Rob Anders

[Transitional Jobs Fund, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the human resources minister denied any scandals in the transitional jobs fund. Does he deny that 124 employees in St. John's lost their jobs? Does he deny that $1 million was wasted at BPS for politics? Does he deny that the $285,000 given to Cape Shore Seafoods has not created a single job? Does he deny that the president of Cape Shore admitted using a government guaranteed loan to pay backtaxes and liens for one of his other companies?

Will the minister—

[Motions For Papers, June 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like Motions Nos. P-21 and P-22 to be called.

Motion No. P-21

That a Humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all documents, reports, minutes of meetings, notes, memos, correspondence relating to the Privy Council-led group entitled “Option Canada” from 1994 onwards.

Motion No. P-22

That a Humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all documents, reports, minutes of meetings, notes, memos, polls and correspondence relating to the Calgary Declaration.

[Job Creation, June 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, for the last 10 days the minister of human resources has been asked to account for the scandals with his transitional jobs fund.

Millions of dollars of job creation money has been wasted for politics. One hundred and twenty-four jobs have been lost, one million dollars has been lost on BPS, one-third of a million dollars has been lost on Cape Shore Sea Foods. Ten days have come and gone. Pleading ignorance will not do. What is the minister's excuse?

[Transitional Jobs Fund, June 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, what the minister did not tell us is that this company went bankrupt previously. The person who was given this loan used the money to pay off other loans he had been given by the transitional jobs fund. It failed the first time and then he used the money to pay off his other loans and it failed the second time, and the minister still has no answers.

How can the minister allow this to happen?

[Transitional Jobs Fund, June 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources Development gave almost $350,000 to a food processing company in Newfoundland last year. Since then it has failed to produce any products or hire a single production worker. The president has no experience in the industry and the company is about to go bankrupt. It turns out that he was an organizer for former Liberal MP Jean Payne, and defeated Liberal candidate Rex Gibbons, and the money was approved during the 1997 election.

Why was this allowed to happen?

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, those are some good ideas. I sit day in and day out on the human resources development committee that decides some of these things, or at least we like to pretend we do. I think some of those ideas should be considered.

This would be a system whereby people feel they have real ownership of their plan, where they know that the government is not going to abscond with the money and do with it as it pleases, a system whereby they have a real sense of ownership and a sense of pride and an ability to put more in if they like and an ability to have it roll over and become part of their retirement income. I think those ideas are bang on. I wish we could make the changes necessary to do that.

I see government members across the way who sit on the HRD committee as well. I hope they give those ideas consideration. Money right now is going toward employment insurance. Students and some self-employed Canadians have no ability to collect on the fund. With the high premiums that are charged to everybody else there is little likelihood they are ever going to see back in a given province or a territory the type of money they have put into it. If they had the ability to put that money into their own type of fund and therefore draw out what they needed when times are tough, whatever surplus was left, whether it is $300,000 or more, with they would be able to roll that over into a pension fund. Would that not be impressive?

It would be a great incentive for them to want to make sure they maintain the funds in their own private fund. It would give them a real nest egg for retirement, something totally unlike what we have with the Canada pension plan.

Chile has a plan where people feel they have a sense of ownership. They brag about the benefits of that plan.

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell the House what taxpayers expect. They expect they will get that money back. They expect they will not overpay and that they are rightly owed what they deserve. That means that the government should be giving that money back to them rather than taking it out of their pockets and that EI premiums should be cut.

I can talk about regressive mathematics. It is paying a half million dollars a year for every section 45 appeal to try to let a murderer walk free. Regressive mathematics is giving money to crown corporations when they are cutting money in the Canada health and social transfer for education. Regressive mathematics is sending money overseas and giving it as foreign aid and funding dictators when they are cutting money to the Canada health and social transfer for health care. Regressive mathematics is giving out corporate welfare subsidies and grants to corporations when they are cutting seniors benefits and the old age security. That is what is regressive mathematics, and the Liberals should be ashamed.

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Madam Speaker, here we go for seven minutes more in terms of this lesson on employment insurance.

Let me ask a question for the folks at home. If the finance minister kept up his practice of taking $7 billion a year more than he gives back, what would that amount to by the turn of the century? It would be $26 billion. The finance minister plans to take $26 billion more than what he is giving back in employment insurance.

That is a big slush fund. That is exactly what it is, unfortunately, because it is going into the general revenue fund. We will never see it coming back. A lot of students will never be able to draw on it whatsoever. A lot of self-employed people will never be able to draw on it.

With the amount of money the government is taking out of the province of Alberta with its younger demographic and its lower unemployment rates because of the Alberta advantage, there is no way we will ever see that amount of money coming back. It just will not happen. Let us face it.

What will this actually amount to? The average taxpayer is paying $420 per year more than what he or she is getting out of the EI fund. In Alberta, as I said, it was as much as $786 a year. For every Canadian, if we average it out across the board, it is $420 the average Canadian is paying above and beyond what he or she is be able to collect in terms of programs, benefits, training or anything under this plan. Shame on the finance minister for these types of numbers.

One basic law of economics is that if we tax something we get less of it. Thus taxing jobs means we will get less jobs and therefore will have higher unemployment.

If the finance minister admits, as he did previously when he was sitting on this side of the House, that payroll taxes are a cancer on job creation, he must know—he certainly did back then unless he has forgotten—that by cutting the payroll tax he will be helping to create jobs. Once again I say that for every point we are able to decrease payroll taxes we create more than 44,000 jobs.

If we go ahead and we figure out what has happened with the Canada pension plan, that being more than a four percentage point increase, and if we look at what we have in employment insurance where it is taking nearly a full point above and beyond what it should, that is five points right there that the Liberal government has put on job creation. It has taken 200,000 jobs at the very minimum out of the Canadian economy.

How can we argue with all the opposition parties and the unions? The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is arguing on behalf of job creators, the companies. Economists across the board and even government bureaucrats are saying that these types of things should be addressed. How can we possibly ignore that?

The only person who could ignore it is the finance minister who forgot his previous promises in previous statements and went ahead and took this money, along with the lowest interest rates in 40 years, and used it as an excuse to balance the budget. He still allowed corporate welfare, money going to people overseas to fund dictators and some outrageous programs in the country. How could he do that? I do not know how he justifies it?

I would like to bring home a little story from Alberta. It is pertinent in this case. Premier Ralph Klein of my province said that Canadian workers should be given a break and that the $5.7 billion EI surplus should be used to lower premiums. He got some agreement on that. It was not just the premier who was saying it. The representative of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Dan McLennan, said:

Certainly, we feel that the federal government could do a better job with EI—

It is not just Bob White with the Canada Labour Congress. Dan McLennan with the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees is agreeing that the federal government could do a better job.

Let me run through the list one more time: Bob White of the Canada Labour Congress, Dan McLennan of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Premier MacLellan, Premier Klein, Premier Harris, the economists I have been quoting, all opposition parties, the finance minister when he was in opposition, and actual people within the government bureaucracy. I do not know how the government can possibly justify any of these things. It does not make any sense.

I will open it up now to allow some of my friends across the way to come forward with good questions as I know they will.

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

That is right, a Liberal. My goodness, imagine a fellow Liberal criticizing the EI situation. Premier Klein in Alberta, a Tory, is criticizing this. The Premier of Ontario criticizing this. I think many of the Liberals are elected in the province of Ontario.

We noticed that all these people are saying we should have a cut in the EI premiums because it will create jobs. Even the finance minister, once again a Liberal, the one who is making the decisions in this case, admitted when he was sitting over on the opposition side that cutting EI premiums creates jobs. Does the finance minister remember that?

Economist Dale Orr says the premiums could be reduced from $2.70 to $1.85 and still cover the benefit costs. That is now three economists, three premiers and the finance minister when he was in opposition. It is starting to add up.

It goes on. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business in a survey of 19,000 medium and small sized businesses in this country has come back with the results. More than half of respondents said that if the finance minister cut the EI premiums they would be able to hire more workers. I do not know who is a more credible source on job creation than the CFIB and 19,000 small and medium sized businesses.

Up to this point we have had politicians and economists but we actually also have people who work for the government. The government's chief actuary believes we could cut it down from $2.70 to $2.00 and it would still provide a cushion of $10 billion to $15 billion in the EI fund.

How could anyone go against all these sources? It is not just all these people. We have a combination of all the opposition in the House of Commons and, just for the spice of life, Bob White with the Canadian Labour Congress. If we have the Reform Party, the CFIB, Bob White of the Canadian Labour Congress, three premiers and other Liberals who are asking for a cut in the EI premium, how could anyone be against that?

I would like to go on with a few other comments to drive home a couple important points. Alberta paid $1.86 billion into EI in 1997. Members are probably asking how much Alberta took out. If we put in $1.86 billion, how much did Albertans draw upon? It was $670 million. If we do some quick math we come to the determination that it was in excess of $1 billion that Albertans paid in and never received anything back. That includes training programs, by the way. That is $1.19 billion.

The labour force in Alberta comprises 1.513 million people. That amounts to $786.52 that Albertans could have had in their wallets. Let me repeat that $786.52 was what the finance minister took out of Albertans' wallets to put into his pot of gold scheme which he says the auditor general was forcing him to do, if we can believe that. That is what Albertans could have had in their pockets as discretionary income to spend as they saw fit.

Albertans know that money in their wallets does a lot more than it does in the finance minister's wallet. Let me say again that Albertans could have had $786. That is what the finance minister is taking from Alberta workers. Shame on him.

Let us tally up some of the numbers. Payroll taxes per employee in 1993 dollars but measured in 1966 were $803. Today they are $3,272. That is a big increase. I do not know how any finance minister across the way could say he is doing a good job when payroll taxes have jumped like that. Does the House remember the 73% increase in the CPP?

At this point I give notice that I am sharing my time with the member of parliament for Elk Island.

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Madam Speaker, basically what is happening is that there are students and part time workers who will never qualify for any benefits from the EI fund.

Self-employed people are not only paying the EI fund for an employee but because they are an employer, they are paying for being an employer as well. Therefore it is double the amount.

When they lose their job or if their business goes bankrupt or something happens they are never going to be able to collect on it. In these cases it is a simple matter of a tax. There is no linkage whatsoever to their employability.

Members have heard mention today that this is basically a phantom account because it is going into general revenue. It is a mythical account. It is as mythical as unicorns. It is as mythical as leprechauns, as mythical as that pot of gold. This is a pot of gold that the finance minister is hoarding. He always says it is there, it is over the rainbow. He says that if we ever run into trouble, it is going to be there for us. As a matter of fact, it is not. There is no fund. It is a joke. It is a cruel joke on behalf of the finance minister to all us taxpayers. It does not exist. It is all being rolled in through general revenue.

We have to appreciate the finance minister, the tax minister basically, for his humour on this. He tries to humour us and twist it by saying he is not the one responsible, that it is actually the auditor general who is forcing him to put all this EI fund as it were into general revenue, that he would not want to do it. He would not want to touch the idea with a 10 foot pole but the auditor general is the one to blame.

I do not know if we buy that. When the finance minister was in opposition he did not say payroll taxes were a problem for creating jobs. He did not say they were an obstacle in creating jobs. He said they were a cancer on jobs. He said that payroll taxes kill jobs. Now he sings a different tune. He obviously has a different set of glasses on now and has the gall to stand in the House and say he is saving up his slush fund, which does not really exist anyhow, this pot of gold, for a rainy day.

I do not know when he was telling the truth, now or then, one of the times at least.

Last year the EI surplus, the difference in the money that taxpayers put in and what was actually paid out, was $7.1 billion. Without the lowest interest rates in about 40 years and without the surplus in terms of employment insurance this government would not have a balanced budget. It would not exist.

Why does the government not come clean and make proper priorities? Right now we have a government that is still continuing, while it is taxing every working Canadian with this employment insurance that is bringing in over $7 billion a year beyond what it pays out, to give money to corporate welfare. There are still profitable companies receiving grants and subsidies. Bombardier was mentioned today in terms of a very lucrative contract it got because of contributions it made to the Liberal Party.

The government is continuing to spend close to $4 billion a year in foreign aid and on crown corporations like the CBC. Yet it is going ahead and sapping this money out of jobs.

Some economists had some things to say about this. A recent paper by Canadian economists Livio Di Matteo and Micheal Shannon found that for each one percentage point increase in payroll taxes it kills 44,400 jobs.

I ask the House and the finance minister, if he is watching, to dream with me. For every single percentage point he could lower the payroll taxes, whether CPP or EI, he would be creating more than 44,000 jobs. I ask him to please consider that and talk to that nasty auditor general who is forcing him to put all these funds toward the general revenue.

It is not just economists who are crying out about this. Over the length of my speech I will go through a number of groups that have problems with what the finance minister is doing with this. Some of the premiers have problems with this. Premier MacLellan of Nova Scotia has problems with this.