Rob Anders

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 224

That Bill C-9 be amended by adding after line 29 on page 7 the following new clause:

“20.1 (1) On the expiration of ten years after the coming into force of this Act, the provisions contained herein shall be referred to such committee of the Senate, as may be designated or established for that purpose.

(2) The committee designated or established for the purpose of subsection (1) shall, as soon as practicable, undertake a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Act and, shall within two years after the review is undertaken, submit a report to the Senate.”

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 181

That Bill C-9 be amended by adding after line 29 on page 7 the following new clause:

“20.1 (1) On the expiration of five years after the coming into force of this Act, the provisions contained herein shall be referred to such committee of both Houses of Parliament as may be designated or established by Parliament for that purpose.

(2) The committee designated or established by Parliament for the purpose of subsection (1) shall, as soon as practicable, undertake a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Act and, shall within one year after the review is undertaken, submit a report to Parliament.”

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 172

That Bill C-9 be amended by adding after line 29 on page 7 the following new clause:

“20.1 (1) On the expiration of ten years after the coming into force of this Act, the provisions contained herein shall be referred to such committee of the House of Commons, of the Senate, or of both Houses of Parliament as may be designated or established by Parliament for that purpose.

(2) The committee designated or established by Parliament for the purpose of subsection (1) shall, as soon as practicable, undertake a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Act and, shall within three years after the review is undertaken, submit a report to Parliament.”

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 40

That Bill C-9, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing lines 36 and 37 on page 2 with the following:

“Agreement.”

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, many times have I walked arm in arm with my colleagues, even last night on some of the amendments to Bill C-2, the elections act, which I think is an onerous bill. Many times have I warmed the cockles of my heart by their fire, but this is not one of those times.

I see by my watch and by the clock on the wall that it is time for a change and change we shall have. I should go so far as to say I think we should damn this agreement. More than that, I think we should damn those who do not damn this agreement. More than that, I think we should damn those who do not sit up at night not damning those who do not damn this agreement.

If I had but one reason why Nisga'a was a failure that would be a mighty one indeed. If I had two, then certainly people would say there was a case to be made. If I had three, the government would seriously have to reconsider its intentions. If I had four, the government members should put their tail in between their legs and run from this place with the agreement in their hands, never to bring it forward again. But I have more than five. I have far more than five reasons why Nisga'a is a failure.

One, Nisga'a does not recognize private property rights. The whole idea of wealth, of progress, of ownership is negated in the Nisga'a agreement. It does not recognize, it does not respect the idea of private property rights, something people have fought for over thousands of years, to maintain, to gain the idea of private property rights. Nisga'a abrogates, undercuts and instead puts forward collective group rights, rather than the rights of individuals, rather than the rights of individuals to own property. Shame. That is the first point.

Point two, the Nisga'a final agreement permanently entrenches the same essential elements as the reserve system of the modern day. The reserve system of the current day has numerous problems. Part of the problems that it has is that rather than trying to address the aspirations of individuals toward creating better lives for themselves and their families, instead it hives people together on reserves and gives them collective ownership of land, negates their ability to do something with it of their own creative abilities individually.

Indeed, every time that the natives have come to the government asking for some sort of redress to these problems, instead the crown, the federal government, has doled out money instead, rather than solving the fundamental problems. Every time there has been a knock on the door, the cash infusions have come out.

Instead of helping the situation, it has helped to undermine the sense of self-reliance that individuals within that community could develop. That is point number two.

Point three is the idea of taxation without representation. Revolutions and civil wars have been fought over these very ideas. Whether we go back to the idea of Magna Carta and King John, whether we go back to the idea of the American revolutionary war, the idea of taxation without representation is what representative democracy and indeed this very institution that we stand in today is about. It is the cornerstone.

I represent taxpayers. I come here on their behalf to argue their concerns and to try to keep government within its rightful boundaries which, I would like to add, currently is not within those boundaries and has trampled upon the good intentions of the people who have helped to set it up and is taking far more out of their wallets and out of the blood and sweat and tears of their labour than it should.

The whole idea that the Nisga'a agreement will not be a truly representative government but instead be taxation without representation is a shame. I know that as people have fought over centuries and over a millennium to go ahead and achieve a form of taxation with representation, so indeed the seeds that Nisga'a sows are bad seeds. The fruit that it will reap is that of despair. It will eventually lead to natives themselves rising up in terms of these very issues. That is the third reason.

The fourth reason is that we already have too much government in the country. We have two levels of government that are recognized in the British North America Act as of 1982 in the patriation. Some may question how it was done. Nonetheless there were two levels of government that were laid out in the constitution act. The provinces created a third: municipal government in the country.

We have now the creation of what amounts to a third, if we look at the constitution act or if we look at the totality, a fourth, level of government in the country. That in itself is a problem but it ties into another. That was my fourth problem with Nisga'a.

My fifth problem with Nisga'a is that this issue has been put to the people. It was called Charlottetown and it failed. At the time all the parties in this place got their ducks in a row and put Charlottetown to the people and said “It is good. Vote for it”. They outspent their opposition 13 to 1 in order to propagandize their aims, but at the end of the day they were not victorious. They lost, and rightly so, because the constitution should and does belong to the people. They rightfully said that they did not want to see these types of provisions in law and entrenched for time to come.

What has the government done? It has gone against the very explicitly expressed will of the people. It has gone against what people across the country said they did not want to see constitutionalized and put into law. The government is going ahead and doing it instead through a step by step piecemeal process through the back door. That is what this is about, a government overriding the will of the people who have already expressed it on a constitutional referendum. That is the fifth reason why I have problems with the Nisga'a treaty.

The sixth reason why I have problems with the Nisga'a treaty is because it hinders future economic development. It helps to deter and it hinders future economic development in British Columbia. There are mining companies and forestry companies. Indeed, when we look around the House we see murals depicting miners and foresters in the committee rooms. They are some of the foundations upon which the country was built, the main industries that helped give Canada its start. Those very companies and industries are pulling up shop in the province of British Columbia because of the uncertainty over land claim agreements such as this. Rather than go ahead and help to access the resources of the country and to help build it, they are taking their skill, equipment and ingenuity to other countries in South America and other places around the world. I know some of these companies even in my own backyard that have reservations with regard to what is going on with these developing issues. They are leaving Canada, and so go the jobs. Shame.

Point number seven is that not only will it deter economic development but there are huge costs that are directly implicit with the agreement. The massive payouts, millions of dollars just for this individual claim, never mind the hundreds of others, are simply unaffordable. The Nisga'a treaty is an unaffordable and untenable situation. If the government sets it up as a precedent for future land claims, woe the country.

Point number eight is that the Nisga'a treaty helps to build barriers. I only have but a minute of time, yet there are so many problems with this bill.

Point number nine is that the government knows it is a flawed bill. It would not, and will not, give consent to put this bill to the people of British Columbia because it knows it will fail. The government knows that as it put this question in Charlottetown and it failed, if it put this question in the province of British Columbia the people would once again turn it down. Shame on the government when it knows that what it does is wrong, the people would not support it and it would not carry the will of the land.

Point number ten is the idea of an inherent right to self-government. I believe in self-determination, however, think not of a municipal level of government but instead something that would help to set up hundreds of separate nation states. Lord Durham wrote of Canada that it was two nations warring within the bosom of a single state. Imagine a country that was hundreds of nations warring within the bosom of a single state. I put to the House that such a nation would have a very difficult time surviving indeed.

Those are just ten reasons and I could go on, but I leave it at that. I put to the government, if it knows the Nisga'a treaty will not pass the test of the people, and it knows it already failed the test of the people, leave it be and pull the bill from the House.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 2nd, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-9, in the preamble, be amended by deleting lines 1 to 5 on page 1.

[Canada Elections Act, November 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-2, the Canada Elections Act, is again weaving its way through the House.

Under this act, an individual will never again have the right to speak as loudly as a political party during an election. He or she will no longer have the ability to spend all he or she wants defending his or her view of what the country should become.

Twice before, these laws have been passed. Twice before, they have been challenged. Twice before, our courts have found these laws unconstitutional.

At great taxpayer expense, the solicitor general will again have the unhappy task of defending this latest incarnation of the gag law. A task that should rightly fail.

It is my sincere hope that I will one day see the end of our government's efforts to muzzle Canadians.

[Canadian Institutes Of Health Research Act, November 25th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-13, an act to establish the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and to repeal the Medical Research Council Act.

I will draw to the attention of the House some of the positive and negative things in the bill and how they relate to other things that go on in this place.

One of the positives of Bill C-13 is that those who serve on this Canadian institutes of health research board are elected by their peers. It also has accountability and peer review. Not only is someone elected by their peers, but they are reviewed by their peers. On top of that, only 4% or 5% of the entire budget is taken up in bureaucracy, which leaves 95% or 96% to be spent on the actual things the bill intends to do and the things that the Canadian institutes of health research intend to do.

I have just talked about elected by their peers, accountability, peer review and very little waste, in the amount of 4%. What institution in this place and involved with government does this directly contradict and not match up with? I think of the other place, the Senate.

I have done a fair bit of research on our Senate as of late, being that I am the critic of that place for the official opposition. It is worthwhile to point out that Canada, in relation to countries such as Burkina Faso and Sierra Leon, still continues to appoint our senators for life. It was only a few short years ago that we said that no one could sit in the Senate after the age of 75.

That all being considered, I noticed that even in the Canadian institutes of health research act, Bill C-13, the president is to serve a term of no more than five years. We have the government agreeing to the very fundamental and basic idea of a fixed appointment, a fixed election and a specified term, not a position held for life. In comparison to the Senate, people can be appointed to the Senate at the age of 30 and sit there until the ripe age of 75. That would be a period of 45 years, nine times longer than the president of the Canadian institutes of health research would be allowed to sit in their posts.

A fair question to be put to the government is that if the president of this new board, the Canadian institutes of health research, can only sit for five years before having a formal review and is no longer allowed to sit and the position changes over, how is it that a fundamental basis of our Senate, this second House that forms part of the parliament, reviews legislation, can block legislation and can create legislation for the citizens of Canada, can have somebody sit for 45 years with no form of review.

I will tell the House what I think of that concept of having no review. We have a situation today where even if the Senate runs over budget, even if it spends more than what it has already been allotted, it cannot be called before the government operations committee to account for those things. I know this because I sat on the government operations committee. I well remember when the Senate went over budget and it wanted more money.

What happened? As members who are duly elected by taxpayers to be the watchdogs of the public purse, we tried to call representatives of the Senate to come before us in committee and we could not do it. Not only could we not do it, but the Prime Minister of this place would never take action against others in that place if he were to have trouble with them unless there was severe public pressure and condemnation by their peers?

As far as the actual terms and how long one should or could be sitting in the Senate, right now somebody could be appointed at 30, be there until 75, and serve an entire 45 years without any accountability to the Prime Minister, to the House of Commons or to any elector in any province any place in the country.

Alberta is a province that likes to generate new ideas every now and again. We did that with the Senate elections act. One of the things we did was tie senators who ran under that act to a fixed term. We set it at double the length of a municipal election term. What I mean by that is that we have elections in the province of Alberta, as do many provinces in the country, that are actually fixed election dates.

This is something the Reform Party supports in terms of this place. We believe we should have fixed election dates, that it should not be up to the whim and the caprice of the government to decide when it wants to drop the writ and when it wants to call an election.

I am advocating that we actually have fixed election dates in terms of the elections act. Right now Bill C-2 is before a committee in clause by clause consideration. Then, for example, every four years we would know when the election would be. It would not be a matter of speculation for business in terms of how it conducts its activities, for the general population and constituents, or for the benefit of the government in terms of how it purchases time, buys advertising and all the rest of the things it can use taxpayer money for its benefit in putting out a good word about the government and the things it has done.

We in Alberta decided to go ahead and take that model of fixed election dates for our municipal elections that happen every three years and said that senators should be elected in every second one of them. In the last municipal election we held a Senate election in Alberta. We had more people vote in that Senate election than anybody has ever voted for any federal politician in the House, and certainly more than in the other place because nobody has ever voted for one of those senators aside from the Prime Minister and his sole vote.

We determined that we would be holding more of those Senate elections in conjunction with the fixed election dates in the municipal elections act. That is something I wanted to point out. The government recognizes those principles and puts them into things like the Canadian institutes of health research, but we do not see it being carried forward in the Senate.

When the Prime Minister campaigned in 1990 and spent his time issuing threats to the province of Quebec about 60% majorities being required for it to make a decision on its own, he said that he believed in Senate elections, that he wanted to see people elected in that other place. If he had carried forward on the intentions he laid out when he ran for the Liberal leadership, most of the people in the Senate would be elected senators by now. That is not the case because he did not follow through on his word, his promise in 1990.

I would like to touch on the whole idea of selection by one's peers. Instead of even being judged by fellow senators, appointment to the Senate is gained by the judgment of one man. Admittedly there was a rare exception in Canadian history when it was the judgment of a woman, but for the most part it has been one man, the Prime Minister of the country deciding who gets into the Senate.

Since he has not been a senator himself, we might ask what he judges or how he judges how one gets into the Senate? Like the people who might be serving on the Canadian institutes of health research, will he look at what kind of medical accreditation they have? Will he judge how they have practised medicine? Will he examine whether or not they have the support of their peers? Is any of that being done? No.

The way that someone gains a seat in the Senate is unfortunately based on how loyal they have been to a given prime minister. Are they dependable when the Prime Minister wishes to bring forward a piece of legislation that he knows will be very difficult for the people in that place to swallow, that may go against the popular consent of those he governs, that may not carry the popular will of the day? Will they be good, loyal soldiers, strap on their jackboots and carry forward with the orders?

Maybe somebody who has been a good loyal parliamentary secretary marshalling bills through committee and shoving the will of the Prime Minister down the throats of the people of the country would be the type of person who gets put into the Senate, the good loyalists.

Another way some prime ministers have judged is not just on the basis of loyalty and being good jackboot wearing parliamentary secretaries but on how much money they have raised. Many senators in that place have broken records and set the tone for being the biggest political fundraisers in Canadian history. People are judged in terms of how to get into the Senate on how many millions of dollars they raised for a leadership campaign.

Government members recognize that accountability, peer review, minimal waste and proper selection are important but not when it comes to the Senate.

[National Highway System, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I would not have a chance to talk about this motion today, but I am a very fortunate man.

Despite the fact the government will not allow a vote, would not allow the will of the taxpayers to be done on this, I would like to touch on a number of points.

Mr. Speaker, suppose I took a significant chunk of your money and in return I gave you 6% back. This is a special year and I will give you a special deal, Mr. Speaker, because I like you. I will give you only 4% of that money back. I will keep 96% of the money. You would probably say that was not such a good deal. Mr. Speaker, you are a pretty fiscally responsible fellow and you would probably say it was a pretty bad deal. And that is exactly what has been happening in our country with fuel taxes.

Folks at home please pay attention because this is your tax money at work. The federal government takes in excess of $4 billion of taxpayer funds. For every tank of gas that we buy, 10 cents on every litre goes to the federal government but we are given a pittance back in terms of what is returned in our highways.

We shake our heads sometimes and ask why did the government do that? Why did the federal government put a 10 cent tax on gasoline? We already pay many taxes.

Back in 1975 Petro-Canada was created, the nationalization of Petrofina. And thank you Pierre Trudeau. Albertans loved the prime minister for that, as you well know, Mr. Speaker. The government taxed people 2.2 cents a litre. The funny thing about government is that over time, it just continues to grow. It went from 2.2 cents in order to fund Petro-Canada, Pierre Trudeau's pet project, to become the 10 cent per litre tax that it is today.

There are things known as dedicated taxes in this country. The government will tell us that it does not believe in dedicated taxes, but it sure believed in dedicated taxes when it came to old age security. It believed in dedicated taxes when it came to the air navigation system. But now the government is beyond dedicated taxes and is into something noble called slush funds. That is what the Liberal Party of Canada is into now. That party does not like dedicated taxes.

Slush funds are way better for the Liberals. They can then take the 96 cents out of every dollar we pay in fuel taxes and buy votes from other folks. Why give the money back to the taxpayer? Instead, they can give the money to special interest groups or someone who is really going to appreciate it and give them electoral support or work for them on election day. That is what they do with the money.

That is my opinion, but what do the premiers have to say about this? In 1994 at the annual premiers conference they said that they did not like the system either. Provinces across the country said that they were getting shafted and they wanted something different.

I took part in a debate at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. Our mayor was there. The provincial government, myself representing the official opposition, and our mayor all said that not only 20% but it would be really sweet if they could get 50% of the money that goes into the federal coffers to be spent on the national transportation system. But this year it is only going to be 4%, a far cry from 20%.

I would like to point out to the people of Calgary that our mayor Al Duerr would love to introduce a municipal fuel tax. As a result of that debate, the provincial government coughed up the money to give to the city of Calgary. As a result the mayor did not get his way on a municipal fuel tax. Remember that the mayor of Calgary is in favour of a municipal fuel tax. Do not forget it next election day.

The federal government tries to say that this is a provincial responsibility, that it is not its bailiwick any more. If it is not the federal government's bailiwick, why is the federal government taxing people 10 cents per litre and taking $4 billion of their money? Leave it alone. It is the taxpayers' money. If the federal government is not going to give money back to the taxpayers in better roads, then it should not collect it in the first place. If it is going to collect $4 billion and spend only $200 million, leave the money in the taxpayers pockets. Otherwise, direct that money toward the roads. I could go on about why that would be a good thing to do, but my time is up.

[Municipal Grants Act, November 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as always, I will start my comments on the bill by telling the folks back home what it is all about.

Bill C-10 is an act to amend the Municipal Grants Act. It talks about administration. It talks about payments. It talks about taxes. It talks about common tax due dates. It talks about government leasing its properties to non-departmental third parties. It mentions the Canada Post Corporation and goes into the discretionary power of the federal government.

Let me make a few points about those subjects. We have a situation where we have three levels of government, federal, provincial and municipal, and this government is trying to establish a fourth level of government. This is despite the fact that the country is already overgoverned, despite the fact that we have a $600 billion national debt, and despite the fact that we have unfunded liabilities with the Canada pension plan that will max out in 2017.

Despite the fact that we have all these concerns—and the government certainly has a full plate if it were willing to deal with it—it is creating a fourth level of government by what it is doing with Nisga'a. That impinges because we have three levels of government and we are already having difficulties. It is troublesome at times to deal with those issues, especially for the taxpayer, because there is one taxpayer and there are three levels of government, and now we are to have four.

On top of that is the whole issue of taxation without representation. That is exactly what will happen with the fourth level of government that I mentioned. Not only will that happen in the new level of government, but it will learn from the previous ones. It will be picked up as precedent.

We have a situation where we have taxation without representation going on right now with municipal governments. I asked a question of one of my colleagues about the whole issue of municipalities across the country that are paying more employment insurance than they get back in return.

I am a taxpayer in Calgary. By contributing my money to municipal taxes in Calgary I am paying for municipal workers in the city of Calgary, and the overpayments this government is collecting in employment insurance, in the EI fund, is therefore going into federal coffers. The situation is the same for all those who pay municipal taxes

It is absolutely unfair that the federal taxman is robbing money out of municipal coffers across the country, especially when we consider the federal government has cut back its transfers to the provinces and therefore also cut back transfers to the municipalities dependent upon provincial funds. That is a shame.

This government continually says that it believes in some of the programs that it holds high as sacred cows in the country, but time after time it makes cuts to them. On top of that it raises taxes. I could talk about the CPP tax hike and the EI taxes.

On top of that as well municipal governments are forced to go ahead and overpay employment insurance for their employees. In the city of Vancouver alone the people of Vancouver are overcontributing over $2 million to the federal government. It is not as though the people of British Columbia and the people of Vancouver are not overtaxed as it is. On top of that $2 million of their money are being transferred to the federal government. That is an absolute shame.

The bill also includes appointments. I happen to be the Senate and patronage critic of the official opposition. Patronage all too often takes place in all aspects of government legislation. There are thousands of positions, and this bill is no different, that include patronage positions. People meet with the Prime Minister on a regular basis to go ahead and dole out the precious positions Liberals love to give to their friends. Part of what the bill is about is appointments and patronage.

In 1990 this government said it would change things. When the Prime Minister ran for election as leader of the Liberal Party he said that things would be different under his rule. We do not have that. The Liberals promised in the red book in 1993 and again in 1997 that patronage would change.

As a matter of fact, the government House leader helped to author the McGrath report in which he said that some of those positions would be vetted by parliamentary committees which have the ability to go into these matters and would love to be able to scrutinize people based on the merits they have to hold their positions. Instead, we continue to have this government push forward its agenda of patronage.

It gets worse. It goes into the whole idea of tax sharing and tax agreements. I have been in this place two years. The longer I am here, the more I believe the provinces should divest themselves of the tax sharing and tax agreements with the federal government because they are done wrong by them. I applaud the Government of Alberta for moving ahead. Within the next few years it will go ahead and separate the tax collection situation from Ottawa.

The federal government is collecting taxes and collecting taxes for the federal government. That is a result of the first and second world wars and the Great Depression when no other government had the ability to meet the needs of the country in those dire times.

Since that time the federal government has abused that privilege. It has gone ahead and is using the money for buying votes like it always does. It is cutting back on programs. It entered into arrangements with the provincial governments on things like health care, and I could name others, where it said it would fund 50% of the programs. Instead it has cut, hacked and slashed.

Every time it came to an election government members said “Trust us, we will increase the money”. When push came to shove, they cut and cut deeply, to the point where the provincial Government of Alberta now receives only 15% for every dollar, even though the federal government promised Ernest Manning and that province when they entered into the agreement on health care that they would receive 50%.

Government members have the gall to stand in this place to tell us that they will somehow shove their way down the throat of the Government of Alberta. The tail is wagging the dog. They are only funding 15% of the show and they said they were committed to 50%. They preach high morals about how they want to defend this and that, but they do not ante up with the cash. They continues to cut. Shame on them.

I also want to talk about the whole idea of government leases, third party leases, mentioned in the bill. That is when the government leases some of its properties to non-departmental third parties. I will pose a general question, and I hope the folks back home are listening.

If the federal government has more property than it needs to do its job, why should it be going ahead and renting out the property in competition with private sector renters? Taxpayers have been calling for money for certain programs. Why does the government not sell off the property, that taxpayer asset, and give the money back to taxpayer programs or give taxpayers a long awaited tax break?

If the federal government has assets or property it is not using and is renting out right now, it should get rid of it. It should be sold off and given back to the free market or given back to the people. There is no reason the federal government needs to continue to hang on to it.

Another aspect of the bill is that of the Canada Post Corporation. It touches on that. It is another example of a government institution that does not believe in competition and will not allow anybody else to give it a fair shake for the money.

T2P Overnight, a company in Calgary was willing to deliver anywhere within the T2P postal code in Calgary for significantly less money than what it costs for a first class stamp. The company delivered overnight, in one day. Can we imagine Canada Post Corporation promising the delivery of mail in one day and doing it for less money?

They did not allow that. They shut the company down and said it was competition for Canada Post. They could not handle it. As a result they closed it. A private sector entrepreneur who wanted to start up something offered a better level of service. It could have provided an incentive and an example for the government and for the Canada Post Corporation, but they would not even allow competition. They would not even think about it. As a result, an entrepreneur in the city of Calgary suffered for it, jobs were lost and the government won.

The bill talks about arm's length relationships. Those arms continue to grow and grow, not only in terms of the multiplicity and the number of arms on this government beast but the length of the government's arms. Everywhere we look the government wants to establish longer arm's length relationships, because ministers in the House do not want to have to stand and answer for their own departments.

They would rather be able to stand and say “I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but that is not my department. It is not my department that is responsible for that. It is that arm's length body, that arm's length organization. I do not have anything to do with that. It is not directly involving me. It is now independent”. That is a joke. It is going on right now with Revenue Canada.

They wanted to go ahead and establish an arm's length relationship. More and more they want to distance themselves from the actual business of governing because they realizes they are not doing it well. They realize they are squandering taxpayer dollars, that they are not accountable, that they are overtaxing people and that they are doing it poorly. As a result they want to distance themselves from their poor record, from their shoddy record.

Setting themselves up in some sort of arm's length relationship is a code word for saying that ministers do not want to be accountable for abrogating the whole idea of parliamentary responsibility, the whole idea of the cabinet being accountable to the country, and the whole idea of the minister being responsible for the actions of all those employed beneath him. Those are just some of the problems with the bill.

I will talk about priorities for a second. There is a real lack of priorities around this place when we talk about bills like this one with all their inherent flaws, and I went through them.

This type of thing occupies our time when instead they could be talking about cutting taxes and coming forward with tax cuts. They could be talking about employment insurance reform. They could be talking about putting money back into health care. That does not happen. Instead they talk about arm's length relationships and cutting back on their accountability. Shame on them.