Pierre Paquette

[Disposition of an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I totally agree with the hon. member. It is very hard to understand why the government delayed so long in introducing the bill. We asked about it, but never got an answer. The government could have introduced the bill a few weeks ago, or even today, which would have left us a few more weeks to pass it.

So far as I know, Ontario will not harmonize its sales tax with the GST until July 1, 2010. We should certainly give merchants and companies a bit of time to adjust to the new taxation system. There is a lot of informatics work to be done.

That being said, though, the Conservative government is being irresponsible or is manoeuvring to force the opposition parties to pass or defeat in hurry-up fashion the bill that is going to be introduced.

I heard that the government would not introduce the bill unless it was guaranteed the support of a least one opposition party.

We know now that the Liberals have lent their support without even having seen the bill—unless they have seen it and have not told us. There has apparently been quite an airing of views within their caucus. We, for our part, will announce our position on the bill after we see it.

Our preference would certainly have been for a real debate. Quebec has been waiting for 18 years and could have waited a few more weeks, although we do want this issue settled in 2010 at the latest.

[Disposition of an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I totally agree with the hon. member. I am a bit surprised because, as far as I know, his party is going to support the motion. I think, though, that the motion ensures that the Standing Committee on Finance will be confined to a rather cosmetic role.

In our view, Quebec harmonized its sales tax with the GST in 1992. There were some very lively debates at the time. I can recall, for example, that Mr. Séguin, who was the minister of revenue, resigned as a result of Robert Bourassa’s decision to harmonize the QST with the GST. It was not easy, but a decision was made, and we have had a harmonized tax ever since 1992, or for nearly 18 years.

We do not have anything against Ontario and British Columbia deciding to harmonize their sales taxes with the GST, but we would like to have a much more serious study of it than what the government is proposing. The impression I have is that the finance committee’s role will simply be window-dressing and the government has already decided to proceed.

As I said, the best way to handle this would have been to allow the bill to take the usual route through the House, especially as it seems that at least three parties—the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois—agree with it in principle. Our primary concern is to ensure that there are no poison pills in the bill that is going to be introduced, which we have not yet seen, and that it includes the items which will enable Quebec to reach an agreement with the federal government, whether this is done by correcting the situation or by not standing in the way of negotiations between Quebec and the federal government.

[Disposition of an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as hon. members know, we are now debating a time allocation motion moved by the government regarding the bill on harmonizing the PST in British Columbia and Ontario with the federal sales tax, that is, the GST.

We will oppose this time allocation motion, because we feel it would be irresponsible on our part to grant this time allocation without knowing the contents of the bill to be introduced by the government.

I think it is important that all members of this House clearly understand the Bloc Québécois' position on this whole issue. As we have seen, when the ways and means notice was tabled and voted on, the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of that notice, which prepares the way for the introduction of the bill on the framework for harmonizing Ontario's and British Columbia's sales taxes with the federal GST.

We voted in favour of that notice because we wanted to see the much talked about bill to find out whether, within this framework, justice would finally be done for Quebec, which was the first jurisdiction to harmonize its sales tax with the GST way back in 1992.

We had no problem voting for this ways and means motion. But the bill still has not been introduced, and that is why we cannot support a motion for time allocation that would have us dispose of this bill we have not even seen in the space of two days. I repeat that this is an extremely important bill, because, from what I understand, it is designed to modernize the framework governing the agreement between the Atlantic provinces and the federal government on harmonizing the GST.

The Bloc Québécois is not about to hand a blank cheque to the federal government, especially the Conservative government, as hon. members know.

We intend to thoroughly examine this bill on harmonizing the GST with the provincial sales taxes of Ontario and British Columbia, because we want to ensure that, as I said, there will be room for the Government of Quebec and the federal government to negotiate a solution that is fair to Quebec. This is not the case at present.

Hon. members know that the Bloc Québécois is here to defend Quebec's interests and the unanimous positions of the National Assembly. Consequently, we are going to want to ensure that this fair solution—which will be extremely important to us—includes a framework that is flexible enough so that Quebec's choices, Quebeckers' choices in terms of taxation, are possible. Flexibility is key. As we have said repeatedly in previous debates, the harmonization proposed by Ontario and British Columbia is not a perfect harmonization, which is what the Minister of Finance demanded a few months ago in order to compensate Quebec properly for its own harmonization. There needs to flexibility, which was not the case in the agreement with the Atlantic provinces.

Second, this framework must allow Quebec to keep collecting its own sales tax, the QST, but also the federal GST, which it has been collecting since the mid-1990s. Allowing the Government of Quebec to keep collecting taxes will be a second key element, after flexibility.

Compensation is the third aspect that is extremely important to us. We want to ensure that, with this bill we have not yet seen, compensation for Quebec will be equivalent to what Ontario and British Columbia will receive as well as what has already been paid to the Atlantic provinces.

We expect that the government's proposal will be fair to Quebec.

The fact remains that we do not have this much talked about bill before us. Therefore, it would be totally irresponsible for the Bloc Québécois, the defender of Quebec's interests in this House, to give a blank cheque to the Conservative government. As we know, in the past it has introduced bills that at first seemed reasonable. However, after a few hours of debate, we unfortunately discovered that they contained poison pills. We are being asked to adopt this bill with less than two days' debate. Therefore, as I mentioned, we cannot agree to the proposal in the time requested.

Having said that, if the Liberals decide to support the government, the Bloc Québécois at any event will definitely ensure that the bill is studied at length with the specific goal of identifying any possible Conservative poison pill in the framework to harmonize provincial and federal sales taxes.

I brought this up and I think it is very important for everyone to keep this fact in mind. The Government of Quebec was the first to harmonize its sales tax with the new GST—the goods and services tax that replaced the former manufacturers' sales tax— in the early 1990s. At the same time, as part of an administrative agreement with the federal government, Quebec was responsible for collecting the federal tax within its jurisdiction, and that is something we want to maintain.

In 1997, the federal government offered three Atlantic provinces compensation to encourage them to harmonize their provincial sales taxes with the federal GST. An agreement was reached with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, which harmonized their taxes. This agreement was reached, and the three Atlantic provinces received the equivalent of about $1 billion in compensation for harmonizing with the GST.

In light of this, it is completely natural that the Government of Quebec asked the federal government for compensation, since it had harmonized before the Atlantic provinces. I am sure that some members were in the House when Paul Martin, the finance minister at the time, answered a question that had been asked by our finance critic, Yvan Loubier. He very clearly said that there was no way that Quebec would be compensated. I am looking for the quote I found to read it to you. He said:

Mr. Speaker, there is a formula to compensate provinces that will lose more than 5 per cent of their sales tax revenues. This is not the case for Ontario, British Columbia, or Alberta. It is not currently the case for Quebec either, and it was not in 1990 when it signed the harmonization agreement.

First of all, I must point out that the finance minister at the time, Paul Martin, acknowledged that the Quebec sales tax had been harmonized with the GST. At the time, he said that the Atlantic provinces were compensated because they would lose more than 5% of their tax base after harmonization.

Clearly, the rule invented by the Liberal finance minister at the time, Paul Martin, is no longer valid. It is abundantly clear that Ontario and British Columbia will lose much less than 5% of their revenue once they harmonize their sales tax with the GST. As such, it is only right that Quebec should receive adequate compensation. Under the agreements signed with Ontario in March, if I remember correctly, and British Columbia in June, Ontario stands to collect $4.3 billion in compensation and British Columbia $1.6 billion.

I would like to point out that, on page 68 of Budget 2006, the following appears under the heading Competitiveness and Efficiency of the Canadian Economic Union: Furthering Provincial Sales Tax Harmonization.

Harmonized sales taxes are now in place in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Quebec administers a provincial value-added tax, as well as collecting the GST on behalf of the federal government. However, separate provincial retail sales taxes continue to be collected in five provinces. The existence of provincial retail sales taxes substantially increases the effective tax rate on investment by taxing business capital goods and intermediate materials, thereby impairing the competitiveness of our tax system. Having to comply with different sales tax systems also greatly increases the complexity and the cost of doing business. The government invites all provinces that have not yet done so to engage in discussions on the harmonization of their provincial retail sales taxes with the federal GST.

In this excerpt from the 2006 budget, the Minister of Finance acknowledges that Quebec's sales tax is harmonized with the GST and he opens the door to compensation for every province that agrees to harmonize its retail sales tax with the goods and services tax. However, he never mentions anything about retroactive compensation for Quebec. This is extremely worrisome and unfair.

That means that any province that chooses to harmonize its sales tax with the GST will receive compensation. The three Atlantic provinces have already received compensation. The agreements signed with Ontario and British Columbia include compensation. The other provinces that have not yet indicated their intention to harmonize their sales tax with the GST could possibly be compensated if they decide to do so. Only Quebec, the first province to harmonize its sales tax with the GST, will never be compensated.

This is classic unfairness by the Conservative government. It will be extremely important to do a very careful review of the bill when it is introduced. Since we still have not seen it, we cannot agree on the approach the Conservative government intends to use.

We have to address this issue very seriously, but for now we cannot give the government carte blanche.

I would also like to remind hon. members that the Quebec National Assembly unanimously passed a motion on this issue on March 31, 2009. It reads:

WHEREAS Québec was the first province to harmonize with the Federal goods and services tax (GST) in the early 1990s;

WHEREAS since then, three Atlantic provinces have harmonized with the GST in 1997 and have received compensation for this from the Federal Government totalling close to 1 billion dollars;

WHEREAS the Government of Ontario announced that it would harmonize its sales tax with the GST beginning on 1 July 2010;

WHEREAS the Federal Government will grant a 4.3 billion dollar compensation to Ontario for this harmonization, an amount that is justified in the Canada-Ontario memorandum of understanding particularly owing to the desire to stimulate economic growth and job creation, and the Federal Government will administer this new provincial tax free of charge on behalf of Ontario;

WHEREAS the Ontario sales tax will be very similar to the Québec sales tax (QST) since certain goods, such as books, will not be subject to the provincial tax and that input tax refunds in Ontario may be identical to those agreed to by Québec for an 8-year period;

WHEREAS Ontario is the fourth province to receive compensation from the Federal Government as part of the harmonization of the provincial and federal sales taxes, while Québec has not received any compensation to this day even though it was the first province to harmonize its sales tax;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT the National Assembly ask the Federal Government to treat Québec justly and equitably, by granting compensation that is comparable to that offered to Ontario for the harmonization of its sales tax with the GST, which would represent an amount of 2.6 billion dollars for Québec.

That motion was unanimously passed by the National Assembly and, as everyone knows, the Bloc Québécois has always defended Quebec's interests and every consensus reached in Quebec.

We will keep this motion in mind as we continue with the debates around the motion and the bill, which, I would remind the House, we still have not seen.

Because I have time, I would also like to read the letter that Monique Jérôme-Forget wrote to our colleague, the Conservative Minister of Finance, on April 1, 2009, when she was the Quebec minister of finance.

When she says “Dear colleague”, she is obviously not referring to me, but to the Conservative Minister of Finance. The letter reads as follows:

Dear colleague,

I wrote to you on Friday, March 27 to request fair compensation for Quebec in connection with the harmonization of the Quebec sales tax (QST) with the federal goods and services tax (GST). This request was prompted by the recent announcement that Ontario would receive $4.3 billion in federal compensation.

Since I wrote you that letter [we are talking about Friday, March 27], the National Assembly has unanimously passed a resolution calling on the federal government to treat Quebec fairly and equitably on the issue of sales tax harmonization. On an equal per capita basis, the compensation paid to Ontario would represent $2.6 billion for Quebec.

Even though the QST is already substantially harmonized with the GST, as all the budget documents your government has tabled since 2006 attest, you seem to believe that the QST is not sufficiently harmonized with the GST to justify paying Quebec compensation similar to what Ontario received. However, you opened the door to such compensation if Quebec agreed to further harmonize the QST with the GST.

The principal difference between the QST and the GST concerns tax rebates on the inputs of large businesses for certain goods, a measure that would cost Quebec approximately $500 million annually, or a little less than 5% of the revenue generated by the QST.

I hereby wish to inform you that the Government of Quebec would agree to make the necessary adjustments to its QST in order to respond to your concerns about more complete harmonization, in exchange for fair and equitable compensation of $2.6 billion.

Specifically, Quebec would agree to allow all QST corporate input tax rebates for a period of up to eight years, which is what the federal government agreed to for Ontario.

In the next few days, my officials will be forwarding to your officials a draft memorandum of agreement to manifest this commitment. You will note that, with respect to all the pertinent clauses, the agreement will be modelled for the most part on the Canada-Ontario agreement signed last March.

The Quebec government seems to be open to further harmonization while maintaining the flexibility to which I referred. There is a certain flexibility mentioned in the letter from the former Quebec finance minister, who has now returned to private life. In her letter, she expressed the Quebec government's viewpoint. This has been reiterated by the current finance minister, Mr. Bachand. Thus, there is an openness to harmonization like that offered to Ontario. For example, with regard to inputs, Quebec should be allowed a certain period of time to eliminate the taxes. The minister's letter refers to eight years. We expect that Quebec will receive the same treatment.

From 2006 onwards, with Paul Martin as well as in the documents of the current Minister of Finance, the federal government has stated that Quebec's sales tax is harmonized with the GST. In Quebec, we are prepared to take action. The government has stated this again and so has the National Assembly, but the harmonization has to be fair and just. This is what we will be thinking about in the next few days of debate, whether it concerns the motion before us or the bill that we have not yet seen.

For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois will vote against the time allocation motion.

[Bridgestone, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, on November 11, the Bridgestone company of Joliette won a gold medal at the best business practices show, an event organized by the Mouvement québécois de la qualité to showcase projects that improve productivity.

The Joliette company was competing against 37 other teams from 34 different corporations. Bridgestone presented two projects: the first, Six Sigma, to improve quality; the second, known by the Japanese name of suru-raku, is an approach that encourages the standardization of all activities. Fresh from this success, the team is going to Japan in April 2010 and it plans to take top honours at that event.

The company recently announced an investment of $40 million in the Joliette plant, including the Quebec government contribution of $4.8 million. The federal government contributed absolutely nothing. But let us look on the bright side. My Bloc Québécois colleagues and I congratulate the company on its success, which mirrors the dynamism of the Lanaudière region, and the trust it places in its employees.

[Afghanistan, November 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, David Mulroney, who served as a foreign affairs advisor to the Prime Minister in 2006, stated, and I quote: “—there was very widespread understanding that there were a lot of problems in Afghan prisons with Afghan police. The possibility of mistreatment could not be ignored.”

Is it not because the Prime Minister knew as early as 2006 that Canada was violating international conventions such as the Geneva convention that he is trying to bury the affair today?

[Afghanistan, November 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in his testimony in committee, David Mulroney acknowledged that as early as 2006, Canadian authorities were aware of allegations of torture in Afghan prisons. He also acknowledged that Canada lost track of prisoners once they were transferred to the Afghan authorities.

In light of this information, how can the government still deny that Canada violated the Geneva convention prohibiting detainee transfers when there is a risk of torture?

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with all those—and I think all opposition parties are in agreement—who want this motion to go before the committee. I think we can all agree on how important the ten percenters are, those pamphlets we can send to our constituents to explain what goes on in this House—the political positions, the debates and the challenges.

However, in the past few weeks we have seen some real abuse by the Conservative party, the Conservative government, the elected Conservative members, and I think we are heading for disaster, because the public is really questioning the need for these ten percenters. I think that if we do not want to find ourselves one day without the ability to use this very important tool to communicate with our constituents, we need to correct the situation immediately.

In the past week or two, Mr. Speaker, you have recognized two points of order concerning the misuse of ten percenters for purposes that practically border on demagoguery. We will absolutely support the motion before us.

[Points of Order, November 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to table a document received by the member for Chambly—Borduas, to which he referred during question period.

The document is from Michel Bédard, former chief employment insurance actuary from 1991 to 2003, who conducted his own analysis of the contribution rates set out in Bill C-56. He shows that the contribution rates are far too high given the coverage proposed in the bill.

I would like to table this document in both official languages.

[Afghanistan, November 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is simply that Mr. Colvin followed the hierarchical chain of command. He thought that the information had arrived, which indeed it had, because in 2006, members of the Prime Minister's inner circle, namely David Mulroney, his defence advisor, and Margaret Bloodworth, his security adviser, were discussing the torture of Afghan detainees. The Prime Minister, who is well-known for controlling everything in the government, knew.

Will the Prime Minister admit that, instead of assuming his responsibilities under international conventions, he did his best to bury the affair by trying to muzzle Mr. Colvin in 2007 and now, as well?

[Afghanistan, November 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, beginning in May 2006, Richard Colvin, who was second in command at the embassy in Kabul at the time, sent reports to the Prime Minister's closest advisers, including Margaret Bloodworth, his national security adviser, about allegations that Afghan detainees were being tortured.

In December 2006, Ms. Bloodworth participated in a Privy Council meeting specifically to discuss cases of torture carried out by the Kandahar governor himself.

Will the Prime Minister admit that he was aware of the situation as of May 2006 and that instead of doing his job, he tried to make the issue go away by covering it up?