Rob Anders

[National Defence Act, March 30th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I will comment on something recently brought to my attention which got under my skin. I would like the comments of the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca on this issue.

Soldiers in Calgary and people who have worked with the U.S. embassy in Ottawa have informed me that our government was offered the Abrams tanks that the U.S. military was going to mothball in Arizona. It was cheaper for the U.S. military to offer these tanks to the Canadian forces. It was also cheaper for the U.S. to pay for the maintenance of the tanks than it would be for it to mothball the machines in Arizona.

Who could possibly turn down the opportunity to use world class equipment when somebody else was willing to pay the maintenance and when our own forces are not able to purchase that type of machine? Lo and behold, our fine Liberal government turned down the opportunity to use the Abrams tanks which would be provided with paid maintenance by the American military.

I have a very difficult time understanding why our forces were deprived of the opportunity to learn how to use Abrams tanks and to have the maintenance charges picked up. When somebody is such a staunch defender and friend of Canadian interests in terms of our geopolitical situation, to not take up this opportunity smacks against our friendship with our American neighbours. It also deprives our Canadian forces of the opportunity to utilize the machines. I encourage the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca to comment on this.

[National Defence Act, March 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, as we have heard the debate today on Bill C-25 I could not help but think of several things that touch on the whole issue of the military in this country.

We have recently had a base closure in the city of Calgary, something with which we have had a long tradition. Indeed Calgary has been a fine recruiting centre for the Canadian armed forces. It is the only city of its size in this country that does not have a base any more.

There are all sorts of rumours going on now with regard to the land deals that will be happening and who will get a sweet deal out of the sale of the lands.

Other cities that have had similar base closures have actually received money from the federal government, some form of compensation. In this case the federal government is looking to max out the value of the lands that Calgarians have already paid for in their taxes.

I would like to ask the hon. member for Calgary Northeast what his feelings are on the idea of closing CFB Calgary and the military institution, the traditions that we had in that city with little or no compensation. It is certainly not commensurate with what other Canadian cities have received. Perhaps it was political retribution for Calgarians not electing Liberals in the last election.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, March 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, words spoken like only a tax and spend Liberal could speak them.

The fact is that in 1996 the average family paid $21,242 in taxes and spent $17,415 on food, shelter and clothing combined. According to the Fraser Institute the average family paid $27,000 in 1997. Under this Liberal regime, the gap continues to widen between what people pay in taxes and what they spend on food, clothing and shelter. That is a fact.

A Liberal bragging about how electronic filing is saving the government money in terms of getting people's taxpayer dollars to them more quickly and easily is like someone plucking feathers out of a goose and saying he can get the feathers out of the goose with the least amount of squawking. He can take money with the fewest complaints. How dare he? And he is defending the complexity of the tax code?

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, March 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would like to boil this down for the taxpayers watching at home.

This is Bill C-28. See how thick it is. That is what the Liberals call a neutral tax or something that is a tax simplification or tax relief. That is what they call tax relief. It is a telephone book. A telephone book means that taxes are becoming more complex. It is not as though we were not complex already. Walter Robinson of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation sent a survey to all the members in the House of Commons and asked whether MPs do their own taxes. A large portion of MPs do not actually do their own taxes.

We are the people who pass the laws in this country. We are the ones who create taxes or change taxes. A Reform government would provide tax relief. Nonetheless, many of us as law makers do not do our own taxes because they have become so complex. Tax accountants and tax lawyers making their living doing taxes advocate that taxes should be made simpler and less complex. They as well as the taxpayers are crying out for help.

I see something as large as a telephone book. Members across the way in the Liberal government are the architects of the slash and burn in health care and the architects of tax increases. They tell us this is a good change to the taxes. Shame on them. How can they continue to justify Bill C-28 and its myriad of tax changes and tax increases as something that is good for the country?

There is no tax relief here. During the last election I do not believe the Liberals advocated increasing taxes when going door to door. Yet they have increased taxes twice since the last election and 36 times during the 35th Parliament. I bet any money that at any door they went to not a single taxpayer begged to have their taxes raised. Yet the Liberals have so willingly fulfilled that task and filled their pockets.

Disposable incomes have continued to decline since 1987. I know that the Tory across the way likes to quote from 1991 onward, but the fact is that real disposable incomes have continued to decline since 1987. Taxpayers need a break. They can only go so long. They can only suffer much.

There is no tax simplification by introducing something that looks like a telephone book. Nobody can pull the wool over my eyes and those of the taxpayers by telling us that there is tax simplification going on here. Indeed this bill is adding more regulation on top of regulation.

Number three, there are new taxes on municipal utilities. One government is taxing another level of government. It is bad enough when the government taxes the citizenry, the businesses, the employees and employers, but when it starts taxing other levels of government, indeed the desperation is thick.

Number four, this bill returns nothing to the health and social transfer. There were promises made by the Liberals in the last two elections.

In the election for the 35th Parliament in 1993 the Liberals said “Make us the government and we will guarantee the funding for health care and education and guarantee the health and social transfers”. What actually happened? The Liberals cut $6 billion out of the health and social transfers.

What has that meant? That has meant that the federal government is responsible for the hospital closures in this country. That is what it means. It is the federal Liberals passing the buck on to their provincial counterparts which is closing hospitals across this land. Their broken promises in 1993 and their broken promises in 1997 are closing hospital beds in this country.

The Liberals have cut the heart out of health care and they have the audacity to stand in the House and have their minister say that they are the friends of health care, when indeed waiting lists have grown longer and doctors and nurses are leaving this country. The Liberals are the architects of the slash and burn policies in health care.

The Liberals say one thing in the election but then deliver a far harsher stroke when it comes to their cuts in these areas. They download on the provinces. Shame on them.

The tax bill in this country is going to go up by $6 billion this year. That is not tax relief. That is more money coming from the pockets and the wallets of the taxpayers and going into the government coffers. It is a tax increase. Six billion dollars more are being taken from taxpayers this year than last year.

What does it mean in terms of this whole debt situation? We have all heard about these huge numbers in the debt but I am going to boil it down. Six thousand dollars out of the average taxpayer's salary goes to paying just the interest on the debt. That is $6,000 that could be allocated to a whole host of other things. The average taxpaying family is spending $6,000 just to pay the interest on the debt which this government and its past incarnations helped to create.

What about the contingency funds the government talks about? It would take 200 years to pay down the national debt by using these $3 billion contingency funds. The real travesty is that the Liberals are not even moving along that track because the contingency funds are being used to fund new program spending. That is exactly what they are doing. That amounts to a $45 billion payment we have to make every year just to pay the interest on the debt. As I said, that $45 billion translates into $6,000 for every family in this country.

I have been attacking the government. I have been attacking the Liberals for what they have done on taxes, but I am going to speak to the poor suffering some of the Liberals have undergone.

I speak of the poor finance minister. Yes, he is a millionaire. Yes, he is involved and owns through various arm's length relationships the Canada Steamship Lines. The poor finance minister has had to take his money and shelter it. He has had to put his assets offshore because taxes are too high in this country and he does not want his companies to pay tax in this country.

Do you know what? I feel for him. The hearts and the minds of this country's taxpayers bleed for our finance minister because while he recognizes that taxes are too high and while he does not want his own companies paying those high taxes, he has raised taxes on the rest of Canadians 38 times since the government has been in power and since he has been finance minister. Yet he shelters his own money offshore.

I feel for him because he has to fly Bahamian flags and not those of his native Canada. I feel for him because he likes the Netherlands Antilles with a 15% withholding tax as opposed to a 25% withholding tax. It works very conveniently into his trusts and his arm's length relationships. Shame on him. He should be paying tax in this country. If he is raising taxes on Canadians, he should have the decency to pay taxes in this country while Canadians suffer those bills. I feel for the finance minister.

High taxes have created a brain drain. Young professionals, people with a good university education, or any level of education, they do not even have to have a high school education, are leaving this country to go to other places with lower taxes.

I want to mention some of the 38 tax increases the Liberal government has brought in since it has been in power. It went ahead and changed the tax treatment of securities. It taxed dividends. It taxed insurance companies. It accelerated capital cost allowances. It increased excise taxes on gasoline and tobacco. It restricted the tax assistance of RRSPs and reduced the RRSP withdrawal age to 69. It increased EI premiums. CPP premiums will go from 5.2% to 5.4% to 5.6% to 6.0% to 6.4% during the government's term. Shame on the Liberal government for all its tax increases and the complications.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, March 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I challenge the member here to tell Canadian taxpayers, because he has talked about tax increase after tax increase, how many tax increases this Liberal government has introduced since it became government? That is the challenge I lay to him.

[Small Business Loans Act, March 18th, 1998]

That's right. I am going to stick it on him, because it looks good on him.

The Liberals have milked $14 billion out of businesses in this country in overpayments on EI. As a matter of fact, if we take how much Albertans overpay in EI taxes—and I want Mike Nyhus and other people in Calgary West to pay attention—they are paying $833 million more per year than they are actually collecting in EI premiums. That is their overcontribution. It is not how much they are paying.

If we broke that down for every single worker in Alberta, which has a workforce of roughly one million people in a province of about two and a half million to three million people, it represents about $833 per individual. Everyone who is working in the Alberta workforce is being milked hard by this government by over contributing to employment insurance. That is what this is coming down to.

Instead of giving taxpayers $1 billion in liability in the Small Business Loans Act, creating a bigger hole in my pocket, a bigger hole in my wallet, creating more administration and giving out more loans and loan guarantees to businesses that do not actually need loan guarantees, why does the government not do what businesses are calling for and cut EI premiums, cut CPP taxes, cut taxes generally and help businesses that way? That is what businesses are calling out for. It is not just me. I am not delusional over here.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a business lobby group, an organization that represents small businesses in this country, is calling for these changes. It is calling for a lowering of taxes. It is not just me calling on this side of the House, it is the CFIB which represents businesses from coast to coast to coast in this country which is calling for those reforms.

There is also another fundamental question. One of the first questions I asked was: Why is it so rare for a government program to shrink? The other question I asked was: Who wants it? Not the small businesses. Forty per cent of them are eligible to get loans in other places and do not need the loan guarantees. The government is trying to solve a problem that does not need to be solved for those businesses. It basically amounts to a business subsidy.

The third question is: Who is going to pay for it? This is the real travesty. Other businesses are going to have to pay for this increase in taxpayer liability to help out their competitors.

Why is the government always meddling in banking like this?

I am going to tell members another story because the government needs to know some of its other foibles. If it knew more it might not pass these things.

The Federal Business Development Bank has billions of dollars in assets. Once again, when it first started this noble concept, the concept that warmed the cockles of the government's heart, it was to help invigorate and open new businesses and set up avant-garde enterprises. It would be the cutting edge. But politics got in the way. It realized that it actually had to make safe investments. As a matter a fact, it started making safer investments than what the chartered banks in this country make. Why? Because it was worried about the political ramifications, that it would be smeared with making bad loans. Goodness knows, the government has all sorts of experience in making bad loans. It would not want any more of that, would it?

There are billions of dollars of taxpayers' assets with the Federal Business Development Bank. What does it do? It intrudes into what other private sector institutions would be able to lend out. It goes ahead and takes taxpayers' money, sweat-soaked dollars, and it gives it out to businesses through the Federal Business Development Bank. It is intruding on loans that private sector institutions, the chartered banks in this country, would be able to make. It is so conservative with its loans that it does not come close to serving the original mandate of giving out that money to entrepreneurial, avant-garde, cutting edge businesses.

Once again, who is going to pay for it? The businesses that receive these loans are going to be subsidized by their competitors who are paying these high taxes and they themselves, if they become profitable, will be the ones who will be anteing up money for this poncy scheme. It is a joke.

We have asked four questions. Surely if I was to ask five or six questions the government would tuck its tail between its legs, walk out of this place and forget that Bill C-21 was ever raised in the House.

But I am going to press on. I am going to hope.

Question number five is: Does it actually solve the problem? No, it does not. If the problem is that there are not enough jobs in the country, then surely Bill C-21 is not going to solve the question of the high unemployment rates this government has been pregnant with for all of its time in office, after promising jobs, jobs, jobs. No, it has not realized the problem.

The problem is that it has this red tape, this bureaucracy and high taxes. Even its own members have admitted that taxes are too high in the country. It hushes it up now, pulls its foot out of its mouth and buries it. But, indeed, people across the way admit that taxes are too high in the country. The Liberals know it and they know they should be lowering taxes.

I wish, I pray, that during my time in the House I will see it happen in a real substantive way, as opposed to seeing just lip service.

Does it solve the problem? No, it does not solve the problem. The government is not creating more jobs by going ahead with this. Indeed, it overinflates. This is not the first time. It is not the only time and it probably will not be the last, sadly enough. But it overinflates for every single job that may be created as a result of the Small Business Loans Act.

If I have to come down to trusting the credibility of the auditor general or the credibility of the government, some of its spokespeople and ministers on this subject, I will take that of the auditor general. Call me a skeptic, but I will trust the auditor general before I will trust the government.

Even the auditor general admits that the government over reports the success five times, not twice. For every single job created it reports five. That is how embarrassing the track record is. It over reports five times the success of any type of job creation program.

That was question number five.

Surely by now the government argument on Bill C-21 is full of holes and the taxpayer will have to pay more money. All of this is bleedingly obvious, but I am going to go on to point number six. This one will severely Swiss cheese the government's argument.

Question number six is: Would it pass the judgment of fellow businesses? Once again we look at the CFIB survey of businesses in the country. The CFIB is not calling for an expansion of the Small Business Loans Act or a hike in CPP premiums. That federation is not calling for the government to continue taking $7 billion a year more in employment insurance contributions than it needs. The CFIB is not asking for more regulation. It is not asking for the 38 tax increases brought in since this government came to office in 1993. The CFIB is not begging and pleading for any of those things, yet the government keeps on delivering.

The federation is asking for a cut in EI premiums. It is asking for a cut in taxes that is long overdue and well deserved. That is what it wants. That is what will pass the judgment of fellow Canadians and fellow businesses. That is what is going to create jobs. That is what will deliver on Liberal election promises, instead of the pandering and dribbling and “drabbling” out. That is where the real success story lies.

Shame on the government. By increasing the liability for taxpayers with Bill C-21 the government is not solving the problem which it intends to solve. It is not speaking to the issues it would love to actually be able to say it is addressing. It is actually creating a higher, larger liability for taxpayers. It is growing a government program and it is not doing the service it should be doing for Canadian taxpayers. Shame on it. Bill C-21 should go back to the drawing board and be reformed. Shame on the Liberals.

[Small Business Loans Act, March 18th, 1998]

The member is right. It was the same people. It was the Liberals. They said jobs, jobs, jobs in both elections. Yet, instead of creating jobs, instead of actually lowering EI premiums in this country—and I would like to point this out because I am getting some cat calls from across the way—

[Small Business Loans Act, March 18th, 1998]

It's a subsidy. That's right. I hear other members across the way and within the Chamber who are finally realizing that this is actually a subsidy. I thank other members for pointing this out, for noting it and for being concerned.

It is actually a subsidy. They do not actually need it. It is a case of profitable companies which could go ahead and find the resources and the guarantees they need through other mechanisms. They are getting these things and they do not actually need them. Government is trying to solve a problem where a problem does not exist.

The real problem is that small businesses have an administrative nightmare, red tape, payroll taxes and high taxes generally which prevent them from hiring more people. That is the obstacle to more jobs in this country.

I remember during the last election campaign that I heard “jobs, jobs, jobs” from the Liberals.

I was a young lad at the time of the 1993 election, but if I think back I heard something then, and it was jobs, jobs, jobs. If I think about it again—

[Small Business Loans Act, March 18th, 1998]

That's right. Making bread is a good idea. There is nothing wrong with making bread. Bread is not a dirty word.

We ask ourselves if small businesses want the Small Business Loans Act.

I asked some of my friends who I went to high school with about this. I will tell the story of Mike Nyhus, a fellow who I went to high school with. He started a very successful construction company. Mike was never a Reformer when we attended high school together, but he has changed because he is now out in the workforce making money and paying other people's salaries.

I asked Mike how we could change things to make them better for him so he could employ more people. He told me that his biggest problem was the red tape and the administrative nightmare he has as a small business person. He said that his biggest problems were looking after the GST and all the paperwork, as well as the payroll taxes, including the Canada pension plan and employment insurance.

The last time I heard word of him, Mike said that he could hire five people, but he did not do that. His business could afford to hire five more people, but he said that the administrative nightmare was preventing him from hiring them for his business in my riding of Calgary West.

When I look at that I say shame on the government. Its whole idea behind this is that it can toss more money at a problem and make it go away. That is exactly what it wants to do with Bill C-21. The government hopes that by increasing the taxpayer liability from $14 billion to $15 billion it will magically create more jobs and help taxpayers and small businesses.

If we look to the businesses that this loans program is aimed at, 40% of the businesses that receive loan guarantees under the Small Business Loans Act actually did not need to have the loan guarantees.

[Small Business Loans Act, March 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, why is it so rare for a government program to shrink as opposed to grow? I have only been here a short while. I am tender in my years. Some would say that I am chronologically challenged. However, having been here for as long as I have, I have noticed that things rarely tend to shrink around this place. They generally tend to get bigger as opposed to getting smaller. That is exactly the case with the Small Business Loans Act which we are debating today.

I ask myself why that is. I look at the department which I critique. It is a $57 billion monster that started off very small, but then grew and grew over time to become the biggest department in government. The Department of Human Resources Development now has a budget of $57 billion. It is the biggest monstrosity of a department there is within the federal government.

We could document this process with other departments, but let us take a curious look at what has happened with the Small Business Loans Act.

First, the government started with the intention that small businesses in Canada are a major job engine and that they should be helped. Everybody agrees that small businesses are a job engine in this country, but let us look at what type of help the government has actually stepped in with, at what benefit its intrusion has provided.

We always ask the question: Who wants it? Do they actually want the help? There are many small business owners in this Chamber. Mr. Speaker, you may be one of them. If we were to ask small businesses what—