Roger Pomerleau

[Crown Corporations, April 11th, 1997]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House.

[Crown Corporations, April 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues having made me realize how important this motion is, how important it is to make the information as widely available as possible while protecting people's privacy, I would like to put forward an amendment to the motion proposed by my colleague from Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup.

I move:

That the motion be amended by adding, after the words "Privacy Act", the words "and the Access to Information Act".

[Criminal Code, April 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, if you were to seek it, I believe you would find unanimous consent that all questions relating to Private Members' Business of April 11, 1997 be deemed to have been put to a vote and that any required division be deferred until April 15, 1997, at the end of Government Orders.

[National Defence, April 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the military police and the ombudsman, who will both remain under the authority of the chief of staff, and the minister's refusal to review the army's traditional role, including its readiness for combat, lead us to conclude that the minister's reform is nothing more than window dressing.

Does the minister not agree that, in fact, his reform accords full and unconditional amnesty to the chief of staff of the Canadian armed forces and treats all those guilty of murder and of covering up all the events in Somalia as innocent, without any formal decision? Does the minister realize that he is proposing not only amnesty, but total amnesty?

[National Defence, April 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.

In the report to the Prime Minister entitled "Leadership and Management of the Canadian Forces", there is a common thread to the reforms proposed by the Minister of National Defence. They do not touch anything that sets the army apart, well out of public view, and that affords it government complacency.

Why did the minister refuse to act on the recommendation by Professor Albert Legault that civilian and military companies be integrated and the ombudsman accountable to Parliament?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I will pick it up from there. The main thing the last budget tells us is that the deficit has been reduced, and the government is to be congratulated for that. But it is overdoing it a bit for the government to claim that it has reduced the deficit by cleaning up public finances. We know very well that the government has not attained its objective, in terms of cutting its expenditures.

In fact, where it has indeed reduced the deficit by reducing certain expenditures is in two very specific areas. First of all, by cutting $4.5 billion, or $4,500 million, in transfer payments to the provinces, which will affect health, education and welfare in particular, or in other words areas which affect the most disadvantaged members of society. So, it took $4.5 billion from transfer payments to the provinces. Yet we remember the Prime Minister's commitments. We have them here in English. He stated this before the 1993 election, and I am quoting the Prime Minister here:

"What we said in our platform is we don't intend to reduce the transfer payments. What I said in the program, and I intend to keep my word, is we don't intend to cut further".

A few months later, in April 1994, the Minister of Finance set the record straight after the election, and I quote him, again in English:

"The next federal budget will include massive cuts in aid to the provinces for such things as health, welfare and education", according to the Toronto Star in April 1994.

So we can see that election promises are not worth much. They promised to make no cuts to the provinces, yet half of the deficit they are now claiming to have reduced comes from a $4.5 billion cut in transfer payments to the provinces.

Then, as well, $5 billion or $5,000 million, were taken from the unemployment insurance fund. Not the employment insurance fund, for there is no such thing as employment insurance, it is unemployment insurance. They laid their hands on $5 billion belonging strictly to the workers of this country. The government did a kind of collective garnishment of wages, and decided to reduce its deficit with that money.

So then, the Canadian government's deficit was not cut by a massive reduction in state spending, but by massive cuts in transfer payments to the provinces which in turn, be it Ontario, BC or Quebec, have been forced to make dramatic cuts to hospital services and health care. As my colleague from the Reform Party was saying this morning, this government is the one government in the history of Canada that has closed the greatest number of hospitals in the least amount of time, because all hospital closures are the direct result of the cuts to transfer payments to provinces made in the last budget.

I believe that some here do not understand how finances work.

An in-house report of the Department of Human Resources Development has revealed that today, 55 per cent of the unemployed no longer receive unemployment insurance benefits. Fifty-five per cent of the people who deserve to get these benefits no longer do, compared with 33 per cent when the Liberals came to power. I know some people will say we are making this up, but this is from a press release of the Canadian Labour Congress, dated January 23, 1997.

The CLC estimates that by the end of 1997-in other words, right after the election-when we will be able to see the impact of the Liberal reform, the proportion of unemployed who are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits will easily exceed60 per cent, in other words, 60 per cent of those who expect to get unemployment insurance at the end of 1997, when all other measures have been put in place, will realize after the election that there is no unemployment insurance for them.

The Minister of Human Resources Development is nevertheless trying to sell this reform by claiming that 500,000 more people-they will say just about anything-will be covered by the employment insurance plan. At least, that is what he says. Now, about employment insurance. What the minister means is that 500,000 more people will pay unemployment insurance premiums.

However, an in-house study by the Department of Human Resources Development was published in 1996, and my colleague can check this, on employment insurance and the impact of reform. This comes straight from the minister. What the minister means and what this study claims is that more than 75 per cent of the new people who are supposedly covered-the 500,000 people referred to by the minister-will have their premiums refunded at the end of

the year because they did not earn more than $2,000; they will probably never get unemployment insurance.

Always according to the same study, only 18,000 more people in Quebec will be eligible for benefits, while at the same time, 31,000 current beneficiaries will be completely excluded from the plan as a result of the Liberal reform. This still according to the same information provided by the department.

Unfortunately, that is not the end of it. All persons who earn more than $2,000 annually but do not work the minimum number of hours required to qualify, which varies between 420 and 910 hours, will pay premiums which will not be refunded because they earned more than $2,000 during the year, and meanwhile they are not eligible for unemployment insurance if they lose their job.

This is easy to understand. There are people, for instance in universities, who teach about two or three hours per week. However, they are relatively well paid on an hourly basis because it is felt that they have a lot of course preparation to do. By the end of the year, they have earned more than $2,000, they have paid unemployment insurance premiums but did not work the total number of hours required, so they are not eligible for unemployment insurance. There are thousands of people in this position.

With the massive cuts in transfers to the provinces and the wholesale garnishment of wages, so to speak, to benefit the unemployment insurance fund, the government has deliberately created a network of poverty in this country. We have 500,000 more children living in poverty. Not three, four or one but 500,000 more than there were three and a half years ago. This government even has the nerve to tell us it has done a good job. I think the public will be in a position to judge in the next election.

I have a short quote taken from page 19 of the red book, before it disappears and they do everything they can to make it sink into oblivion, because they did not keep any of the major commitments they made in the book. So here is the quote:

A number of government programs and tax expenditures-some of which have been identified by the auditor general-are inefficient, poorly managed or driven for purely political reasons. We will clean up.

That is what it says on page 19 of the red book. What does cleaning up mean? There were the family trusts, which transferred $2 billion to the United States without paying a cent in taxes. They are most likely talking about the $400 million or $500 million in unpaid taxes. All that went on behind the scenes. There was no paper trail. The so-called ministers knew nothing, nobody wanted to investigate, the knuckles of the auditor general were rapped. He said, and I quote: "We fear that Revenue Canada, in making these decisions, has harmed the tax base by giving up its right to collect these amounts".

I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that $500 million, and I will close on this as I see my time is up, is what the Minister of Finance, his voice quavering, is trying to tell us he is going to give over five or six years to the poor children of Canada, who number 500,000 more than they did three and a half years ago.

All this time, however, the minister raises not a pinkie to stop someone who probably contributes to Liberal party coffers from leaving Canada with $500 million in unpaid taxes, which the children will have to pay some day. I am acutely chagrined by the fact that the minister continues to try to tell us that they reduced the deficit through proper management and improvement of public finances, because it is simply not true.

[Journalist Claude Picher, April 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this evening, Claude Picher, a journalist who has been reporting on economic and financial matters since 1975, will receive the Hyman Solomon award for the quality of his work in journalism. He is the first francophone Quebecer to receive this prestigious award.

The Hyman Solomon award is given out by the public policy forum, which comprises representatives from government, labour and management. This award recognizes the work of journalists providing in-depth reporting on complex public interest matters to clearly explain the issues and their implications in everyday life.

Claude Picher undoubtedly deserves this award. His lucid analysis, clear explanations and limpid style significantly contribute to Quebecers' growing interest in economic matters.

Our congratulations to you, Mr. Picher, on behalf of all Quebecers.

[Income Tax Budget Amendments Act, 1996, April 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-92, which in a way brings the Income Tax Act and another act related to the Income

Tax Act in line with the 1996 budget, last year's budget in other words.

Before I begin, I would like to indicate my agreement with my hon. colleague from the Reform Party when he says:

"This government closed more hospitals than was ever done before by any other government". He is absolutely right. That is the reality of things.

There was absolutely nothing new in the 1996 budget and, ever since it came to the House, the Bloc Quebecois has, as you know, been calling for a complete reworking of the Canadian taxation system in order to bring it up to date. Since our arrival, we have been recommending an item-by-item analysis of all government expenditures.

This was not to be found in last year's budget, nor will it be in this year's. At the very most, the Minister of Finance announced in the last budget the creation of a technical committee on corporate taxation, or more specifically on tax havens.

The mandate of this committee is, however, too narrow for these recommendations to lead to the changes required to get Quebecers and Canadians back to work. It contained no measures specifically related to employment or to ensuring an equitable division of the tax burden between individuals and businesses on the one hand, and major corporations and small and medium size businesses on the other, the latter being the true creators of employment in both Canada and Quebec.

There are still serious doubts about the objectivity of the members of this committee. Several come from big private companies which advise wealthy clients and major corporations on how to avoid paying taxes. Certain members of the committee are, therefore, in a definite conflict-of-interest situation, and we spoke out against this situation last year.

We know that this committee has had an extension and must table its report by the end of 1997, after the election of course, and we also know that the majority of members of the committee examining the use of tax shelters by corporations themselves make use of tax shelters, and often have businesses in the tax havens they are supposed to be studying.

Yet, in its 1996 budget, the government attacked one tax measure, perhaps the only one, while unemployment is still rampant, and the Liberals have not succeeded in meeting their election promise of jobs, jobs, jobs. It has not been said often enough, nor can it ever be said often enough: the Minister of Finance has directly attacked a priority tool for job creation. The Liberal government has cut the tax assistance to workers' funds, in particular by reducing the federal tax credit linked to these funds, and by decreasing the annual maximum that can be invested in them.

The Bloc Quebecois was very critical of this decision, as you know, and even suggested, when tabling its documents on tax reform, that the maximum annual amount should be restored to the level it was before the cuts were made. We must not forget that the purpose of these funds is to create or protect jobs, mostly in Quebec. The FTQ fund alone was able to preserve or create 38,000 jobs.

The government remains inconsistent. It talks about job creation and then savagely attacks the only tax measure we could be absolutely sure would create jobs. This measure, as we said before, mainly affects Quebec, because half of the money in these funds comes from Quebec. The Bloc Quebecois has constantly been after the government on the tax system. We did so in the case of family trusts, and although the response was not always satisfactory, we have done this systematically. We did so in the case of the GST, a government promise that was not kept, and in the case of the shocking abuse of tax havens.

From the outset the Bloc has been asking for a thorough review of both corporate and personal taxes. This aspect of our tax system has not been updated for many years.

But we did more than criticize. Since we were well aware that last year the government did nothing and had no intention of doing anything in this year's budget, which has been confirmed, the Bloc did some research and drafted two papers, one on corporate taxation which received the approval of the Minister of Finance, who said we did a professional job. He took the report we wrote but has now probably dumped it in file 13.

We produced two analyses that consider all aspects of corporate and personal taxes, something that normally should have been done by the government. I may remind you it has been quite some time since Canada's tax laws were reviewed. I may also remind you that this is the first time an opposition party did the government's job by doing its own analysis of the tax system, something the government should have done.

The opposition parties have a relatively small budget for research and compared with the government, their resources are extremely limited. Nevertheless, we took the trouble to produce this study and do a full analysis of the tax system.

I would like to give you some idea of the work that was done on corporate taxation, for instance. But first, I would like explain, for the benefit of our listeners, what a tax expenditure is. When we sit on committees, the first thing tax experts tell us when they come to meet members and individuals sitting in is: "Tax laws are extremely complicated. You will need our help plus a whole battery of lawyers to understand the system". I would say that tax laws are

purposely obscure so the general public cannot understand what they mean.

I recommend reading Linda McQuaig's book recently published in English in Toronto as The Lion's Share and translated into French as La part du lion . The book shows, over a period of 30 or 40 years, precisely how wealthy Canadians used tax leverage to their advantage and to the disadvantage of the ever poorer middle class.

Fiscal spending occurs when a tax deduction is accorded for some reason to a corporation or an individual. When an individual is accorded a tax deduction of $1,000, it is as if the government sent them a cheque for $1,000-because this amount was owing to the government-as in the example given, but it looks better.

Clearly if the government sent a $50,000 cheque to a company, the public would understand what was happening and would object, so it gives a $50,000 tax credit under some provision described in a book somewhere in a huge pile of books. Nobody sees what goes on, but the $50,000 will be paid by someone other than the company-the general public.

So, if this sort of tax arrangement is made for all companies, which is what is happening in Canada, little by little, the tax burden is displaced and transferred from corporations, the rich, to the middle class, which is becoming poorer for having to pay others' taxes.

I would like to point out that we used the Carter report from 1962, which remains valid today in many cases, to prepare our analysis, which comprises some 100 pages on corporate taxes alone. We have clearly shown this in a table based on statistics on personal taxes for the 1993 taxation year taken from government documents.

We have clearly shown that, since 1950 to date, more and more taxes have been transferred from companies that should be paying them to individuals who are in fact paying them now. I would like to cite five key dates as examples, even though the trend remains constant from year to year. These five dates reveal the extent to which the tax burden has shifted from the companies-the wealthy-to individuals: in 1952, 51 per cent of Canada's income taxes were paid by corporations; in 1962, 36 per cent; in 1972,20 per cent of taxes were paid by companies; in 1982, 17 per cent; and, in 1992, 7.6 per cent. These figures are from Statistics Canada.

As we can see, from 1950 on, the burden has shifted, with the tax load being transferred from the rich to the middle class. So, today, when we look at the number of unemployed, the number of people on welfare and the number of poor people in Canada, we see that the rich have succeeded in transferring their tax debt to the people in the middle class, who are becoming increasingly poorer.

We would have liked the Minister of Finance to really examine and utilize both last year and this year the reports we provided, which he himself described as highly professional and which are based on Statistics Canada figures.

I close on this point. In the 1996 and 1997 budgets, we saw no effort by the minister to look hard at Canadian taxation.

[Goods And Services Tax, March 20th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am always baffled when I listen to the Minister of Finance talk about what he has given to Quebec. We are paying $30 billion per year to the federal government. We are asking for what is ours. Nothing more.

Why does the Minister of Finance not take the advice of the three premiers who support Quebec on this? Why not, for once, be fair to Quebecers and give them the $2 billion he owes them?

[Goods And Services Tax, March 20th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.

Yesterday, in response to my question on the compensation owed to Quebec for harmonizing the QST with the GST, the minister finally admitted that the compensation formula used is not designed to provide harmonization assistance but rather assistance to the Atlantic region. This clearly shows that his bad decision is politically untenable.

How can the Minister of Finance tell us today that he has found nothing better to do, to provide assistance to the Atlantic prov-

inces, than to dig into the pockets of Quebec taxpayers to subsidize the maritimes and help them better raid Quebec businesses?