spending a little time talking about the process. Today, we are being hit with a motion that will fast-track the bill through all the stages so it can be passed in a few hours. As we know, bills go through many stages in the House. It normally takes weeks, if not months, before they are passed and receive royal assent. Today, we are being told that we will study and pass a bill at first reading, at second reading, at report stage and at third reading, and then send it to the Senate, all in a few hours.

Committees are often the best place to get more information and fulfill our duties as members of Parliament. This is where we can call in experts to talk about the clauses of the bill, share their opinions, and contribute to the parliamentary debate. However, today, for such an important bill, the government wants to speed through all these steps in a few hours, between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. What a disgrace for our democracy.

I speak for all parliamentarians when I say that this government's cabinet is asking us to pass a very important bill in just a few hours without allowing us to call any witnesses or experts to give their opinions on the bill. Some Liberal members were even asking questions about whether this bill is constitutional. Why not take the time to study it?

That is what I have to say about the process. It is important to talk about it, but we must focus on the workers who will be affected by this bill, which will be rammed through a little later today.

This bill also affects the right to strike. We know that striking has consequences. Government members remind us every time they speak, but we know it. Fortunately, the union is being respectful. It could have organized an even bigger strike that would have been even more harmful to the employer, since that is its right, but it chose not to.

It is a strike that I think shows respect for Canadians and for society and shows a certain awareness on the part of Canada Post employees. During the lockout in 2011, Canada Post employees even agreed to deliver important cheques to many Canadians in Sherbrooke and elsewhere in Canada, citizens whose daily survival, their bread and butter, depends on getting this federal or provincial government assistance. They agreed to do it, so they are aware of the impact it can have and the value of their work. Their job is to deliver letters, cheques and parcels, which are even more numerous these days, in 2018.

Unfortunately, the government will not even recognize that the union has shown openness and respect for Canadian society by opting for a rotating strike, which affects certain regions at a time. It has affected Sherbrooke, I must say, but there was no general panic in Sherbrooke. No one shouted from the rooftops that they were not receiving their parcels or letters. There is no general panic in Canada right now because of the Canada Post strike. The only people who see it as a panic or a disaster are the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour and the Minister of Public Services and Procurement. They see a crisis where there is none, a crisis manufactured by them, not by Canada Post. The crisis does not exist, thanks to the respect shown by the union.

Let us ask ourselves one question. If the bill is passed later today, and the right to strike is taken away from the union and the postal workers, what do they have left to negotiate with their employer? What other leverage will this union have to sit down and demand compromises?

Yes, both sides have to compromise. That is what negotiation means. If the government tells the union that it no longer has the right to strike, what other recourse does it have? Workers will no longer have the right to protest against the employer and form picket lines around their workplaces. They will no longer have the right to show the employer that they are important and that the employer is nothing without them. Without workers, the employer is absolutely nothing.

That is why there are economic impacts. That is why strikes are important. Strikes force employers to acknowledge that workers make a vital contribution to the business and to the bottom line. Without workers, Canada Post cannot make a profit at year end. Office-bound managers who have never set foot on a sidewalk to deliver the mail are certainly not going to be doing the work. That is the point of the right to strike.

The government is ready to sacrifice that power, that vital leverage in the negotiation process. It is ready to sacrifice the only tool available to Canada Post employees, the only avenue they have to make their employer listen to them. As a result, the members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers will end up with the same working conditions they have had for the past 10 or 20 years, working conditions they want the employer to acknowledge and improve.

There has been a staggering number of injuries on the job at Canada Post. There are issues of fairness between urban and rural workers, which are also leading to issues of gender inequality. The fact that the government is taking away the right to strike, and therefore the right to negotiate, will in reality only perpetuate the problems at Canada Post that the employees are trying to get the employer to recognize. The workers will no longer be able to make their case to their employer, because it is not in the employer's interest to sit down and negotiate. Once the law is passed, why would Canada Post managers negotiate? If the union asks them to improve working conditions, why would the employer agree? It can just say no. The employer will keep saying no to all union demands because the employees will no longer have any leverage to make their case. That is what the Liberals are taking away from them.

Unfortunately, this is what it took for the federal Liberals to show their true colours.

[Pension Benefits Standards Act, November 23rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my apologies. I was not exactly sure which bill we were debating today.

My colleague's bill, Bill C-405, deals with Canadians' pension benefits. Clearly, this is an extremely delicate subject, as we were able to see with the government's approach to Bill C-27. This sought to allow Crown corporations, and ultimately all other employers in Canada, to change the category of defined benefit retirement plans to target benefit plans.

The direction that the government took is really bad. Thanks to the pressure from many Canadians and from unions, the government seems to have decided to keep the idea of introducing target benefit plans on hold. That means that retirees' benefits will change over time.

When you sign a collective agreement and a defined benefit pension plan, you know what to expect when you retire. With Bill C-27, the government was ready to move forward and change that standard, replacing it with a target benefit plan, that is, one in which benefits can change over time. If that were the case, employees would not get the same amounts as if the defined benefits were maintained.

My colleague's bill is similar to that one. It seeks to enable employers who already offer defined benefit pension plans to convert them into target benefit plans or defined contribution pension plans, which are slightly different, and thereby transfer all of the risk to workers and absolve employers from the obligation to provide their employees with predictable pension benefits.

Pension plans are deferred wages. As I said earlier, they are often negotiated as part of collective agreements.

This bill would change benefits that were negotiated ahead of time and, as I just mentioned, it would also transfer the burden to employees since, in a defined benefit pension plan, the burden is on the employer to deliver what it promised to its employees.

In target benefit plans or defined contribution pension plans, the burden is on employees, who are forced to bear the brunt of any losses that may occur if a company, Crown corporation or government can no longer fulfill its retirement obligations. There has been a lot of debate about that in 2018. This reality has been catching up with workers over the past several years. Employers, whether government or private, are waking up to the fact that, in the future, they will not be able to fulfill the working conditions and retirement pensions that they promised to employees, even though they signed agreements to that effect, and so they are changing the benefits along the way. They are changing conditions that were negotiated. That is unacceptable. It goes completely against the spirit of negotiation and violates a signed agreement to which the two parties agreed and in which both parties must keep their commitments.

Unfortunately, we know what side the Conservatives are on in this kind of debate that affects workers and employers. They always side with the employer. What we are seeing today with Bill C-405 is nothing new.

The bill before us is diametrically opposed to the NDP's proposed approach to correcting major shortcomings in Canada's bankruptcy and insolvency legislation and protecting Canadian workers' and retirees' pensions and benefits. This is 2018, and workers are facing a whole new reality. We have seen it in the past, and we saw it again recently with Sears. Not only can the pension benefit terms and conditions be changed, but pensions can be cancelled altogether. I know workers in Sherbrooke, my region, who worked for 30 years and then suddenly found themselves in that very situation. The employer went bankrupt and closed up shop, and workers' pensions evaporated.

Those employees worked for years to build up their pensions. That money belongs to them. It is deferred income. They worked their whole lives to save that money, and then from one day to the next, their employer was no longer in a position to give the money that belongs to them.

Sears is the latest example, but this is something we have seen in Estrie as well. I know a person who worked at Olymel in Magog. That person, along with everyone else who worked there, lost their pension because their employer suddenly announced that it was no longer able to honour the conditions they had initially agreed to. The workers' money went up in smoke.

That leads to very sad situations. Some of these people are elderly and have to go back to work because they lost all the benefits they were promised initially. They are left in the lurch. They have to go back to work and, for some of them, the working conditions are not nearly as good as when they were working for a business that was thriving and prospering but suddenly had to shut down.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives are unlikely to surprise us today with such a bill to stop executives from giving themselves excessive bonuses in any liquidation and bankruptcy procedures.

I mentioned Sears, but there have been other cases of bankruptcy where the executives took off with the employees' savings. That money does not necessarily always go to the creditors. Sometimes it winds up in the pockets of the executives of those companies. Then the executives or shareholders tell the board of directors that after liquidating the company's assets, that is, before putting the money in their own pockets, there is nothing left for everyone else. There is nothing left for the other creditors.

We in the NDP believe that workers are the priority creditors. That has always been our position. When a company goes bankrupt, the priority creditors are the workers. Whether it is salaries, unpaid sick leave or pensions, priority must be given to what has already been promised, before the banks are even consulted to proceed with the liquidation and pay out the creditors. The workers should always come first.

Unfortunately, once again, we know whose side the Conservatives are on: the employers and the executives. They allow these unacceptable situations to continue, and that is a shame. Bill C-405 does not solve anything. On the contrary, it makes matters worse.

[Pension Benefits Standards Act, November 23rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry for the confusion about the debate on the bill introduced by my colleague who has just spoken.

I am pleased to provide our party's recommendations on the bill. He is to be commended for his contribution to the debate and the quality of his approach.

Mr. Speaker, can you remind me of the number and title of the bill, please?

[Indigenous Affairs, November 23rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I too am rising on a point of order, in reference to Standing Order 31.

There were some special procedures earlier, so the government decided to infringe upon several rights, particularly members' rights to speak to a bill and Motion No. 25, which cuts debate short. It also infringed on our rights with respect to members' statements, since it allowed only four members to deliver their S. O. 31s. It is also infringing upon the rights of workers with the legislation we will be debating shortly.

I would like to remind members of the House of the rules set out in Standing Order 31 and I would like to know who decided there would be only four statements.

I seek unanimous consent to move the following motion: In order to allow members who were unable to deliver their members' statements, I seek unanimous consent for the House to return, pursuant to Standing Order 31—