House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was liberal.

Last in Parliament October 2015, as Conservative MP for Calgary West (Alberta)

Won his last election, in 2011, with 62% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 1997 November 28th, 1997

Madam Speaker, I have just heard the admission I need. She made it right here in the House. She said no senior stood up and asked her for an 85% inclusion rate. Yet we have the government bringing this bill forward.

That says to me, it screams it out loud, I asked the question in the House but she just admitted it here, the only people who want it are her, the revenue minister and the finance minister.

While she has consulted with seniors, and nobody asked for an 85% inclusion rate, she stands here with pride in the House today and bellyaches about how she wants to see an 85% inclusion rate, how it is fair, but that nobody asked for it, nobody demanded it, nobody wanted it.

The only people who want are this Liberal MP and some of the people she is defending in terms of the finance minister and the revenue minister. In terms of equity, where is the equity when those people in the United States were putting in their tax money? They were being taxed at the point of source. They were being taxed on putting money into this fund and now they get taxed again on taking it out, but this time it is by the Canadian government. They got taxed by the United States going into it and they are getting taxed at an 85% inclusion rate by this government, by the Liberals, on the way out.

Once again I just want to drive it home for the seniors in Windsor. They said it in the House today. Nobody asked for an 85% inclusion rate but this government is doing it to them anyhow.

Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 1997 November 28th, 1997

Madam Speaker, once again I am going to apply that litmus test question to that Liberal MP across the way with the quavering voice because she knows exactly what she did to those seniors.

The question is who wants it. I cannot personally believe that she had seniors in her riding begging for an 85% inclusion rate. I can believe that seniors in her riding were asking for a simplification. There is no way they were asking for that rate to be jumped from 50% to 85%. Shame on her.

That is a 70% jump in the rate and I bet my bottom dollar that not a single senior went to her office or spoke in a town hall or read her literature and said “by Jove, I want to see a jump in the rate I pay on this”. Shame on her.

Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 1997 November 28th, 1997

If the member across the way would like to engage in a debate about how poorly his government spends tax money, I would do it. I raise it now because it is relevant to the debate.

Who slips through the cracks? The 50,000 seniors are the ones who will get nailed by this measure. We should be concerned about them and not the revenue minister or the technicalities.

Does it solve the problem it was intended to address? What was the problem? There was a complication. Both the United States and Canada had joint jurisdiction in taxing social security benefits. Under the second protocol Canada had a crack at 50%. Under the third protocol the United States and Canada both had relatively equal cracks at roughly 25% each. That was complex and proved to be too problematic so people were calling for a change. They asked for it to be taken back to the time when Canada had full jurisdiction.

Then the Liberals agreed to do that, but rather than moving back to the 50% they had in the second protocol, they brought in a tax hike and hit everybody with 85%. Does it solve the problem of the complexity? Yes, it makes sure Canada has sole jurisdiction. Only the Canadian taxman, the finance minister and the revenue minister on the Liberal benches will get the money. It no longer goes to the United States.

However, they solve the problem by bringing in a tax hike, a built-in 70% top up in terms of what was coming in before as revenue. It is the 37th tax increase the government has implemented since it took office in 1993.

Surely, if there are problems with a bill, the Liberals should be running with their tails between their legs, realizing this is a tax grab that they will be nailed for.

The list gets worse. Now it comes to how much it will cost. The seniors affected say it will impact them to the tune of about $2,000 each. It could be much more for many of them. If we take that round number and multiply it by 50,000, we are talking about millions of dollars which the government is milking from a small select group of seniors. It applies to anybody who makes more than $7,000 a year. This impacts a wide spectrum of seniors.

Of those 50,000 people collecting U.S. social security benefits, those who make more than $7,000 per year will be impacted by the Liberal tax grab. Anyone who makes beyond the basic tax exemption will be nailed by members across the way.

They have the audacity to claim that this is a technical tax hike. It is not. It is impacting on every person of the 50,000 who qualify for U.S. social security benefits above the basic tax exemption of $7,000. It is tough for me to imagine how one would be able to live on $7,000, but some seniors obviously do it. Government members say that anybody who makes more than $7,000 will be taxed at an 85% rate of inclusion on their U.S. social security benefits. Shame on them.

They did not have the courage to raise this issue before the election. No, they dillied and they dallied. They brought it in as one of their first measures after they formed the government.

Why did they bring it in right after they secured their mandate in an election? Why did they raise CPP premiums? Why did they do these things? It is because they know these things are unpopular. It is a classic example of government reserving tax hike decisions until after the election.

When they were campaigning in Windsor where it will impact a lot of seniors I did not hear the Liberals talking about how they would suck tax money out of seniors who live in that neck of the woods. They did not have the courage to do it. They knew it would impact on votes, the bottom line for Liberals. They left the decision until after the election. Just like the CPP tax hike, they are bringing it in right on the heels of the election. They are hoping seniors will forget by the time it comes around to the next election.

I speak on behalf of seniors in Windsor, for those people who are being taxed beyond the second and third protocols. I hope these people remember and take it out on the Liberals in Windsor who did not stand up for them or talk about it previous to the election. They brought it in on the heels of their mandate. I hope they lose their seats for what they have done to seniors in Windsor and across the country who will be taxed at an 85% rate of inclusion, 70% higher than they were taxed under the second protocol. Shame on the Liberals.

Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 1997 November 28th, 1997

Madam Speaker, Bill C-10 makes me angry for several reasons. First, the Liberals tried to convince people this was merely a technical change. They tried to hide the fact that it was a tax grab. Second, the Liberals tried to force the bill through committee so that nobody would be able to recognize it as the tax grab it was before it was okayed in parliament.

I will now talk about Mr. Farrel Mok. He receives a disability pension from the United States. He is legally blind. He has recently undergone a liver transplant and his medication costs are very high. Prior to 1996 Mr. Mok's pension was treated as tax exempt, but that is no longer the case. Under the third protocol there was a 25.5% tax at source. He was totally unprepared for the tax grab the government quickly imposed without warning in the new fourth protocol.

Mr. Mok says the disability pension is his major source of income and he is incapable of working. The imposition of the tax on his revenue has caused “tremendous hardship” as described by Mr. Mok. The fourth protocol will cause even greater hardship since he now must include 85% of his pension in his taxable personal income.

Mr. Mok says that although his situation is bad he knows that others are much worse and that it will be even harder for persons who receive disability pensions and are residents in health care facilities. These people are in danger of being forced to leave the facilities because they will no longer be able to afford the cost of the care.

It basically goes to some of the tenets of what the Liberal Party stands for in this regard. They are arrogant and out of touch. They are elitist because they think they know better. When it all comes to naught and we scratch below the surface, they are tax and spend Liberals.

Under the second protocol Canada taxed about 50% of what was coming in, in U.S. social security benefits. Then under the third protocol it was split between the two governments. They both had a crack at roughly 25% of the money that was coming in. Now with the fourth protocol we have not only gone back to the process whereby Canada has full jurisdiction on this taxation so it can once tax 50% but the Liberals have upped it. The Liberal government has upped it to 85%.

The taxman had the whole arm of seniors. Then that was changed by the third protocol and the taxman shared the arm. The United States got half of it and the Canadian tax man got the other half. Under the fourth protocol the Canadian taxman has the first part of the arm he had to begin with and the part the United States used to have before. Since it has been tacked up to 85% he is taking an extra share of what the seniors have left. That demonstrates exactly what is going on with Bill C-10, the tax protocol.

I have heard people across the way say that the bill has been out there for two years. There is nobody to blame for the bill being out there for two years but the Liberals. Liberal tax increases have been out there since Confederation. I wish people would finally realize what is going on.

I have some questions about legislation as it comes before the House. These are litmus tests which I believe can be applied to most legislation that comes before the House. The first question is who wants it. The 45,000 to 50,000 seniors who receive their social security benefits from the United States do not want an 85% inclusion rate.

Let us look at some of the other stakeholders. Is it the 50,000 people across the boarder in the United States who receive OAS and some of our Canada pension plan benefits? No, they do not want it either. If it affects people who collect social security benefits in the United States, there is a good chance that it will have impact on Canadians in the United States who are collecting some of their benefits. That is a total of 100,000 people who do not want it.

The only other stakeholder in the group is the Canadian government, the taxman, the finance minister and the revenue minister. They are the only people who want it.

Then we have to ask who will pay for it. The American government will not pay for it. The Canadian government will not pay for it. The people who pay taxes are the seniors who planned on receiving the benefit and not having it taxed at an 85% inclusion rate. That is who will pay for it. It will be on the backs of seniors.

Once again the Liberals have brought in 37 tax increases. The Canada pension plan increase is the 38th. The government has a record of tax increases since it took office in 1993. Once again the taxpayer will pay for it.

This time it is particularly insidious because it is not hitting all taxpayers. The government is going after a small group of taxpayers, 50,000 senior citizens. They are the ones who will pay the bill. Those people who have worked and helped build the country are being taxed at an 85% rate of inclusion when it used to be 50%. The Liberals have the audacity to claim it was somehow a technical change and not a net tax grab. When taxes go from 50% to 85% it is a huge tax grab, tax hike. Shame on the Liberals for calling it a mere technical change.

Who will slip through the cracks? The Liberal said they would give a tiggly-wiggly rebate to some people. What about the people who moved? What about the people who die? What about those people who were not on the government records for the rebate? Those are the ones who will slip through the cracks.

The Liberals think that by putting through the legislation and calling it a technical tax bill somehow they will be able to pull the wool over the eyes of Canadians and slip this through. My alternative is not to impose an 85% inclusion tax rate. That is the Reform solution. The government does not need more money. It spends it unwisely.

The Environment November 28th, 1997

Mr. Speaker, I cannot listen to a Liberal press conference that gets cancelled because of internal caucus divisions. The environment minister says that she only has a minor glitch in her plan. Never mind the minor glitches, I am still concerned about the major glitches of the plan like how much it will cost or how she will pay for it.

The Environment November 28th, 1997

Mr. Speaker, we only have three sleeps left before the Kyoto conference starts, and still no plan from this government. This conference starts Monday. Will the environment minister write her plan in the plane on the back of an air sickness bag? Why will she not come out from under her rock and tell us her plan now?

Correctional Service Canada November 28th, 1997

Mr. Speaker, let me read a little shopping list: over 6,000 bags of Humpty Dumpty cheese popcorn, 12,600 bags of Hostess Cheezies, and 57,540 bags of potato chips.

Some would think this is for the Reform snack pack caucus meeting but it is not. Correctional Service Canada has ordered 89,493 bags of snacks for Canadian criminals from coast to coast to coast. That is a convict snack bill of $45,000 that we are sending to the Canadian taxpayers. Never mind stopping patronage pork; we have to stop prison pork rinds.

It is time for the government to get the message. Prisons are not convenience stores and taxpayers do not want to pick up the tab for convicts' snacks. No more chips at the convict snack shack while taxpayers take the dip.

Catriona Lemay Doan November 24th, 1997

Mr. Speaker, I would like to add this name to the long list of great Canadian athletes: Catriona LeMay Doan.

On Saturday, Ms. LeMay Doan became the first woman to shatter two speed skating world records within an hour of one another in the 500 metre and 1,000 metre races. Ms. LeMay Doan is the best female speed skating sprinter in the world and she represents Canada.

On behalf of the residents of Calgary West who hosted the World Cup Sprints at the Olympic Oval, I ask all parliamentary representatives to stand now and honour this remarkable achievement.

Privilege November 21st, 1997

Mr. Speaker, is it not an insult and a degradation to the decorum of the House to rise for a man who is the butcher of Tiananmen Square?

Points Of Order November 21st, 1997

Mr. Speaker, how can we be asked to rise and stand for a man who represents justice in a country like China when he was the butcher of Tiananmen Square? How can we do that?