Rob Anders

[Parliament Of Canada Act, June 13th, 2000]

Mr. Chairman, I have a question for the government House leader pertaining to the title of the bill, namely, the retiring allowances act. I was wondering if the minister might be able to comment on a bill that was recently passed not so long ago with regard to retirement allowances.

When I look around the Chamber I see the guards who represent us here in the House of Commons and who do their jobs dutifully. I note that the government rated the pension plans of the public service employees not so long ago, yet it is ready to once again tinker with the pensions of the members of parliament. I think that speaks to a real contradiction and conflict of interest when members of parliament can decide on their own pay, pension and perks, but other people in the country are not allowed that same type of privilege.

As a matter of fact, other people in the country do not decide on legislation that directly affects their net worth because they are not ministers and they are not members of parliament. People like the guards in this place do not set their own levels of remuneration. They do not have pension plans that are above and beyond what the private sector has.

What I would like to ask of the government House leader is this. Why does he feel that it is okay for members of parliament to be making these decisions on their remunerations? In a sense it begs the question, who guards the guards? I noticed that he had a particularly broad smile on his face, going from ear to ear, as the member for the Progressive Conservative Party was speaking. I have no doubt that the government House leader takes great glee in his Machiavellian manoeuvres with regard to the MP pension bill.

With regard to the title, would it not be better for everyone in the country to have a system whereby a certain percentage of their wages went to a mandatory retirement savings plan and a certain percentage went toward a mandatory unemployment savings plan, whether the person is the grass cutter in this place or the Prime Minister?

[Supply, June 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, the hon. Liberal member across the way has asked who is needy. That is basically the nature of the question. I would like to make a list of some of the people who have received HRDC funding. I would like the taxpayers to determine whether or not this is list of needy individuals. That is the question the Liberals have posed. Are these people needy?

Is Wal-Mart needy of taxpayer subsidy? Is Canada Safeway needy of taxpayer subsidy? Is Shoppers Drug Mart needy of taxpayer subsidy? How about private accounting firms? Do they deserve hard earned tax dollars? What about the 20 police investigations that have gone on? Surely 20 police investigations with HRDC would indicate the police have questions about whether or not HRDC fund recipients were needy as the Liberal member likes to ask.

Were fountains in Shawinigan needy? Taxpayer funding of golf courses, is that what the Liberals call needy? How about hotels in the Prime Minister's riding of Shawinigan, ones where the funds went to foreigners and lined the pockets of businessmen in Belgium, people who had track records and histories of doing improper things with funds? Is that needy? Is it needy when a businessman who has a bad track record with funds was getting taxpayer subsidy? Is that the Liberal definition of needy?

Is it needy to go ahead and set up a database that can raid the bank accounts of the elderly? Is that what the government calls needy, taking somebody who is retired, going into the person's bank account and stripping it dry by taking out thousands of dollars? Is that needy? Does the government need the thousands of dollars in an elderly person's bank account? Does it really need them?

Shame on the government for raising the question of need. The Liberals know nothing about need. They only know about a lack of priorities and buying votes.

[Supply, June 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, for the folks back home I want to make sure they clearly understand what we are talking about. We are talking about human resources development and the massive boondoggle that the whole department is.

All the opposition parties have requested an independent inquiry into the ongoings at HRDC. I would like to add that the first committee I sat on when I was elected to the House of Commons barely three years ago was human resources development. Oftentimes I sat there with my jaw to the floor when I recognized exactly where taxpayers' funds were going in that $57 billion monster. I came to this job thinking there were problems in government, but when I sat on the HRDC committee I got a bigger shock than I was expecting.

There have been 20 different investigations with regard to what has been going on with HRDC. The worst part of it is that it is thickest among the benches of the cabinet ministers. There are four investigations in the Prime Minister's riding alone.

There is a system right now whereby things are being rubber stamped for the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers' ridings or in ridings where the Liberals think they have the possibility of losing a seat. Right before elections and during elections they are pumping untold sums of money into those ridings so they can salvage them. They are doing it with taxpayer dollars. They are trying to buy votes. It is the most blatant abuse we could possibly imagine.

All of the opposition parties have been calling for an investigation into this blatant vote buying by the Liberals with taxpayer dollars. They should be ashamed of themselves.

The Canadian Alliance put out a dissenting opinion with regard to HRDC and the grants and contributions on Thursday, June 1. It was pointed out that there has been a lack of transparency with regard to the HRDC fiasco and the Liberal boondoggle and waste. There has been insistence that there be an audit and that it be made public.

The minister and her officials wanted to wait. They said that the audit would be made public. That is what they told us. That is what the minister said. She said that it would be a public audit and that everyone would have a look at it. However, when the audit was done did they make it public? Did the minister make it public even though that is what she promised to do? No. She broke her promise.

Instead, the minister waited until an access for information request had to pry it from her fingers. That is exactly what the minister did. She was trying to cover up the audit, even though she said that it would be a public audit.

It gets worse. An opposition MP finally received a copy of the audit dated October 5, 1999. When he got a copy of the audit he was asked to destroy it. Can we believe it? He was asked to destroy a copy of the audit and to accept a copy that was dated later in January 2000.

Let me trace the chain of events one more time. The minister said the audit would be made public, but when the audit was finally done she and her officials sat on it. Only because of access to information was that audit finally released. When the audit was finally released, the opposition members who got copies of it through access to information were told that they should destroy them and not use them. They were asked if they would be willing to accept one that was done later. If that is not a blatant cover-up, I do not know what is. That is what the Liberals are up to.

It goes on. I wish the story ended there but it does not. When members of parliament asked for details of HRDC grants by riding we were told they did not exist. The minister stood in her place in the House and said day after day that we as members of parliament could not get riding by riding breakdowns with regard to HRDC.

We were asking simple questions in the House with regard to what was happening in our individual ridings. We were told that we would have to go through access to information. That was it, that was the way we had to go.

The minister well knows that many times with access to information it means that money out of our budgets has to be spent, just because we were asking for a riding by riding analysis which the minister refused to provide even though she could. Or, we were told to put something on the 45 day order paper process rather than receive information directly from the minister. That is type of stuff we have been putting up with.

There has been a very clear cover-up of evidence of mismanagement with regard to HRDC, but there is more yet. It goes on. An employee of HRDC in New Brunswick received a phone call from Ottawa and was told that if there was anything missing in the HRDC files she was to review them, fill them out and backdate them.

The minister knew that there were problems with the files. She was denying it, standing day after day in the House of Commons and saying that there were no problems. However, she had the gumption, the public relations savvy, to phone the offices across the country, namely one in New Brunswick. She knew there were things missing from the files. We were asking questions about it. They knew there were things missing from the files. What did they do? They looked to cover it up. Once again it was another case of cover-up.

These employees were ordered to review them, fill them out and backdate the files. In a sense they were told to misrepresent and go ahead and alter the documents so that the real public record would not be known. That is what the Liberals were up to.

It goes on beyond that because there was a very blatant contradiction. The minister stood in the House of Commons on December 16 and said “No moneys flowed until the appropriate approvals were in place”.

It sounds so noble for the minister to say that no moneys flowed until the appropriate approvals were in place. How does that statement fit with the statement “there was anything missing in these files, review them, fill them out and backdate them?” That clearly indicates a contradiction.

The minister and her officials knew that there were things missing. They knew that those forms were not filled out. They knew that indeed those things would be backdated and that they were ordering their employees to do so. However the minister had the gall to stand in the House and say that no moneys flowed until the appropriate approvals were in place. How could the appropriate approvals be in place when she was ordering her officials to backdate the files, fill them out and review them? That is a pretty obvious abuse. I would say that is a pretty clear contradiction.

If we have a contradiction between what the minister is saying and what her employees are being ordered to do, it means that one person is telling the truth and the other person is telling something else. That is exactly what that means. It is something other than the truth.

I would side with the employee rather than with the minister in this case. We have $22 billion spent as grants and contributions in HRDC, a disingenuous communication strategy on the part of the government, and an absolute absence of controls and documentation. This reminds me of what happened with regard to APEC. We heard a member over there ballyhoo much about that, but he knows all too well there was a cover-up in that regard. He paid a price. He lost his job for that. He is no longer a cabinet minister.

It was not only APEC. It was also Somalia. The government did a cover-up with that when it got a little too close. That is exactly what it is doing with this. It knows it has problems and it does not want to admit that it is misusing taxpayer funds to buy votes with HRDC money.

[Supply, June 6th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, my colleague has done a lot today to open people's eyes with regard to the type of swindle that is going on particularly in places like Shawinigan. I would like to ask him about some businesses that I know get funding out of HRDC and whether or not he thinks that is appropriate.

I happen to shop at Wal-Mart. It gets a lot of my money and I know it gets a lot of other people's money too. That company makes enough money from Canadians by what they voluntarily choose to buy. I do not think it is fair that Wal-Mart gets subsidies from HRDC but that is exactly what is going on. It is not just Wal-Mart because the list goes on.

In my riding alone the list includes Shoppers Drug Mart, another profitable company that is getting HRDC funds, taxpayer money. There are private accounting firms in my riding that have access to these government funds. Canada Safeway is another profitable company that has access to HRDC funds. These big companies are getting access to HRDC funds.

Canadians who may not be making much money are paying taxes so that the government can subsidize these private corporations. What does the hon. member think of Canadian taxpayer dollars subsidizing private companies with HRDC funds as the Liberals are doing?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question of my hon. colleague. I would just like to say that I think the problem is even worse than what has been laid out.

We pay about $42 billion a year in debt payments, in interest on the national debt of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the Liberals across the way who helped to drag this country through the muck. It is just the tip of the iceberg. It means that we are looking at about $20,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. The sad fact is that our demographics are such that not everyone will pay that bill.

For my hon. colleague and his grandchildren, the $600 billion that Canada owes right now as a federal debt will be multiplied because of unfunded liabilities with regard to the Canada pension plan, land claims, irresponsible management in the country, and a demographic bubble that will burst in 2017 with regard to the aged and health care expenses.

This government and these Liberals are sleepwalking into a $2 trillion debt in upcoming years. That means that for youngsters out there such as the grandchildren of my colleague it will not be owing a mere $20,000. I want to let the grandchildren of today know that it will be closer to $100,000 which they will pay. That is sitting on them right now even if this government or any other government never charged a dollar more to the debt of the country.

If they get a university education, if they pursue post-secondary education and raise their expectations for their standard of living and their wages, as their high school guidance counsellors tell them to do, it will mean a $200,000 bill. It is as if a house is sitting on their shoulders for which they will have to pay. It is a house they will never own but it is a debt given to them by the Liberals. Shame on them.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, when I was interrupted by question period I was going through the 62 different tax increases which the Liberals have brought in since they formed the government in 1993. I was looking at what type of money the Liberals had brought in with the tax increases and what they were doing with that money.

I talked about the tax increases which were implemented in 1994 and 1995. In 1996 the Liberals increased personal income taxes 11 times and took $260 million out of the pockets of individual taxpayers. They did that through an RRSP contribution limit freeze, which broke an election promise I might add. Then they went to pension plan contribution limits being frozen, once again breaking an election promise. Then they forced seniors to begin early withdrawals from their RRSPs. Then the Liberals forced seniors to begin early withdrawals from their RPPs. It gets better. The Liberals went on to eliminate the deductibility of administration fees for RRSPs. They forced people to pay for the fees, which they had not done before. They then went on to eliminate the deductibility of administration fees for RRIFs. The Liberals took $260 million out of people's pockets.

I previously commented on something else the Liberals did in 1996. They increased taxes on Canadian pensioners abroad. They fleeced seniors for another $10 million. They did not just stop with individual income tax increases. No, the Liberals had more on their agenda. They increased the burden by $10 million on the overseas employment tax credit for people who could not find a job in Canada, probably due to high taxes.

It always raises the question, with $260 million in personal income tax increases and $70 million in three corporate tax increases which the Liberals brought in in 1996, for a total increased tax burden of $330 million, what types of things did the Liberals do with that extra $330 million?

There is a program in Prince Edward Island called “I want to be a millionaire”. It cost $31,000. Six average taxpayers had to pay their full tax bills just so the Liberals could have that program. What they did not tell people was that the government was making a number of people millionaires that year, and they happened to be the cronies and friends of the Prime Minister.

That program was not how to raise money for Jean, or somebody with that first name. It was not about raising money for the Prime Minister, and therefore getting all sorts of lucrative contracts. That was not what that program was about, but that is the reality of it. These Liberals are very good about lining the pockets of those who support them, and lining the pockets of the friends of the Prime Minister. It does not even matter if they are Canadians. They can be overseas for all they care. They make sure that they look after their own.

If someone gives a couple of thousand dollars to the Prime Minister's campaign in Shawinigan, it is a sure bet there will be a sweet deal on a hotel or something else. That is a shame.

What else did the Liberals spend the $330 million on that they took out of taxpayers in 1996? They spent $100,000 to establish an 18-hole golf course in Sudbury. That is pretty serious money for the average person. As a matter of fact, 21 taxpayers had to pay to the government income tax on everything they made. Twenty-one people paid tax to establish the golf course in Sudbury. There are plenty of golf courses which the government has subsidized. Sudbury is but one of a long list.

What business is it of the government to take money from 21 hard-working Canadians, their full tax bills, to subsidize golf courses? How do the Liberals account for that type of spending? Is that the justification they use for $330 million more in the form of tax increases in 1996? They ought to hang their heads in shame.

I will get to the most egregious of all. What did the Liberal Party of Canada receive from the taxpayer? How much did the taxpayers who never voted Liberal contribute to the Liberal Party? Over $2 million in a tax subsidy.

These budget bills are a sham. What the Liberals do not say is that they have hiked taxes 62 times since they took office in 1993. There have been 27 corporate tax increases, 22 personal income tax increases, six bracket creep increases and seven Canada pension plan increases. What was all of this for? It was for sex changes for soldiers, an unelected Senate, a fountain in Shawinigan, the Prime Minister's cronies, dumb blonde joke books, Bubbles Galore , meat dresses, HRDC boondoggles, studies for lawn ornaments, Bombardier, other forms of corporate welfare, as well as $200 million which was wasted in the budgetary estimate of HRDC. Shame on the government for taking that money from taxpayers.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, today we are talking about the budget. I think it is important for everybody to know that the Liberals have increased taxes 62 times since they formed the government in 1993. Corporate taxes have increased 27 times. Personal tax increases have gone up 22 times. Bracket creep has increased six times. The Canada pension plan has increased seven times.

We must ask what we are getting for the 62 Liberal tax increases since 1993. That is the question. I have done some research. I would like to report to the House and to the world what types of things the Liberal government has done with those 62 tax increases since it came into power in 1993.

In my riding the Liberal government is subsidizing Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a pretty successful firm. Yet the government has gone ahead and increased taxes on Canadians and is subsidizing an extremely profitable company like Wal-Mart in my riding.

It gets richer. The research goes on. Not only is the Liberal government subsidizing Wal-Mart but it is subsidizing Canada Safeway. How is it fair that IGA, Calgary Co-op or any of the other grocery stores are subsidizing Canada Safeway? That is what the Liberal government is doing. It is raising taxes on everyone to give to the few.

The Liberal government is also subsidizing Shoppers Drug Mart. All these companies are profitable. It has raised taxes 62 times. What is it doing with all this tax money? It is subsidizing all sorts of profitable corporations. Shame on the Liberals for doing these things.

It is not only corporate welfare that the Liberals are subsidizing with their 62 tax increases since 1993. They are funding studies too. They have done research just like I am doing research, but what are they doing research on? What are the Liberals spending our money on?

They want to have studies on lawn ornaments. The Liberals actually had a study done on pink flamingos that are stuck into lawns with our tax dollars. It actually happened. Can we believe that the Liberals would give money to Bombardier? In some respects that almost makes sense because Bombardier is a big funder of the Liberal Party. I will deal with that at greater length in a little while. Why is it that we are subsidizing profitable companies and spending money to study lawn ornaments? It does not make any sense. Why have there been 62 tax increases for taxpayers since 1993 to do such things?

I will go through the individual tax increases and ask whether it makes sense what the Liberals have spent money on. In 1994 the Liberal government increased the tax on energy conservation and pollution abatement equipment, something that would reduce emissions and somehow help the environment as it likes to claim. It brought in $45 million of revenue. On the flip side, what was the government putting the money into? It took the money from one side, and what was it spent on?

The Liberals gave $33,800 to examine major league baseball in Detroit. The last time I checked Detroit was in the United States, but taxpayers in Canada were paying for 62 tax increases to the government since 1993 so that it could give their money away to study baseball outside Canada. The next time people write their tax cheques to the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency I want them to think about that.

The Liberal government continued its studies. It spent $100,670, which a lot of tax money for the average taxpayer. As a matter of fact it would take 21 average taxpayers to pay their taxes the whole year in order to fund the interactive study of video games.

Why have the Liberals raised taxes 62 times since they took office in 1993 so that they could spend over $100,000 in 21 taxpayer years to study interactive video games? That does not make any sense. It is totally ridiculous.

Let us look at another infamous Liberal tax increase. In 1995 they brought in a 1.5 cent per litre increase on gasoline, which resulted in a whopping $500 million. What did taxpayers get for putting $500 million more into the Liberal coffers? What did the Liberals wisely invest that $500 million in?

It did not go into roads. Once again, some of the studies show that $44,000 of it went to the social construction of feminist meanings. A lot of tax money came in, but I am guessing the average person who paid the 1.5 cent per litre tax on gasoline did not expect his or her tax money would go to a study on the social construction of feminist meanings. Is it fair for those people to pay those taxes and see them go toward such things? It does not make sense.

Let us look at another of the 62 Liberal tax increases which they have brought in since 1993. In 1995 the Liberals had an additional tax on investment income from private corporations which brought an increased tax burden to Canadians of $120 million. What did the Liberals put all that extra money into? What did the Liberals do with the extra money they were bringing in as a result of all the tax increases in 1995?

They gave $33,000 to promote and develop music in alternative spaces. I ask the average taxpayer to think about that. Is $33,000 for music in alternative spaces something that average taxpayers, if they were the finance minister or the minister responsible, would have thought was a wise investment of taxpayer dollars? Would they have thought it was worthy of a 1.5% per litre increase on gasoline so that Canadians were paying $500 million more into the Liberal coffers? Is that what they were paying their tax increases for? I do not think so.

It goes on, because 62 tax increases takes a while. In 1995 the Liberals increased the corporate surtax which brought in $120 million. They brought the the additional tax on investment income which I have just mentioned. That was another $120 million. They eliminated the deferral of tax on business income for $300 million.

For all these hundreds of millions of dollars what more could the taxpayers possibly expect from the Liberal government? Some 161 different groups, associations and unions received $4,059,235 in grants. For average taxpayers paying more money in income tax and paying more money at the gas pumps for their gasoline when they have seen prices go up dramatically recently was it really wise for the government to spend $24,000 for a film entitled “Indians of Czechoslovakia: Interaction of Indigenous People With Mother Earth?” Was that a wise expenditure of taxpayer dollars?

How about a tax cut? That sounds a lot better to me and I bet that is what my constituents would vote for. As a matter of fact I know that is what they would vote for.

The story goes on. In 1996 the tax increases just kept on coming from the Liberals. They increased the taxes on Canadian pensioners abroad. In Kingston, which is in the Speaker's riding, there may be people who were affected by this. I know it is even worse in Windsor. The taxes on Canadian pensioners living abroad brought in $10 million.

When these pensioners paid the extra $10 million the Liberals levied on them in 1996, what did they get in return? Some $28,000 were spent on a video tracing the history of Chilean poets in Montreal. Was the reason the government went ahead and gouged $10 million from pensioners to fund a video on Chilean poets in Montreal? Was that the rationale?

It goes on. Additionally in 1996 the Liberals froze the contribution limits for RRSPs. More than that, they broke their own promise when they did that. For what good reason did the Liberals break an election promise on RRSP contribution limits? For what good reason did they break the pact that they made with taxpayers when they were elected? They went ahead and gave the Secretary of State for the Status of Women and the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women over $34 million.

Would the average taxpayer say that was a wise expenditure of funds? I think it is pretty questionable? The Liberals went on. In 1996 they forced seniors to begin early withdrawals from their RRSPs. For what reason?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, there have been a number of tax increases that have been brought in over the last number of years.

The Liberals brought in 62 different tax increases since they took government in 1993. One of those was an increased tax on energy conservation and on pollution abatement equipment. That tax which the Liberals brought in in 1994 resulted in $45 million more.

The ironic thing is that we often hear the Liberals talking about how they care about the environment but they actually brought in an increased tax, $45 million more, for investigations into energy conservation and pollution abatement equipment. That is awfully strange.

The question I have for my colleague is whether or not that money was raised so that things like video tracing the history of Chilean poets in Montreal for $28,000 is an example of where that money was going. Is the history of Chilean poets in Montreal the reason why the Liberal government went ahead and brought in a $45 million tax on conservation?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, in 1996 the Liberals increased the burden with regard to overseas employment tax credits, such that people had to leave Canada to find jobs because jobs were not available here, partly because of high taxes. They were faced with an increased tax burden.

When people have to leave Canada because of high taxes, when the Liberals increase the tax burden, something which is truly egregious, are they doing so to fund a subsidy to Wal-Mart? Are the Liberals increasing taxes to fund a subsidy to Safeway? Do the Liberals raise taxes to give a subsidy to Bombardier? Do they raise taxes so they can give a subsidy to Shoppers Drug Mart? Do they raise taxes on Canadians so they can give more out in corporate welfare?

Why are there so many tax increases when there is so much waste?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, 22 times since the Liberals were elected in 1993 they have raised personal taxes.

Did they raise taxes once for combat bras? Did they raise taxes twice for sex changes for soldiers? Did they raise taxes three times so that they could allow the Bronfmans an easy out? Did they raise taxes four times so that they could pay for the fountains in Shawinigan? Did the raise taxes five times so that they could fund dumb blonde joke books?

The list goes on. I would like my colleague to respond and let us know why the Liberals raised taxes so many times.