Rob Anders

[Supply, March 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member. The speaker before him indicated that the Sea King had a role as an anti-submarine warfare device. I happen to think that hunting for subs is an important activity, especially considering that we barely have any other presence in the Arctic.

I know that the Minister of National Defence does not seem to agree with that position. The minister, by the way, has referred to the use of the Sea King as an anti-submarine warfare device as something that is a relic of the cold war.

The question I am posing is this: who has it right? Is it the minister, who says that the Sea King and its replacement are not to be used as an anti-sub device, that this is merely a relic of the cold war and does not have any more relevance, or is it the previous speaker who indicates that indeed this is an important purpose and that Canada should be conducting anti-submarine activities? Is it the minister who is right or is it the previous speaker who is right? Which Liberal has it right?

[National Defence, February 20th, 2001]

Have you not read it?

[National Defence, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have the document right here. They are either in the air or they are not.

When the Liberals took office in 1993 annual Aurora flying hours were 19,200. Now the minister wants only 8,000 hours. Yesterday the minister denied these numbers but we have the proof right here. General Campbell thinks this 58% cut will have an unacceptable impact “on border protection”.

Why should we trust a career politician instead of the expertise of a career soldier?

[National Defence, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of National Defence tried to pretend that Canada's coastal defence is not compromised despite the cut in Aurora flying hours to 8,000. His air force chief disagrees. We have a document signed by General Campbell warning that any cut of Aurora flying hours below 11,500 would seriously impair the ability of the air force to protect Canadian sovereignty.

Given this warning from a soldier who ought to know, why has the minister pushed for these cuts?

[Employment Insurance Act, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am heartened that somebody who previously served as the government whip is able to distance himself from the Liberal government across the way. I will continue to talk about what the Liberal government has done previously and continues to do.

The Liberal government is hoarding $35 billion in the EI fund. It is unconscionable when not nearly that amount of money is necessary.

I would like to tell the people of Alberta, who I know will undergo a provincial election very soon, exactly what is happening in terms of the EI fund. I also tell all pages in the House of Commons to pay attention because these numbers hold true for province of Ontario. The numbers hold true for those working in Ontario as well as those in Alberta.

Alberta pays $1.8 billion into the EI fund. Alberta takes out $500 million. That leaves in the fund a net $1.3 billion overpayment every year. There are 1.6 million working Albertans. If one does the math it works out to roughly $800 per person. Those numbers carry forward for House of Commons pages as well. They do not earn as much as the average worker because they are part time. If, however, they earned an average wage in the low thirty thousands per year, they would be overpaying to the tune of $800 per year in employment insurance, in terms of what they put in and what they take out in aggregate collectively.

That is inherently unfair when the government is taxing nearly $1,000. Canadians are overpaying in terms of the Canada pension plan. The young people around this room know. I know and the government knows. You know, Mr. Speaker, that in 2017 the Canada pension plan will go bust when the actuarial demographic weight cracks down on it. Yet they are overpaying into the plan.

They and others like them are overpaying into both of these plans, EI and CPP, to the tune of $1,000 or better per year, money they could have in their wallet and spend to their own discretion rather than give to the government. It is wrong.

What I would propose is somewhat controversial so I hope members across the way will listen. Five per cent of someone's wage, whether a janitor or the president of a given corporation or public entity, could be taken and put into a mandatory retirement savings plan, a super RRSP. In that way it would not be collectively wasted. It is not a Ponzi scheme. It is not a pyramid scheme. It is not something that goes into general revenue where people wonder if it will ever come out again.

It would go into individuals' accounts. They would know how much money they put in per year. They would know the rate of return on their investment. They could put it into GICs. They could put it into treasury bills. They could put it into bonds or into any number of instruments. They would know how much they had in aggregate.

If I asked any one of the bright people in the Chamber today, and they should be fairly bright people because they are supposed to be running the country, how much they had contributed over their lifetimes into the Canada pension plan, I bet not a single one of them, not even yourself, Mr. Speaker, would know even to the nearest hundred or the nearest thousand dollars exactly how much they had put into the CPP.

The reason they do not know and you do not know, Mr. Speaker, even though they are supposed to govern this land, is that EI is a collectively held fund. Because they do not have individual accounts they do not know. It is the tragedy of the Commons. Ironic is that statement, tragedy of the Commons.

Another 5% would go to employment insurance. My father has recently retired. I hope he is having a good time and enjoying his retirement years. Maybe he is out doing something a little more enjoyable than watching me on TV. I do not know. If somebody like my father who never collected a day of employment insurance in his life could have the 5% he had set aside in EI rolled over to his pension when he turned 65, then 10% of his lifetime earnings would have been saved and invested for when he retired. That would be fair. It would be just. It would make sure that people were not abusing the worst aspects of the employment insurance system and that they would know it was theirs and was there for them.

I see the security guards around here. I remember that last session the government took money out of their pension fund, the public service pension fund. It scooped billions of dollars out of their pensionable earnings. That was wrong. If they were able to put 5% or 10% aside, they would know how much they were putting in and what they were getting as a return on their investment, rather than having the government take it from them. That would be far more just.

I hope we see that someday, rather than the present system that has all sorts of abuses wrapped up in it. People who work as part time students pay into the employment tax but have no ability to collect it. People who are self-employed and run their own businesses are double taxed, once as an employer and once as an employee.

Liberal members across the way laugh. They are making fun of the students in this room. They are making fun of the security guards who work above them. They are making fun of the people who are self-employed and double pay this tax. They laugh despite the fact that they have $20 billion sitting in their chest that they should not have. It is owed to Canadian taxpayers, not to the Liberals who laugh across the way.

[Employment Insurance Act, February 13th, 2001]

Of course, Mr. Speaker, you are the one who issues their paycheques. You are forcing these students to pay into employment insurance, yet because they are part time they will never be able to collect on the money they have paid in.

If for some reason they were to leave this job or you were to let them go, they would never be able to collect on the money you are taking from them. It is not insurance; it is a tax. For these students who are helping us in the Chamber today, you are levying a tax on them. There is no ability for them to collect it.

Parliamentary pages are like hundreds of thousands of other students across the country who pay into employment insurance under the guise that it is insurance, and yet if they lost their jobs or wanted to collect back on it they never could.

This does not just apply to students. It applies to more than just part time students. The government is hoodwinking people like hairdressers, the self-employed, and all sorts of people who are paying into EI but who have no ability to prospect of drawing on it because of the way it is structured.

I will call it what it deserves to be called. It is not an Employment Insurance Act. It is an employment tax. That is exactly what you are doing to these students, Mr. Speaker, and it is exactly what your government does to millions of people across the country when it levies this tax.

Real things to create jobs, real initiatives other than tax cuts, are something my party and I support. To give an example of how nasty this tax is, how pernicious this tax is that you put upon these pages and others in the country, the government right now has approximately $35 billion in the EI fund. It is a huge surplus.

The fund's chief actuarial officer says a $15 billion surplus is all that is required. Therefore more than $20 billion is being hoarded by your government, Mr. Speaker, from people like these pages right here—

[Employment Insurance Act, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to take the opportunity to thank my constituents of Calgary West for re-electing me to the House of Commons. It is a great privilege to represent them yet again, and I thank them for this great honour.

I would like to describe for the folks back home what is going on today. The Liberals are making changes to employment insurance. I will talk about some of the things that should be done but are not being done and how the bill will affect people in Alberta and across the country.

I look around the House today and I see our pages. They serve us very well here in the House of Commons and do a great job for us. I will tell them a little bit about some of the injustices that are being visited upon them because they as well suffer the consequences with regard to employment insurance.

At the present time the government hires them as students. Because they are not full time, because they are part time, the government will collect employment insurance from them. All of you have EI deducted from your cheques.

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in my own community in Calgary West, some of the constituents I have door-knocked have talked about some of the practical, real, front line implications of these cuts the government has made to health care over the last while. I have seniors in my community who have of course contributed to the growth and the building of this country. They are the foundation upon which we stand and yet they are in lineups for hip replacement surgery. For these people, frankly, every single day they have left is precious. Health complications like these only make it that much more difficult.

I wonder if the hon. member might be able to comment, for example, on how the government cuts have resulted in people having to line up for hip replacement surgery.

I would also like the hon. member to comment, for example, on the case of my grandmother who received eye surgery. She went to a clinic called the Gimbel Eye Centre, in Calgary. The reason she went there, of course, was that the public system was not able to handle her for months. Instead of operating on both eyes at once, they would have done one eye at a time with regard to her developing cataracts. If that were the case, my grandmother would have been deprived of her sight for months. As well, the public procedures in terms of the facilities in Calgary were actually less effective than those of the centre.

I know the government was trying to do its best to make sure that my grandmother could not get access to those things. The government would force a woman in her eighties to go to the United States to get that type of surgery. I would like the hon. member to comment on that.

The member talked about $8 million in ads. I wonder whether the $8 million the government has put into ads to try to pull the wool over the eyes of Canadians would be better spent on doctors and nurses.

What about the 50:50 commitment there used to be with regard to health care in Alberta? Alberta was paying 91% of the health care bill in our province. I wonder what it is like in the member's native province of British Columbia.

[Marine Liability Act, October 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his clarification on his position with regard to the introduction of private members' bills in the Senate. He mentioned that there is some measure of accountability lacking in the Senate, I agree with him on that. I wonder if he might be able to offer suggestions from his side of the benches with regard to ways to improve the accountability in the Senate

[Marine Liability Act, October 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I applaud the hon. member for suggesting that the other place should not be the originator of government bills. That is a commendable point. I also recognize that member is more amenable than most to the idea that the other place should have serious measures of accountability.

Would the hon. member expound more on his idea that the other place, namely the Senate, should not be the originator of government bills, and maybe how he feels about the whole idea of Senate elections and accountability in that place?