Mr. Speaker, I must say that I have already had an opportunity to speak to Bill C-40 at second reading. I find it to be a useful bill but, at the same time, it is so technical that we are sometimes not too motivated to participate in the debate. This bill amends the the Excise Tax Act, the Excise Act, 2001 and the Air Travellers Security Charge Act and other Acts. In the tales of Asterix, Obelix used to say that it did not matter whether menhirs were large or small--they were still menhirs. Similarly this bill, technical or not, must be debated and I am pleased to speak about the Bloc Québécois position on behalf of our party.
This fairly technical bill takes a very logical approach to dealing with a certain number of issues and that is why we will support this bill. First it addresses various shortcomings associated with the GST and excise tax. It removes taxes from certain medical services, which will facilitate access to these services. I will come back to that. It reduces the burden of taxation on charities, and I believe no will take issue with this point. It also provides for measures to help small wine producers. That is a positive measure for the wine producers in the Lanaudière region. It tightens legislative provisions with regard to the production and sale of tobacco in order to counter smuggling. Who would oppose that? It adjusts the air travellers security charge.
When in Ottawa, the Bloc Québécois, as a group, often feels somewhat like it is in the fictional Gaulish village to which I referred earlier, when talking about Asterix and Obelix. We must resist the federalist invaders and the invasions by the federal government. However, this time, I must say that this bill respects federal and provincial jurisdictions. As I said, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-40.
Bill C-40 is divided into three parts. The first part aims to institute corrective steps to improve and specify certain measures having to do with the collection of the GST. The second part amends the act in order to zero-rate particular products and services. It turns then to the excise tax, laying out certain measures related to the taxation of wine, beer and spirits. The third part amends the rules on the air travellers security charge collected at various airports.
Naturally, I will start with the first part of Bill C-40, which has to do with GST-HST-related measures. In Quebec's case, this means the Quebec sales tax.
As I said, the first of these measures has to due with health-related rules. The bill amends the act so that speech-language pathology services are henceforth effectively zero-rated. This seems, to me, a matter of common sense. A child, loved one or family member might need this type of service. In my opinion, it is somewhat immoral to tax something that is completely essential and necessary to a person's well-being. This change confirms the tax-exempt status of these services. It will make it easier for young people with language problems to access such services. This change will also help older people who have suffered strokes to access services to learn to speak again, thereby enabling them to continue living in dignity.
Then, in the area of health care again, the government will exempt services provided in the practice of the profession of social work. There are times when we need to seek the assistance of a social worker. This measure will make it easier to access such services. Nowadays, the professional duties of many social workers include acting as substitute psychologists, something which I am convinced the college of psychologists is not too thrilled about. In areas where the needs are huge, we often see shortages of specialists such as psychologists. Purchasing the services of a social worker may be a perfectly appropriate alternative. It seems totally normal to me that the government exempt from tax the services of social workers.
The government will also zero-rate the sales and importation of a product that can be used to some extent as a blood substitute. Again, it seems to me that everyone will understand that there was something sick about taxing a product making possible crucial treatments for seriously injured patients.
Back to my analogy with the village of ancient Gauls and Getafix. Members will recall that Getafix is the druid who mixed the magic potion than gave that village the strength to resist the invading Roman army. In Bill C-40, the government removes the tax on a group of drugs like Valium, Ativan and others. These are drugs needed to treat anxiety, and drug and alcohol withdrawal or as a component in preanesthetic preparations. Again, there was something predatory about government taxing drugs that do not fall under the category of consumer purchases, but are simply something that members of our society who are often dealing with enormous difficulties buy because they need it for their well-being.
Finally, as I was saying, there is an aspect of the bill that is not directly related to health, but to the welfare of people with disabilities. I am talking about the GST rebate for motor vehicles that have been used subsequent to being specially equipped for use by individuals with disabilities.
As you can see, there are measures in this bill that are relatively modest, but they cannot be criticized because, quite frankly, they are just common sense.
As far as charities are concerned, again in the first part on the GST and HST, we see changes ensuring that the exemption of supplies by charities of real property under short-term leases and licences will extend to any goods supplied together with such real property. For example, someone leases a facility with a photocopier. The leased photocopier was then taxed. In the context, this measure is minimal, especially after the cuts the Conservative government made to certain agencies. I am thinking of women's groups and literacy groups. It probably would have been better not only to have this measure, which will very slightly alleviate financial pressure, but also to re-establish all the budgets of these community groups that were cut last September.
Nonetheless, there is something there that we cannot oppose. In other words, we will also support this measure.
There are other business arrangements that affect, in particular, foreign banks that restructure their Canadian subsidiary into a Canadian branch. This a measure that affects consumer rights. We know that in Canada there is a very significant bank concentration problem. The five largest banks control most of the market, by far. Parliament, the House of Commons and the Standing Committee on Finance—I have taken part in this—have tried a number of times to find ways to improve competition on that market. I remember Bill C-8, which addressed this more or less successfully.
Having a measure that would facilitate the restructuring of a foreign bank's Canadian subsidiary into a Canadian branch seems conducive to improving competition in a very concentrated market, as I was saying. That is the first point. We also find in this bill some changes to simplify tax collection by small stores that deal with beverage container deposits that are refundable to the consumer. This simplifies life for small merchants and it seems to me that there a number of things here as well that just make sense.
There is one last measure in this first part that concerns governments. The bill will exempt a supply of a right to file or retrieve a document or information stored in an electronic official registry. This will mean, for example, that municipalities can provide information requested by taxpayers at a lower cost.
As hon. members can see, these are not sweeping measures. There is nothing to get upset about; these are small measures that make good sense.
The same is true of the second part, which pertains to excise tax. As I mentioned earlier, the measures in this part amend the Excise Act, 2001, to implement minor refinements that will improve the operation of the act and more accurately reflect current industry and administrative practices.
They also implement amendments to the Access to Information Act, the Customs Act, the Customs Tariff and the Excise Tax Act.
I want to summarize the tobacco-related measures in Bill C-40. To better defend against the smuggling of tobacco products and facilitate collection of the tax on tobacco, the bill extends the requirement to identify the origin of tobacco products to all products, including those for sale at duty-free shops.
In this case, there will be a small problem, because the government has decided to put an end to the GST visitor rebate, except in the case of conferences and tours. Although the government's intentions are good, this will have much less impact, because of what was announced in the budget regarding the GST visitor rebate.
However, the bill does extend the requirement to identify the origin of tobacco products to duty-free shops or products sold for export, consistent with international treaties including the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
The bill also clarifies that cigarettes, tobacco sticks, fine-cut tobacco or cigars, but not packaged raw leaf tobacco, may be supplied to the export market or the domestic duty-free market. These are relatively minor amendments, but they make a lot of sense.
As far as alcohol is concerned, Bill C-40 authorizes provincial liquor boards and vintners to possess a still or similar equipment and produce spirits for the purpose of analysing substances containing alcohol without holding a spirits licence. This measure will relieve provincial liquor boards and vintners of the entire administrative burden and cost involved in acquiring a licence for such equipment, stills or similar equipment.
Furthermore, in order to promote growth in Canada's wine industry, the government will allow the deferral of payment of duty by small vintners selling wine on consignment in retail stores operated by an association of vintners until the wine is sold. Something did not seem right, particularly asking small vintners to pay tax in advance before the product is even sold. These are often small-scale businesses that do not have enough liquid assets to assume this type of responsibility without putting the very survival of the business at risk. This is a welcome measure. The federal government has finally understood that this sector plays an important role in economic development, especially in the regions.
I remember the battle the Bloc Québécois had to wage for the reduction of excise tax on microbreweries. We finally won that battle, not in the last budget, but in the previous year's budget. This is another measure that will simplify life for small producers. When they supply their products to retail stores operated by their association of vintners, they will only have to pay GST once the product is sold—as I already mentioned. This new measure will help market local products. There are now specialty markets scattered throughout Quebec where these wine products are available.
By the way, I just want to say that the industry in Quebec is doing quite well. Wine producers have banded together in the Association des vignerons du Québec. This would not necessarily please Obelix, who does not drink alcohol since he fell into a cauldron of magic potion when he was young. In some of the books, we see that this had a rather disastrous effect on his behaviour. However, Gérard Depardieu, who played the role of Obelix in the Asterix and Obelix films, is a great fan of wine. He would be extremely interested in what I am saying.
In 2006, the Quebec vintners association had 42 members in many of the province's regions. I already mentioned Lanaudière and Île Ronde, where there are tens of thousands of vines, as well as the Eastern Townships, Montérégie and the Lower Laurentians.
Over 100 hectares of vines are cultivated annually, producing 300,000 bottles every year, primarily white wine, ice wine and fortified wine. I would invite all of my colleagues to enjoy Quebec's homegrown wines—in moderation, of course.
In both the second part and the previous part, the new legislation will authorize the Minister of National Revenue to exchange information on excise tax with foreign governments that are signatories to the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. The bill also adds a discretionary power for the Chief Statistician of Canada to provide statistical information concerning business activities to the provinces similar to an existing provision in the Income Tax Act.
Like the measures in the first part, these minor measures are neither very revolutionary nor very impressive, but they are very sensible. We think that these minor measures deserve to be supported, even though—as in the example I gave about charities—they do not eliminate the negative and damaging effects of the Conservative government's cuts to literacy organizations, women's groups and the aboriginal tobacco control strategy.
With respect to the air travellers security charge, I have to say that ever since the previous government brought this tax in, we have tried to find out what good it was doing, but we never really got an answer. I got the impression from various witnesses—especially when I was a member of the Standing Committee on Finance—that the money from this tax was used for a lot of things other than passenger security.
In our opinion, the costs of air travellers security should be borne by all taxpayers, and not just by those who are often required to travel by air. I remember that, at the beginning, a tax was imposed on people flying out of regional airports. I am thinking of the member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine who, unfortunately, cannot always take his car to get here. Because of time constraints, he must fly. This means that he was forced to pay that tax, which was totally unacceptable. There have been reductions over time, and we are told that another one is coming. However, as regards this bill, we are not given any explanation as to why this tax is imposed, its purpose and its link with air safety. The government remains vague on this issue.
Still, a tax relief is included. First, the bill relieves, in particular circumstances, the applicable charge in respect of air travel sold by resellers or donated by air carriers. As we can see, this affects relatively few people. The bill also provides authority for the governor in council to add, delete or vary by regulation the schedule of listed airports.
The bill will change the status of three airports in Quebec, to ensure that the standards meet market demand. So, the bill removes La Grande-3 and La Grande-4 from the list of airports subjected to the surtax under the Air Travellers Security Charge Act. I can say that 95%, if not 99% of those who fly in to La Grande-3 and La Grande-4 are workers involved in the construction or maintenance of the facilities there. They definitely do not go there for a vacation. Some may, but it is not the majority.
Finally, this measure simply makes sense. I will conclude by saying that this series of small measures, of small menhirs, as I said at the beginning, deserve the Bloc Québécois' attention and support and, indeed, we do support them.
