House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 62% of the vote.
The Senate December 10th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, in 1990 the prime minister promised to fix the Senate. He said “I want to work for a Senate that is elected”.
In 1993 he said “as prime minister I can take steps to make it happen”.
On Monday we asked the government what it was going to do about the Senate. The Deputy Prime Minister told us that it was not the Liberals' problem.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister right? Is reforming the Senate just another GST promise by this big talking, do nothing prime minister?
The Senate December 8th, 1997
Good work, senators, but Thompson is not the only Senate no-show. Senator Eyton, for example, has just barely beaten Thompson's attendance record and showed his face in the upper house a whopping seven days out of 91.
Will the real Prime Minister stand today and keep Liberal promises to make the Senate accountable, or will he defend these absentee appointees of the red chamber?
The Senate December 8th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, while Senator Andrew Thompson shirks work and walks his dog under the Mexico sun, a Senate subcommittee has reached a landmark decision. Thompson should not get a salary if he does not show up for work.
Taxation December 5th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the prime minister, a leadership rival to the finance minister, said to Southam News that he does not care that Canadians want tax cuts. He is Father Christmas and he knows that balance is best for the good little Canadian boys and girls. How balanced is a $10 billion cash grab in the dead of night?
Working Canadians are not naive little children. We want tax cuts and we want them now.
Why will the Prime Minister not stop playing the grinch, taking and taking from Canadians, and give us the tax relief we need?
Taxation December 5th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, last night the Liberal grinch stole all the hope of Christmas cheer from Canadians. Late last night the Liberal government legislated the largest tax grab in Canadian history, a 73% jump in CPP payroll taxes. It will start the second that Canadians shout “Happy New Year.”
Will one of the Liberal grinches please explain to Canadians why their opinion is not important? Why will they not give them the tax relief we want for Christmas?
Canada Marine Act December 3rd, 1997
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Pursuant to the special motion of the government whip which was adopted unanimously at the beginning of this debate, all questions should be deemed put no later than 5.30 p.m. today.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act December 1st, 1997
Madam Speaker, there is a lot of hypocrisy on the benches across the way. While Canadians will have to pay 9.9% for a Canada pension plan, a plan which the Liberals across the way first created and ran into the hole to the tune of $600 billion, the government has another plan. Its members have their gold plated pension plan. While Canadians are contributing to the tune of 9.9%, having their premiums hiked up 70% or better from 5.85%, government members have their gold plated MP pension.
There is no greater hypocrisy than to have politicians set their own pension separate, above and beyond that of the people they serve. That is exactly what the Liberal government has done.
The Liberals do not seem to see a problem, but I do and I think a lot of taxpayers do when they see members of Parliament collecting million dollar pensions. Indeed one of their former colleagues, Brian Tobin, who is now the premier of Newfoundland, is collecting a pension which, if he lives to the age of 75, will result in him collecting $3.4 million. It is outrageous that they are collecting this amount of money. A number of members opposite will be collecting millions.
The Minister of Finance is a millionaire. He is talking about the changes to the CPP as though he personally cares about them. He has a lot of his money offshore in foreign trusts and is not paying tax on it. However Canadians will have to pay nearly 10% of their income into the Canada pension plan to a government that bankrupted the pension plan. The finance minister's own father said that it would never amount to more than a few hundred dollars and would never rise to more than 5%. Shame on the government.
It gets even worse. In the last term from 1993 to the last election there were 36 tax increases. The bill represents either the 37th or the 38th tax increase depending on which passes first, Bill C-2 or Bill C-10. With Bill C-10 once again the government is hitting upon those least able to pay. The government is taxing back and redefining as income social security benefits which a number of our seniors receive from the United States. It will affect 50,000 people to the tune of about $2,000 each. It is a tax grab of $100 million. The government is hitting seniors. Bill C-2 and Bill C-10 represent two new tax increases which will impact the pensions and retirement incomes of Canadians. Shame on the government.
Now I would like to speak about our youth. It is a subject which is near and dear to my heart. The young people of Canada are being forced to pay into a pension plan out of which they will see less than a 2% rate of return. Anyone could get that rate of return. They are being forced to contribute to the plan in the same way as I have been forced as a new member of Parliament to contribute to the gold plated pension plan of which I do not want to be a part. Many of my colleagues had the opportunity to opt out of that pension plan in the 35th parliament.
We are seeing here a draconian measure of the greatest degree. The Liberals are plucking from taxpayers what they make by the sweat of their brows and the fruits of their labour. They are telling them that they have to contribute to the government pension plan. It has been poorly mismanaged in the past.
The Reform Party has been proposing the idea of a mandatory or super RRSP. What could be better than that? People who would contribute to that plan would own it. There would be a real sense of ownership. They would be able to track the super RRSP. They would be able to know where their money is. It would not go into some account. It would not go in through one door and travel out through another. The fund would actually be theirs. They would own it. These people would have far more responsibility and far more accountability for it.
How do we trust a government across the way that talks about a Canada pension plan investment board when it has such a heinous record in terms of patronage appointments? This year alone, excluding the Senate, there were 50 patronage appointments made by the government. Those were just the ones we could find. It can be guaranteed that for every patronage appointment we could find there are probably two or three more. The government has that type of track record with patronage appointments.
The government broke its word. A member across the way helped to write a critique of patronage positions and what was being done with the previous Tory administration. The Liberals in opposition said that these matters should be brought before a parliamentary committee and that these jobs should be given based on merit. Yet when the Liberals got into government what did they do? In 1997 alone there were 50 patronage appointments. They made more patronage appointments to the Senate than even Brian Mulroney made when he was prime minister.
The Liberals have an atrocious record on the whole issue of patronage appointments. Yet once again the finance minister screams that we should trust him when it comes to the Canada pension plan investment board.
The record speaks for itself. How can we trust somebody who has given his word but goes ahead and breaks it time and time again? How can we trust a man who has little or no understanding or empathy for what the average taxpayer does or for what lower incomes Canadians have to pay into this and what a struggle it is for them? With his shipping companies and his tens of millions of dollars offshore, how can he relate to the amount of money these people have to take from their incomes to put into his Canada pension plan scheme?
The Liberals have a poor track record yet this finance minister has the gall to stand before us and say that this is the save all, the same way his own father said that the Canada pension plan was a save all when it first came out. It was a pay as you go plan with no accountability and no ownership on behalf of the individual Canadians contributing to it. Shame on them.
I will go through the reasons for it being wrong. Who will pay for it? Taxpayers, in the same way they paid for the $600 billion unfunded liability that was the CPP before reform. Who wants it? Do people want to have a 10% CPP contribution rate? No. They wish the money had been invested properly in the first place. They wish they had a sense of ownership with respect to the plan instead of having it badly mismanaged by the Liberal government.
Who slips through the cracks? Let us look at all the people who will be paying outrageously greater amounts of money than what they reasonably should. For example, people under 35 years of age will be paying into the plan many more times than what they will receive from it if the plan even survives under the government mismanagement.
Let us also look at the hypocrisy of MP pensions, the idea that Liberals have pensions above and beyond what any taxpayer could ever get. For every dollar they put in, the taxpayer puts in close to four dollars. Yet with the pension plan the public gets a pittance.
We can also look at the idea of the Liberals going after the seniors in terms of social security benefits from the United States. Once again they are going after the young and everybody else with the Canada pension plan tax hike. We can look at it from the point of view that it is the 37th or the 38th tax increase the government has brought in since 1993. We can look at it from the point of view of a finance minister who has little or no appreciation and does not care, a finance minister who does not pay his own fair share of taxes because he hides money out of the country.
For all these reasons, shame on them.
Senate Reform December 1st, 1997
Mr. Speaker, people in Canada want real Senate reform. Since 1990 Senator Thompson has collected a half million taxpayer dollars while he suns himself in Mexico.
What did the Prime Minister do? He gave Thompson even more beach time by relieving him of his caucus duties.
How many more Senate haciendas will Canadians have to buy? How many more six month Margaritaville holidays will taxpayers pick up the tab for before the PM keeps his word and reforms the Senate?
Senate Reform December 1st, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the prime minister said in 1990 “if elected Liberal leader I pledge to work for a Senate that is elected and that has legislative powers of its own”. Yet for the past seven years Senator Andrew Thompson has had his toes in the sand and Pacific breezes on his face. The Canadian people have shelled out over a half million dollars to keep him there.
Canadian taxpayers want Senate reform. The opposition wants Senate reform. Only the prime minister does not want Senate reform. Is there any Liberal who will stand up now for the Canadian people and demand Senate reform? Is there one?
Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 1997 November 28th, 1997
Madam Speaker, if that member across the way has the audacity to say that people who make $7,000 a year above the basic tax exemption or better are the idle rich, shame on her.
Every person, every senior of those 50,000 who makes more than the basic personal exemption of roughly $7,000 pays that 85% inclusion rate; 85% if you make more than $7,000. Shame on her.
For somebody making $8,000 in a U.S. social security benefit, for her to claim those people are the idle rich when they make more than $7,000 on that and are going to pay 85% rate of inclusion, when it was 50% before, shame on her. How dare she stand before the House and call somebody who makes $8,000 the idle rich.