Rob Anders

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, March 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I take that to mean Calgary West. Calgary is a grand city. I would be proud to be of any of the ridings in the city of Calgary. My seatmate, the hon. member for Crowfoot, had a question. He has a constituent who earns $11,600 a year, not a large sum of money. Of that $11,600 this individual pays $700 in taxes, $800 in other deductions and $130 on income from interest on an inheritance system that constituent will be getting as part of a pension.

The constituent is paying over $1,600 in taxes when making only $11,600 a year. I would like to ask my hon. colleague whether he thinks that type of Liberal taxation and Liberal fairness is justice in taxation.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, March 18th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I would like to tell my hon. colleague about a situation that happened in my riding. I held a town hall meeting recently. A fellow who is a long time resident fought for Canada during the second world war and, if I remember correctly, Korea. He showed up in my town hall meeting. He waited around until 9 p.m. and stayed after just so he could get some of my time. His name is Bob McPherson. Bob bought Canada savings bonds for each of his grandchildren. He put them in a trust. He said “I don't trust government. I have been around long enough and I have seen all the problems, complications and everything else. I will get you these bonds and that way you will have something for yourselves when you get older, go to school and you will have a way to be able to pay for it”.

I notice that Bill C-72 talks about the registered education savings plans and lifelong learning plans. Bob as a dutiful taxpayer filled out his tax returns and sent them off. As it turns out he expected to get a refund. Lo and behold he did not. It turns out the government said that he owed money.

Bob came to my town hall meeting and he was livid. He said “I do not want to send them a single penny”. I had to tell Bob that is not worth fighting RevCan for the amount of money it was. It was about $47. I said “Go ahead and pay the $47 and do what you can to fight them because they will hold it against you and charge interest”. It was really sad. This man who bought bonds for his grandchildren for their education was being taxed on that even though it was held in trust. The money would never be touched by him or his wife or anyone else.

It was an absolute shame that Bob McPherson was put in a situation where he had to pay more tax to the government because he was trying to help out his grandchildren. At the end of it all when it was all said and done, Bob McPherson pulled the bonds because he thought it was better to give the money to his grandchildren directly than to let the government dig into his pockets and eat into their education fund.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, March 18th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague about one of the saddest things I have seen since being elected to the House of Commons.

Mr. Unger, a constituent of mine, came into my office. He had trouble with regard to a disability payment. He was having some clawback with regard to his CPP and OAS. We looked into Mr. Unger's case to see if we could help him out.

It was one of the saddest things. This man had been married to his wife for over 30 years. He came in with his wife, they sat down and told me that they had divorced because there were tax advantages in their being two separate entities. They had ended over 30 years of wedded bliss just so they could take advantage of those tax incentives by being separate on their tax forms.

My hon. colleague has referred to some of these rules and regulations. I would like him to speak on the matter of rules, regulations, clauses and all the rest of these little details in the tax act.

The Ungers are not the only ones to have come into my office. The saddest thing about the Unger case and the reason it stands out in my mind is that Mr. Unger died before we could rectify his case. It was a crying shame. I have had several people come into my office who have divorced after tens of years of marriage to take advantage of those tax loopholes.

I would like the hon. member to comment on tax rules that advocate and force people into those types of situations.

[National Revenue, March 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, last month this government tried to downplay its decision to move the processing of eastern Ontario tax returns to the Prime Minister's riding of Shawinigan. Now even the Prime Minister's own backbenchers are speaking out against this blatant pork barrel giveaway to Shawinigan. Last week the member for Timiskaming—Cochrane said the decision was stupid and he wants the decision reversed.

Who will admit that the PM is just buying votes with pork and patronage in his own riding?

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, March 8th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, with everything I have heard today, I must say that I endorse free trade, not liberalized trade.

I have come to know in my short time here in the House of Commons, and in my time before that, that it is actually liberalized trade, not free trade. Free and liberalized are not the same thing at all. Liberalized means regulated. Liberalized means subsidized. Liberalized means tampered with and that is exactly what we have.

For the folks back home I want to describe what is going on today. We are debating Bill C-55. It is the heritage minister's attempt to try to control freedom of speech, freedom of advertising with relation to freedom of speech, and to invite U.S. retaliation against Canadian industries.

There are 21 clauses in this bill. My Reform colleague has proposed 21 amendments which would delete each one of the clauses with regard to the amendments and the changes and whatnot involved with Bill C-55.

On top of that, there is an amendment that has recently been added by the minister that would give the minister the power to decide when the bill will take effect. We all know that is redundant because the cabinet already decides when a bill will be proclaimed in law. What the heritage minister indeed is doing in this particular example is buying herself time because the government knows this will result in retaliation and it will be bad for other industries in Canada. As a result, the government is putting an eject button into its own legislation because it wants to quickly ram it through the House and then potentially be able to just eject this thing and have the minister stall on it so it is not proclaimed. The government already recognizes that it is bad legislation. I do not know why it is defending it today. I guess it is a face saving measure.

Not only do I believe in free trade as opposed to liberalized trade, but I also believe in free speech as opposed to Liberal speech and talking points, especially those prepared by the minister and what the backbenchers on the Liberal side are reading today. I think that Canadian taxpayers and citizens deserve to know more, and we should have no more Bill C-55.

Let us talk about some of the problems that Bill C-55 can bring to Canada. U.S. retaliation is one of the things that Bill C-55 can bring. I would like to quote a few statistics and articles that have been done on this particular issue.

There is $1 billion of trade that is done every day between Canada and the United States. It is the longest undefended border in the world. We have had a pretty good relationship, aside from the war of 1812, but then they were not really our troops, they were British troops at the time. Canada was formed in 1867, so it was a bit before our time. However, we have a pretty good relationship with the United States in terms of trade.

Bill C-55 would restrict trade. We have already signed an agreement stating that we would not restrict trade. It was called the North American Free Trade Agreement. To boot, there is also the World Trade Organization and some of the agreements we have made under that auspices.

There have been precedents that have already been set within those agreements which Bill C-55 would violate. Just to prove that point, both parties on the two most powerful U.S. congressional committees are backing the U.S. trade representative's threat of retaliation.

Across the border to the south we have the two most powerful committees to deal with, as well as both parties and a representative of the White House all telling us that if Bill C-55 goes through there will be retaliation.

This is what we are talking about in terms of the numbers. It is designed to address about $400 million per year in the magazine advertising market. In the big picture we have $400 million over an entire year concerning magazine advertising. There is $1 billion worth of trade per day between our two countries. Why, hon. members ask, for $400 million and some smaller fraction of that to be affected by Bill C-55 would we look to jeopardize $365 billion worth of trade?

Roughly that means that for one-one-thousandth of the amount of trade we do with the United States we would jeopardize our trading relationship over something that the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement have already laid out for us in precedent. It will not stand in terms of a point of law. It does not make a lot of sense, does it?

What has the U.S. trade representative let us know they would be potentially looking at in terms of retaliation? They are talking about steel. Would that not be an interesting scenario? How fitting it would be for the member from Hamilton who is advocating the changes to Bill C-55 to have steel hit on by the U.S. in terms of trade retaliation. The workers in her own riding, people who are steelworkers in Hamilton, would be affected by that trade retaliation.

I do not want that and neither does our heritage minister. Therefore I ask her today to either substantially change this bill or to get rid of it altogether.

If U.S. representatives decide to retaliate it would only be fitting that they do so in an industry that is directly related as closely as possible to the heritage minister's own riding. I hope that does not happen. That is why I hope she repeals this bill.

Other commodities which are under threat are textiles, plastics, lumber and wheat. Those are all big commodities and Canada is an export nation.

Why would we want to risk our reputation internationally as an advocate of rules based trade in order to satisfy the whims of our heritage minister? I do not know why we would want to do that.

I hope those people in the Liberal caucus will stand up so this does not happen. I hope that when they ram this bill through they will make sure that the eject button they are putting into clause 22 is used and this thing gets shelved so that steelworkers in Hamilton do not lose their jobs because of the whims of their own representative in the House of Commons. That is what I hope happens. I wish they would repeal it altogether. As a stopgap measure, because they are not willing to admit their own abuses of trade practices and rules based trade, I hope they have the decency at least to do that.

Fifty per cent of the magazines purchased in Canada are foreign. That is another statistic I will throw into the debate. It is important to temper this whole thing with an understanding of what is going to be affected.

This is all about an unreasonable limit on fundamental freedoms, on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It is also a violation of property rights and freedom of contract.

I am going to touch on some other things that this government has been going along with in terms of violation of freedom of speech, violation of property rights and violation of freedom of contract.

The press has not been in love with the Liberal government of late because of the whole idea of freedom of speech. It goes back further than this, but let me list a few examples.

We had APEC. When the Prime Minister and his crew were going after Terry Milewski and the CBC, the press were not impressed. That is only fair because the Prime Minister was trying to stifle freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

We also have the CRTC which suppresses the Canadian identity from coast to coast to coast in terms of its finagling and shutting down competition in the cable industry. I could go on to name a few others.

One of the most egregious violations this government has thought of yet with regard to the violation of freedom of speech has been the election gag laws. If there were third parties who wanted to advocate a position or publish polls during an election, this government would impose fines or jail them. That is another way this Liberal government does not like freedom of speech.

The government also uses taxpayers' money on propaganda. It loves spending money in places where it should not be spent to advocate how good the government is. This goes to show how out of touch and elitist this government is when it comes to freedom of speech. It allows it only when it serves its own ends. Shame on it. It should repeal Bill C-55.

[Privilege, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in my statement I made no apology for what I have done.

[Privilege, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the proceedings of the in camera meeting of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations looking into a proposal to invite a member of the Senate's board of internal economy to appear before the committee to defend the Senate's increases in spending has been deliberately revealed to the media.

I deliberately revealed the contents of the meeting. The contents of the meetings have been revealed in the Ottawa Citizen , the National Post and others.

Beauchesne's 6th edition, citation 57 reads:

The House has in the past regarded the publication of the proceedings or reports of committees sitting in camera to be a breach of privilege.

While this is a clear contempt of the House, I feel it is a justifiable contempt since the principle of accountability is, in my opinion, greater than the principle of secrecy of an in camera meeting.

A request to have a representative from the Senate defend its estimates before a House of Commons committee is an attempt to bring some accountability to the Senate. The decision by the Liberal majority on the natural resources and government operations committee to consider this proposal in secret confirms the government's policy that the Senate need not be accountable for its thirst to spend taxpayer money.

Mr. Speaker, if you find this to be a prima facie question of privilege I am prepared to move the following motion: That the deliberate disclosure of the March 4, 1999 in camera proceedings of the committee on natural resources and government operations concerning the proposal to invite a member of the Senate's board of internal economy to appear before committee to defend its increase in spending be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

[The Senate, March 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, to add insult to injury, the Senate is threatening to go on strike. Who would notice? Yet it is demanding $3 million more. That type of ransom is out of line.

Is the Prime Minister allowing the unaccountable Senate to wag the elected dog?

[The Senate, March 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday Senator Carstairs threatened to hold the work of the House hostage if senators do not get their funding increase. Appointed senators intend to restrict the activity of the House of Commons but it is our responsibility to be accountable for the spending of hard earned tax dollars.

Will the Prime Minister publicly rebuke Senator Carstairs for her remarks?

[First Nations Land Management Act, March 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, today I am speaking on Bill C-49. For the folks back home, I want to make sure they understand that this is indeed not the 47th, not the 46th, not even the 45th, but the 48th time this Liberal government has brought in closure to go ahead and stifle debate. That is 48 jackboots I hear a thumpin' on the pavement where this government will not allow freedom of speech.

Who is being silenced by this, by those 48 votes of closure? Who is not being heard? Who do the Liberals want to shut down? Who do the Liberals want to muffle? Who do the Liberals want to stifle on this? I will tell members about some of those voices.

One of those voices says that at least 250 members of the Squamish nation have joined the rising chorus of criticism against proposed changes to the federal Indian Act, this very Bill C-49. They are saying that powers greater than those granted to municipal governments are being given out here. There is authority over zoning and search and seizure. The legislation would also give bands the power to implement laws that call for punishments ranging from fines to jail terms. There are those within those bands who have been after the council members to explain the bill and its ramifications to the band membership, but the band members have heard nothing with regard to explanation.

We have people on bands across this country who want to hear explanations. They are not getting explanations. And yet we are having a third level of government created here. One person here says it may be 10 years in the process, but when in the 10 years were we consulted?

So I have something that is long, agonizing and painful but with not a lot of consultation. It sounds like this Liberal government when it got elected in 1993.

The powers that band councils would acquire to expropriate their own members' land and the absence of any requirement that bands consult with the neighbouring municipalities before developing these lands are real problems. There need to be consultations, not unilateral actions.

I have just touched on a few issues here but we also have issues of property rights, of expropriation, of a lack of consultation and of a lack of openness in the process. We also have people who have been silenced on these bands and have to put up with all these types of unilateral actions and lack of explanations.

It calls into question here that there should be one law enforced uniformly over the land in a common jurisdiction. Yet what we have here is a set-up of some sort of third form of government. We also have people who are not even listening.

That Bill C-49 will not protect non-aboriginal tenants is also another criticism. Here is where we talk about these expropriations. To kind of turn a phrase, it is almost a joke in and of itself but not so funny for those who have their property taken where it is called expropriation rights. A right to expropriation, can anyone believe it?

There are aboriginal women's rights as well to equal access to the marital home in the event of a marriage breakdown. There are real problems. Under the law everybody else who marries and then gets divorced has the ability to get half the assets. There are those who would quibble about whether some deserve half or more or less but nonetheless it is part of the law.

What we have with this situation is that native women entering into a marriage contract if it does not work out have a very vague system that they will be going into where they are not assured of having equal access to the matrimonial assets.

We have warnings from B.C. mayors that the bill would create planning chaos because it does not require bands to consult with the municipalities that must provide the services, roads, sewers and the water for any developments the bands plan.

We have warnings from Vancouver area real estate agents and non-native residents on reserves that the legislation makes homes owned by non-natives on Indian lands across the country unmarketable because there is not enough protection for homeowners from expropriation.

One might ask how this government can pass this. It can implement its land use codes after they are approved by 25% of all eligible band voters. Usually in a democracy it requires 50% to pass something. I guess what we have here is half democracy because real democracy would demand that we need 50% plus one. I guess that is what we would call half a democracy.

We have west Vancouver mayor Pat Boname saying that the bill should be amended to require bands to consult with neighbouring communities before undertaking major developments as B.C. municipalities are now required to do. What they are calling for is a level playing field, not a veto. This is pretty straightforward stuff, no unilateral actions, consultations. This is not a painful process. They only want a little openness and a little explanation.

They are not confident that the council will consult with them thoroughly before drawing up a land use code which is one of the reasons we are proposing changes to this and one of the reasons why we do not want to see time allocation and the 48 jackboots of the Liberals once again shutting down debate.

Coincidentally, where it is only requiring 25% of eligible voters, not the majority needed in just about every other common sense democratic election one can possibly think of, that can approve a land use code chain that equals the number of people employed by the band.

I stress this once more for the folks at home. In just about every other democratic set-up one could possibly imagine they require 50% plus one to make a change.

They only require 25%. More insidious than that being half a democracy, there is the coincidence that 25% equals the number of people employed by the band. I do not think that just sounds incestuous, I say it is incestuous. We have serious problems with that.

On top of that, one of the other voices that the government is trying to silence is Gail Sparrow, the former chief of the Musqueam Band. She says: “How can you go to parliament with this when the first nations people haven't voted on it?” That is a very good question. How can that happen? It is because the Liberals bring in closure for the 48th time. That is how that happens. She said: “Land use codes could be used to deny women access to homes on the reserve”.

I have some more people who are being silenced. Barbara Findlay, the lawyer for the B.C. Native Women's Society, says: “You can't hand off inequality. You can't contract out your constitutional responsibility for women to native bands”.

Those are pretty good quotes. Those are quotes that should be heard by the government across the way when it goes ahead and restricts freedom of speech.

I mentioned that we have non-natives on band lands who are worried. I will quote a few of them because the Liberal jackboots are silencing them. “`We will be excluded', McKay said of non-native residents who have lived on the reserve for 30 years but who will have no say in the land use code”. Imagine that, living some place for 30 years and not being able to have any say with regard to the land use codes. “People's property rights are being trampled”.

“`They have to pay fair market value but what will fair market value be?', asks Fred Warkentin, a real estate agent with MacDonald Realty”. That is a very fair question. If they have no say over their land use codes what type of market value is that? Once somebody has stated they will expropriate your land and take it from you what value does it have? It is like a government that says it will confiscate your gun. Good luck selling it. Who would want it after that? That is property rights.

We also have an instance where market prices have plummeted since the band more than doubled taxes and imposed a 7,366% rent increase on leasehold homes in the Musqueam Park subdivision. Cheryl Dewson, a real estate agent with Dexter Associates, said: “In my professional opinion there will not be any buyer prepared to purchase a property with this type of encumbrance”. Who does this affect? There are 20,000 leaseholders on Indian lands in B.C. and 60,000 in Ontario whose homes may now have no value. Unless amendments are made to this bill, Bill C-49 renders all properties on Indian leasehold lands worthless.

I have been able to go through only a few of the voices that have been silenced. This screams, if anything possibly could, that the Liberals should open up their ears and make changes so that those people do not fall victim to bad legislation.