Rob Anders

[Marine Liability Act, October 6th, 2000]

Indeed, Madam Speaker, and now I am going to start talking about some of the other bills which have been passed with regard to transportation in other countries as they relate to this bill.

In 1998 the United States passed the Transportation Equity Act. It wanted to modernize its act to bring it to the 21st century, which is something that the government says it is trying to do with this bill. That bill was investing $217.9 billion over six years into infrastructure, a large portion of which will go into roads connecting its borders to Canada and Mexico. The bill would legislatively guarantee that a minimum of 90.5% of federal fuel tax receipts from each state are returned to each state.

If we only had that type of vision and commitment on that side of the House with regard to transportation taxes, where the government would be willing commit even 50% of the money it raises in transportation taxes and put it toward transportation. In the United States 90% of the money raised in transportation taxes goes toward those states to help out in transportation. Shame on this government.

I will talk about another issue with regard to transportation. That is the revenue collected by the federal government for aviation fuel which goes into general revenues. It is bad enough that the government is taking $4.5 billion in transportation fuel taxes from taxpayers, which is more than what it puts into transportation.

We not only have people who drive cars, we also have planes. The revenue collected by the federal government for aviation fuel also goes into general revenues. It does not go toward improving our airports. It is only a pittance that is returned to the airports through the capital assistance programs.

That is just another example of the billions of dollars the government collects from various industries that are our base economy. Instead the money goes toward other things that the government thinks are more important.

While we are talking about transportation and fuel taxes, I want to talk about a tax on a tax, where the government collects GST on top of fuel excise taxes. That is supposed to be out of the ballpark. It is absolutely wrong to place a tax upon a tax but that is exactly what the government has done.

It promised in 1993 that it would overhaul it and get rid of the tax on tax. It is not bad enough that it has taken billions of dollars out of transportation and fuel taxes and has not spent those dollars on transportation. It then goes ahead and takes another tax, the GST, and heaps it on top of that. As a result, it becomes even worse. It piles money hand over fist into the general revenue fund to use on things other than transportation.

What does the government use it on? It uses it to buy goodies. Where does it buy those goodies? It buys some of those goodies in the Prime Minister's riding. Some of the transportation fuel taxes are going into the Prime Minister's riding, They are not going into roads, ports, airports, improving the integrity of our roads, enhance traveller safety or economic viability but instead to buy votes.

When we address issues of transportation, like Bill S-17 which originated in the the Senate, it is because we want to improve transportation. It might be argued that the government might be doing something with regard to transportation in the prairies because the farmers are having problems transporting their grain. However, rather than allow the farmers some leeway, what does it do, it puts them in shackles. We are paying.

For the average folks back home who are watching, when they buy gas at the pumps, they pay tax on that gas which goes to the federal government. Some of that tax money is being used to put farmers in shackles because they want to sell their grain outside the wheat board. Shame on the government. That money could have gone to transportation. It could have been a dedicated fuel tax but it is not. Shame on them.

I could go on with all sorts of other things that the government has been wasting and squandering committed fuels taxes on but it basically boils down to this. We have a government that is elitist, out of touch and that is tax and spend. That is exactly what is going on. When the government takes in over $4.7 billion in dedicated fuel taxes and spends over $4.5 billion or 96% of that on things other than transportation, we know that is out of touch. We know it is top-down. We do not doubt for a second that it is taxing 100% and spending 96% on other things. If that is not tax and spend I do not know what is. Shame on it for doing that type of thing, especially considering it made all those election promises about taxes in 1993 and it has indeed raised them. It is a shame.

Let us look at some of the things that other countries are doing to improve their situations in transportation, things that Canada should be looking at. Canada should be looking to improve its situation on trade barriers but instead we have trade barriers that exist between provinces. One of the trade barriers that we have to deal with is between us and our major trading, the United States. Our tax levels are so much higher than our American counterparts that we are driving businesses south. Even today in question period we had a minister who was asked about trying to drive a business around his riding so that he could benefit from jobs there. It is a pretty clear case of pork barrelling.

Instead, the government could be focusing its attention on some of the blatant tax problems and the lack of fairness that exists. It could focus on keeping businesses, which hire employees, provide jobs and tax revenue, in Canada rather than have them leave and go elsewhere.

We have countries like Iceland, Australia, the United States, and the list goes on, that have taxes far lower than ours. Instead of addressing the tax levels, trying to lower taxes and dedicating fuel taxes, we have a whole liability act coming forward that will hamper our competitiveness because there is a total lack of priorities.

If the government was focused on the idea of taxes, on the idea of cutting taxes and on dedicating fuel taxes, then we would have a spitting chance of being able to do better in terms of competitiveness. Instead it helps to drive jobs out of the country.

We know we have a brain drain going on. Members do not want to admit it over there but their lack of priorities have helped to exacerbate that problem and make it worse. Friends of mine are going to the United States and other countries around the world to find work because they cannot it here or because the tax levels are too high. It drives them and their families out of the country.

I could go on with regard to Bill S-17 but I will wrap it up with this. Bill S-17, the marine liability act, centralizes a lot of pieces of legislation. It fits with the whole idea of a centralized, authoritarian, top-down structure that the government seems to like so much. On top of that, it is falling in line with what the supreme court wants. Once again the government is stepping on the toes of provincial jurisdictions. Once again it is failing to address the real issue of competitiveness, which is the true liability, and which is its record on taxes.

The fact is that 96% of the money raised from fuel taxes should be going to transportation and it is not. It is going to a lot of other things. It is going for vote buying for the upcoming election.

[Marine Liability Act, October 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, let us address the subject. This bill is attempting to update things since the 1950s and in the government's own kind of Liberal way.

Let us look at some of the things that have changed indeed since the 1950s in its own kind of Liberal way. Indeed pork barrelling existed before the 1950s and pork barrelling exists after the 1950s. It is still part and parcel, is it not?

We are talking today about changing the marine law. While we are at it, let us look at some of the other changes that are required in law and some of the other laws that the government is attempting to change.

The gun registry was originally supposed to cost only $2.2 million. Instead it is going to be costing over $500 million, nearly half a billion dollars. Where is the government getting that money from? It is getting it from transportation fuel taxes. It is taking it from the people who fill up at the pumps every single day in this country. The government is taking the people for $4.5 billion and using it to spend on things that will not keep criminals away from firearms but instead it will punish law abiding citizens.

Shame on the government. That is what transportation fuel taxes—

[Marine Liability Act, October 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am speaking directly to that bill. I will talk about how it violates provincial jurisdiction and some of the other things the government does to violate the jurisdiction of the provinces.

My goodness, on transportation Alberta can speak only too well with regard to the national energy program which the government brought forward and the millions and billions of dollars it stripped out of the province of Alberta to cripple an industry that was crucial to transportation. I could go on. There is no problem if they want me to talk about transportation fallacies and what the government has done to help cripple transportation. I will do that gladly because I think the people need to hear it.

The money raised through transportation taxes funds things like ACOA vote buying. We heard questions in the House of Commons today on the very issue of a minister threatening and even taking money and pushing businesses into his riding. That is clear political manipulation. That is exactly what the bill is all about and that is exactly what we should not allow.

[Marine Liability Act, October 6th, 2000]

No doubt about it, Madam Speaker, that when I look at Bill S-17 it refers to fatal accidents, liability, compensation and damages. It refers to all those things. That member across the way may not like our reference to liability, compensation, fatal accidents and damage, but I will tell him a bit about compensation, damage, liability and fatal accidents.

I will tell the House what is a fatal accident. A fatal accident is that we have $4.5 billion of transportation tax money that is going to fund court challenges. Can we believe it? We have groups out there that are using taxpayer dollars to sue our government to get more taxpayer dollars.

That is what happens when money is taken from taxpayers on fuel and it is put into general revenue. It is a whole lack of priorities on transportation. The government takes that money and does not put it into roads, into ports, and into things that obviously have tangible benefits. Instead it sticks it into other things. I do not know how it can possibly argue its priorities.

We get prison golf courses. The government is using $4.5 billion taken in fuel taxes under the auspices of transportation on prison golf courses so that prisoners can play on the green. How does it justify that? How is that a priority?

It gets worse. The $4.5 billion are also used to pay for early parole, appeals. Prisoners use those taxpayer dollars to appeal for early parole. It is not bad enough that they get out when they do with light sentences and slaps on the wrist, but that $4.5 billion pay for early parole appeals.

[Marine Liability Act, October 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, there is no subject more pressing than this whole idea of the liability act, which originated in the Senate.

I will go on to talk about some of the things that the government is once again doing. It is allowing the supreme court to call the shots. It is reacting to supreme court decisions rather than allowing the supremacy of parliament to rule the day.

I could also talk about the violation of provincial jurisdiction. I could go through chapter and verse if the hon. member across the way wants me to, but I want to address the ideas that are involved in this. One of the ideas is that 96% of the money that is raised through fuel taxes for transportation, which this bill deals with, is going to other things. What is it going to? I alluded to dumb blonde joke books. If that is not a liability in terms of the use of taxpayer dollars and fuel taxes, I do not know what is.

Why would the general revenues raised through transportation taxes go toward funding pornography? What sense does it make to take transportation tax dollars and fund pornography films like Bubbles Galore and various other films? That is exactly what is happening. How is pornography a higher priority than transportation, building good roads and building better ports? This does not make any sense.

However, it gets worse. That 96% of dollars, that $4.5 billion, a sum larger than almost any individual can possibly fathom—the biggest purchase most people make in a lifetime is a home—is also going to fund bleach and syringes so that convicts can shoot up their drugs while in jail. That is an abuse of taxpayer dollars.

[Marine Liability Act, October 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, today we are addressing Bill S-17, the marine liability act. The title of Bill S-17 means that the bill originated in the other place, namely the Senate. My party has been advocating for quite some time the idea of an equal, effective and elected Senate. I would like to touch on some of the ideas with regard to whether an unelected place should be putting forward legislation.

Back in 1990 in my home town of Calgary, the Prime Minister in his leadership race was advocating that the Senate be elected. He also went on to make promises to that effect in 1993. If he had upheld his original promise to have an elected Senate when he became Prime Minister in 1993, most of the people in that place at this time would probably be elected. However, he did not live up to his promise to the Liberal delegates in 1990 and he did not live up to his promise to the Canadian public in 1993 that the other place would be elected.

As a result we have a circumstance whereby today legislation has been put forward from that place, from an unelected body that is unaccountable to the taxpayers in this land. I know because we have tried to draw before us in committee people who should by all rights be accountable to the Canadian taxpayers, who should be accountable even to the Prime Minister after he has appointed them, and that would be at least something, or at least accountable to this body, the House of Commons, that is duly elected.

However, by refusing to appear, either at the request of the Prime Minister, this place or the Canadian taxpayers on the matter of their own budget, the whole idea of money and of spending taxpayers' dollars, it has proven that there is no accountability by an unelected body, namely the Senate, to the taxpayers.

I could go on for a very long time about the problems I have with an unelected Senate and therefore I think a less effective Senate. If it was elected, it would take up the battle cries like it did during the GST, whereby the GST dropped from 11% down to 9% and finally to 7% because of what those in the Senate did. Once again that is one other of the broken promises. I remember in 1993 when the Liberals went about this country talking about killing, abolishing and scrapping the GST and they did not do that. They broke their faith with the people.

The person who used to be the deputy prime minister, the member for Hamilton East, knows all too well that they broke their faith with the Canadian people on the matter of the GST.

Somebody who was booted out of the party and sits now over on this side, the member for York South—Weston, knows all too well that the Liberals broke its faith with the people on its promise to kill, scrap and abolish the GST.

I will now go on to talk about some of the other things in the marine liability act that will have an impact on people. The marine liability act will consolidate various pieces of legislation and concerns into a single piece of legislation. Of course, that fits generally with the tone of the government to go ahead and centralize a lot of different things and to hone its power. That is a typical theme in this place for this Liberal administration.

The bill also touches on this whole idea of the other liabilities, the problems associated with it and the lack of priorities coming out of the government. The government is dealing with this liability act, which will have an impact on our transportation system, when Canada's competitiveness in transportation is slipping. This is a travesty.

Right now we have a serious problem with taxes in this country, and especially in realm of transportation. We collect about $4.7 billion in fuel taxes. That is a lot of money in terms of fuel taxes. If we collect $4.7 billion in taxes, where does that money go? Does it all go back into transportation? That would make perfectly good sense, would it not? That money could used to improve a lot of highways and port facilities.

Although that money could do untold good for all sorts of transportation, and although we have the highest prices for gasoline we have ever seen, what is happening? Of the $4.7 billion that came in by way of gas taxes for the fiscal year 1998-99, which will probably be higher this year, only a paltry 4.1%, or $194 million, went back to provincial transfers for road and highway development. That means that for every dollar the average person pays in gasoline taxes, 96 cents goes toward things other than transportation.

The obvious question that comes up when we are talking about liabilities, which the government is, and priorities in transportation is, what other types of things does that 96% go into? It goes into the general revenue fund.

Let us look at some of the other priorities. Let us look at the serious liabilities that the government lies out for the taxpayer. That 96% of money that people pay goes into dumb blonde joke books. Frankly I do not know what that has to do with transportation but the fact is that transportation tax dollars and fuel taxes are going into those things.

[Criminal Code, September 22nd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I look around the House today and I do not think there is a single member of parliament in this place who would say that they were in favour of kiddie porn, or in favour of pederasts or any of that type of stuff that would be condoned by these types of activities. For the folks back home, I do not think there is anybody here who would support kiddie porn. If there is, I want that member of parliament to raise his or her hand. No, I did not think so. The question then comes down to what is the best way to deal with the problem.

First, I commend my colleague from Lethbridge for having brought this forward. He mentioned in his speech, and others touched on it, that one of the ways to potentially deal with this issue is to try to regulate the Internet. That is an incredibly unwieldy proposition and is next to impossible. Our ability to try to restrict some website in the United States and somebody in Canada from having access to it is very difficult. Even trying trying to restrict it within the country would be difficult as well. We all know how quickly these things are growing and how much the Internet is taking off by leaps and bounds. That is just one aspect of this. I think that would be very difficult to do.

Another aspect, though, is the whole idea of the forfeiture of property, of seizing the tools of the trade of these people who engage in child pornography. If they are engaging in child pornography and are using computers for those purposes, surely it makes absolute sense to seize the tools of the trade. It would make it all that much more difficult for them to do so. If we take away the computers it probably would go a long way toward stopping their dalliances on the Internet and their spreading of the material. If we take their digital cameras or whatever they happen to use, if we seize their ability to capture visible images, it would go a long way toward ending the dissemination of material.

People who go to great trouble and cause problems by somehow obtaining visual images of the sexual exploitation of minors could be processed under law and convicted for having done what they did. Let us imagine the oddity of their keeping the material and possibly selling it to others or somehow making a profit from what they have done by distributing it to other individuals who share their predilections. That would be not right. I do not think any MP in the House thinks that would be right.

The only point the government brought forward in this consideration is if somebody worked for a company and used a computer there to download or somehow distribute such images. It is a pretty weak case. I put the issue to the people at home who are watching today. It is not a fair analogy or something that would serve as a real roadblock for the legislation to carry forward. It is something that the government's representatives on the streets of the country, the police, say is the right way to deal with the issue.

Surely the parliamentary secretary must be willing sometimes to step aside from his academic or theoretical and abstract considerations with regard to some of these issues and listen to his own deputies, his own people on the street, the ones who deal with pornographers on a day in, day out basis, make it their lives and spend decades trying to hunt down some of these criminals. Surely listening to them makes sense.

If the parliamentary secretary cannot listen to police officers who deal with the criminal investigation of pedophiles or child pornographers, to whom can he listen? Would he take the word of somebody in the Department of Justice, some lawyer worried about some particular nuance, the crossing of a t and dotting of an i with regard to a clause, or of somebody who deals with child pornographers and pedophiles on a regular basis and sees the sick work they do?

Police officers enforce this aspect of the law. They probably have a far better understanding of its reaches and consequences than the parliamentary secretary could ever dream of, and certainly more than whoever it is in the Department of Justice with whom he consults on these matters. I ask him to pay close attention to what police officers have to say in this regard and to give due consideration to the bill.

I would like to wrap up by saying that my colleague, the member for Lethbridge, has done commendable work. It is noble of him to have listened closely to police officers who work in this very area and to have come up with legislation. Once again I applaud the idea that rather than trying to regulate the Internet, which is an incredibly difficult and possibly impossible task, we focus on the tools of the trade of pornographers and pedophiles and go after them instead. He may be able to provide more resources to police officers, those people on the beat that the parliamentary secretary does not seem to want to listen to in this case, so that they can go ahead and do the good work they do.

I ask that the parliamentary secretary and the government do the right thing in this regard.

[Financial Consumer Agency Of Canada Act, September 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know how the hon. member feels about deep tax cuts, the type of tax cuts that would mean that every single family across the country would pay less tax?

[Immigration, June 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, by sticking her head in the sand the minister is only helping the snake heads.

Ten months ago the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said that the Chinese illegal migrant cases would be finalized in six months. Does the Liberal definition of finalized include smashing windows, setting fires, breaking doors or toilets? The B.C. riot required a lockdown for 82 of these aliens. Does the minister expect Canadian taxpayers to accept this, or will she deport the Chinese illegals before this season's boats start arriving?

[Immigration, June 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, by allowing the illegal Chinese migrant problem to fester on Canadian soil, the minister is opening Pandora's box. The minister should establish processing centres that deal with these problems in days, not years. She is increasing bounties per head and smuggler profits by her failure to act.

How much more rioting will the minister spawn before she deports these Chinese illegals?