Pierre Poilievre

[Business of Supply, December 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in setting the context, I will take just a few moments to elaborate on an important piece of legislation on democratic reform that he and I both debated, the Fair Elections Act, which requires people to present ID when they vote, a new requirement in Canadian elections that has removed the largely inaccurate voter information card as a form of ID. It has brought in independent investigations so that an investigator can look into potential violations of the Canada election law without any interference from either a party or Elections Canada itself.

We got rid of the ban on the early transmission of election results, which was no longer practical in the modern-day environment. In this country, we used to ban anyone reporting the election results on the east coast before the end of the election on the west coast, something that is possible in the modern era of technology.

We cracked down further on the power and influence of big money by closing the loans loophole that some politicians had used to get around donation limits and by banning dead donors, that is to say, people dying and leaving in their wills donations that were vastly larger than the donation limit, effectively allowing people to do in death what they were prohibited from doing in life. We got rid of dead donors in the Fair Elections Act. It was the biggest remake of our election laws in well over a decade and, according to publicly released polling data, has been overwhelmingly popular with Canadians.

That is a short summary of the context in which we enter the debate on the proposal for a proportional representation system in Canada.

One thing that I have always admired about our existing system as distinct from the proportional one proposed by the NDP is that each member in this place is accountable to an individual constituency and there is not a single square inch in Canada that does not have an MP. Therefore, no matter where people live or who they are, they have members of Parliament that they help hire or fire every four years. That person is responsible to go back to their geographic area and represent its interests and values on a continuing basis.

With a proportional system, that direct connection between a member of Parliament and citizens is obscured at best, and broken at worst. In fact, this place is called the “Commons” because it represents the common people. Its colour is green because the early commoners actually met in fields. They almost always represented a geographic area and would take to the fields with the values and interests of the commoners they represented. Over time, that has evolved into this very sophisticated and well-entrenched system of responsible government that relies on members of Parliament whose jobs are given and taken by the voters in their communities, and we have been very well served in this country by that system.

Proportional representation, by contrast, would inevitably lead to unstable and risky coalition governments that are constantly falling and re-emerging. That would break the stability that Canadians have come to expect and demand from their governments.

Canadians have clearly rejected coalition government. It was not so long ago, back in late 2008, that the NDP and Liberals joined with the separatist Bloc Québécois with the aim of forming a coalition government against the wishes of the electorate and the outcome of an election that had been held only a few days earlier. They came very close to forming a government by way of this coalition. It was not until a massive, potentially unprecedented backlash that they were forced to retreat from that plan and allow the winning party to govern the country.

There is no question that if Canadians return a Conservative minority in the next election, that coalition would re-establish itself and attempt as a coalition to take power that it was not able to secure via a direct election.

Instead of using the proposed change to the electoral system to achieve that coalition government, the Liberals and New Democrats should be honest in the coming election if a coalition is their intention. I think that NDP and Liberal candidates should go door to door and explain their plan for a coalition after the next election and let Canadians decide if they want that. If Canadians vote for it, that is one thing, but what they should not face is a group of parties pretending to run independently from one another and then, after the election is over and the decision is out of the grasp of voters, doing something entirely different, as was the case in late 2008.

If we look at the quality of life that we enjoy in Canada, we see that no matter what measurement we take on an international scale, the success of Canadian democracy in representing the values and interests of the people is really unsurpassed anywhere in the world. We have inherited the greatest democratic system in the world, which is parliamentary democracy. Regardless of where people come from around the world, they can cherish this democratic institution that we inherited from the British parliamentary tradition. Our success is entirely founded on all of the attributes that this system brings. It brings responsible government, common law, limited government, and economic freedom, all of the basic pillars of a free society that have allowed countries throughout our civilization to enjoy so much prosperity and well-being.

I look forward to working with members across the way to build on the success of that great tradition. Hopefully, day by day and step by step, we will make Canada's democracy even better.

[Business of Supply, December 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I give a special thanks to the member who raised this motion and has given us the opportunity to discuss our democracy and various ideas on how to improve it.

In order to talk about this proposal, we need to discuss the broader context of the debate. I will start with the broad strokes of Canadian democracy, recognizing that everything great that has been achieved in this country has been done through gradual, incremental improvement, starting 800 years ago with the Magna Carta, whose anniversary we will celebrate next year.

I will not go through each of the 800 years, but I will state that in 1867 we actually got a country. It was not until 1931 that we got an independent foreign policy through the Statute of Westminster, and it was not until 125 years after Confederation that we got constitutional independence with the Constitution Act of that year.

There have been instances with the Statute of Westminster where the British mother country actually offered us more independence than we were prepared to accept, which really speaks to the temperamentally conservative approach that Canadians had always taken to the evolution of their democracy. We have built on that approach by making some important incremental improvements in our democracy under the leadership of the present-day Prime Minister.

For example, in this Parliament under this Conservative majority, we have passed more private members' bills than any other government since 1972. Private members' bills are proposed by backbench members of Parliament, not by the government, and they are supported by this government to pass into law. The last time as many passed was 1972, when a large number were simply for riding name changes. In this case we are talking about substantive legislative changes that have done everything from protect vulnerable people from sex trafficking to cracking down on crime, to countless other measures that improve the daily lives of Canadian citizens.

Second, we have allowed vastly more free votes than was case during previous majority governments. Free votes are when members of a given caucus can decide how they want to vote regardless of what their party leadership tells them to do.

Indeed, The Globe and Mail, along with Samara Canada, a group that studies democracy, looked at 162 individually cast votes on the floor of the House of Commons and concluded that the Conservative caucus was far more likely, during the two-year period under examination, to have members vote independently from their leadership than any other caucus in the House of Commons.

The Liberals voted as a unanimous block 90% of the time. In the two-year period under examination, the NDP voted as a unanimous block 100% of the time.

In one in four votes cast in this House of Commons, the Conservatives had a member stand up and vote differently from the party leadership. Statistically speaking, our members have been proven to be far more independent from their leadership, and our leadership has far less control over our caucus, than is the case in other parties.

We have also seen ideological litmus tests on the other side, with the NDP saying that anyone who opposes the long gun registry should be removed from caucus. That happened to one member of Parliament from northern Ontario. The Liberal leader said he would ban anyone who disagreed with him on the subject of abortion.

These sorts of hardline ideological litmus tests that ban anyone with a different point of view are a foreign concept in the Conservative caucus, which is, as I have said, far more open. That speaks to the culture of the caucus in the government of the present day, but let us talk about the legislative initiatives.

First, we passed the Fair Representation Act, which gives fast growing provinces—

[Parliament of Canada Act, November 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader said that he favours transparency, and we should all favour transparency. That is why I stood in the House and voted in favour of union financial transparency, given that unions have access to an unfettered amount of money through mandatory union dues that are given to them through the force of law and benefit from tax-sheltered dues at the same time.

It is also why I supported the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, which has allowed Canadians to find out that, in some instances, the leadership of certain bands has been taking enormous sums of money when the people on those reserves could have used that money for the basic needs and necessities of life.

If the hon. member is now taking a position in favour of transparency, will he rise today and announce that he has changed his mind and that he will extend that principle of transparency to support the First Nations Financial Transparency Act and union financial transparency?

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2, October 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, no, I do not believe there is a one-size-fits-all method for raising children.

In fact, that is the whole idea behind our position. We are giving money directly to parents so that they can decide for themselves what is best for their children. It is the opposition, the Liberals and the NDP, who believe there is just one way to raise children. The opposition wants all the money to go toward a bureaucracy that excludes the vast majority of the choices parents are making.

If a family has one parent who stays home to raise the children, that family is excluded by the NDP and the Liberals. If an aunt, a grandmother or a grandfather does the job, that family is excluded. If a neighbour provides the child care, the family is excluded. All the options, except one, run by government officials, are excluded under the costly plan proposed by the NDP and the Liberals. Only the Conservative Party provides parents with real choices as to how to raise their children.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2, October 31st, 2014]

Actually, Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out in my own remarks, when I was a child, I went to a local community-based child care centre. No, it was not institutional. It was not a government-run daycare program, as the member across the way suggests.

He believes that parents who have a stay-at-home mom or dad are not doing their jobs. That is what the NDP believes. The member believes that community-based neighbourhood child care providers are not good enough. He believes that grandmothers, aunts, and uncles who step in to raise children throughout the day, while parents are at work, are not of high enough quality.

The NDP and the Liberals believe that there is only one kind of childcare that is acceptable, and that is government-owned, government-run, government-provided bureaucracy that in the past has not only failed to meet the demands of people but has failed to actually meet the promises of the politicians who made them.

The Liberals promised such institutional day care. Over 13 years, they did not create a single space. They spent billions of dollars, but it did not result in any benefit for parents on the ground.

We believe that regardless of the choice parents make, the dollar should go in their pockets, and they should decide how to raise their own kids.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2, October 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to talk about the big vision that millions of Canadians will be able to carry out in their own lives as a result of the tax relief that would permit them and empower them to make decisions about their own futures.

Let me set the context for the conversation about taxes and families from the outset. Before I can talk about the Prime Minister's family tax cut yesterday, or his increase in the annual child care payments that he announced less than 24 hours ago, it is important for me to discuss where he started off.

Prior to that announcement, this government had already cut taxes 160 times.One million Canadians had been removed from the tax rolls as a result of the government's decision to raise the amount of money that people can earn before federal taxes kick in at all.

The government increased the amount that families in the lowest personal income brackets could earn before paying taxes. As a result, 380,000 seniors no longer pay any taxes to the federal government. That is in addition to targeted tax breaks for bus passes, children's sports, and students' textbooks. It is in addition to the elimination of all taxation on scholarships for hard-working, high-achieving young people who are rewarded for their academic achievement.

That was the status of our tax changes prior to yesterday.

What were the results at the end of the line for the Canadian taxpayers? What did it mean for families? The median net worth of Canadian families had increased by 45%. For the first time, and this is according to The New York Times, middle-income Canadians are better off than Americans. As well, prior to yesterday, the average Canadian family paid $3,400 less in taxation.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, often a critic of the government, acknowledged that this tax relief had actually been targeted at low- and middle-income families. He said, “Cumulative tax changes since 2005”—which is when this government took office—“have been progressive overall” and most greatly impacted low-middle income earners, meaning households earning between $12,000 and $23,000, effectively resulting in a 4% increase in their after-tax income.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer also said:

In total, cumulative changes have reduced federal tax revenue by $30 billion, or 12 per cent. These changes have been progressive, overall. Low and middle income earners have benefited more, in relative terms, than higher income earners.

As a result, real after-tax disposable income has increased by 10% since 2006.

I will return to quoting The New York Times article on the very question:

After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada—substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States.

Often we ask ourselves how the lowest-income earners among us are faring in this society of ours. How are they doing, particularly during the aftermath of the global recession that struck so terribly all around the world not so long ago? We can ask UNICEF, which studied the matter and concluded that Canada's child poverty rate decreased during the recession, pulling 180,000 children out of poverty.

UNICEF's president said that the report attributes the decrease in Canada to initiatives by both the federal and provincial governments, such as Ottawa’s National Child Benefit supplement, which gives monthly payments and benefits to low-income families with children.

He said, “[These benefits] kept money in circulation. ... Money goes to poorer families, and that tends to be spent on children, and then it kept money circulating in the economy as well. That kind of investment in children is so important.”

In other words, when we brought in the universal child care benefit, the $1,200 a year we send to every family per child under six, the opposition said that it was only going to help the rich. UNICEF now says precisely the opposite. It says that people who were most in need benefited the most.

NDP members get very angry when our free enterprise policies lift people out of poverty, because it takes away their arguments to control people's lives with big, costly, bureaucratic government programs. They want more of the problem so that they can declare themselves to be the solution. We understand that Canadian families are the solution. We understand that the best social program is a strong family and the best anti-poverty program is a good job.

There is good news on that front as well. There are one million net new jobs in Canada since the depths of the recession. That is the best job creation record of any of the G7 countries.

What is it doing to our nation's books? Are we drowning in deficit and debt like the entire European continent and the states to the south of our border? Are we facing the kinds of downgrades that, for example, the Liberal government in Ontario faces? The answer is no. We are on track to balancing the budget in this coming year. In fact, according to all the experts, our budget is in even better shape than promised by our government originally.

To whom does that future surplus belong? It does not belong to the politicians who want to spend it on behalf of Canadians; it belongs to the hard-working men and women who pay the bills.

Luckily for them, our government will give it back. We will allow them to keep that money so that they can invest in their communities, raise their families, and help create local jobs.

That brings me to yesterday's announcement.

Yesterday the Prime Minister announced three things. First, he would increase the universal child care benefit from $1,200 a year to just about $2,000 per year per child. Second, no longer would that benefit be restricted to families with kids under six. All children would qualify for the universal child care benefit, and every child six or over would be entitled to receive $720 per year.

Just as an example, the universal child care benefit for a middle-income family with a stay-at-home parent and two kids will be worth $4,000 per year. Those are important dollars that they can invest in raising their children, whether through a stay-at-home parent who works hard to keep the home strong and the kids healthy and active or through a daycare like the one I was raised in during my early years as a child in Calgary. The reality is that we are giving the choice to parents, which brings me to the next item in the proposal.

Families will be allowed to share their income. The spouse with the higher income will be allowed to give up to $50,000 to the one with the lower income to save up to $2,000 per year on taxes.

Finally, the amount of money that families can claim in child care expenses such as daycare will go up by $1,000. Whether a parent chooses daycare or a stay-at-home option or something in between, the money will go into the pockets of parents. There are millions of child care experts in this country, and their names are mom and dad.

Parents, not politicians, should decide how to raise children, and that is the fundamental debate in this country. I appreciate that the other side wants big, unionized, institutional, one-size-fits-all daycare, but on this side we trust parents, and our tax cuts allow them to make their own decisions.

[Electoral Reform, October 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, obviously, when the commissioner is housed in a new facility, that facility will have to be rented from somebody. That does cost some money. At this point, that move has not occurred. As a result, the costs have not been incurred.

That being said, we are very proud of the decision to create independent investigations so that we can have law enforcement that is fair and neutral. That is the right thing for the elections act and it is the right thing for Canada.

[Electoral Reform, October 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the move has not actually occurred. As a result, there have been no costs.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, October 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we are the only party in the House of Commons which does not believe that it has to be one to the exclusion of the others. I respect the position of the parties across the way, but their position is only humanitarian aid. Let us just consider that.

What if every country in the world said only humanitarian aid? Think about that. What would happen if all the countries in the world said that there would be no combat, that we would simply arrive to present humanitarian aid to people without any protection whatsoever from the combatants that ISIL had put onto the field?

Everyone here acknowledges that somebody has to do combat against ISIL. The position then becomes that somebody else should do it, but that Canada should not. The opposition members seem to acknowledge tacitly that ISIL presents a threat to Canada through the various linkages that have been demonstrated time and time again between this group and Canadian terrorists, but they say that we should not attack that threat, that as Canadians, we should allow someone else to do that difficult work in our place.

We understand that our national security is also our own responsibility and that while we join with a broader coalition, we cannot simply sit on the sidelines and let others do it for us.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, October 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, if the Iraqi army had already successfully beaten the terrorists, we would not be having this discussion. A Canadian military contribution is needed precisely because the others have failed, that is clear. If Canada got involved only after the battle was already won, I cannot think of any past battles we would have participated in.

The reality is that if we wait for the Islamic State group to become a real state, it will be 1,000 times harder to fight it. That is why we must join our allies now to combat this threat from the air and help our allies on the ground fight and win their own battle.